Being active and eating right are essential for losing weight successfully but there are also other simple things a person can do to make the job easier.
Losing weight successfully involves a lifestyle change. Getting on a diet that can’t be followed for the rest of one’s life is not only not going to do anything to change lifestyle, but because most diets fail, it wastes time that could be better used doing things that work.

There are hundreds of simple and easy things a person can do that add to weight loss success and that work at changing a person’s lifestyle to one that is fat burning.

Ten Easy Gems For a Fat-Burning Lifestyle

1. Make gradual changes – People who use a gradual approach to making weight and lifestyle changes tend to be more successful at making the changes permanent. Rapid weight loss as well as taking steps that are too big with other behaviors can set a person up for failure by making them feel overwhelmed.
2. Keep the big picture in mind - People who aim at making lifetime changes instead of just going on a “diet” have been shown to keep the weight off more permanently. Striving for a healthy way of life rather than just to lose weight insures consistent, progressive, fat-burning changes.
3. Don’t fall for unrealistic diet plans and aids – There are plenty of “diets” to choose from. Wise people learn to bypass those that promise things that are impossible or improbable. “Diets” that have quirky names and advertise large amounts of weight loss in short periods of time are the type of diets that are best passed up.
4. Make lifestyle changes a priority - People who consider their weight loss and exercise goals important and make the behaviors that will accomplish these goals a priority, achieve their goals more quickly.
5. Don’t take advice from yo-yo dieters, instead seek advice from experts – Taking advice from people that are frequently going on and off diets and losing and regaining weight, is not a good idea. It’s better to observe someone who has been thin and fit for many years and seek expert advice.
6. Strive to eat more nutritiously – Feeding the body what it needs is not only good for health but also prevents overeating.
7. Eat enough calories and eat frequently – Under-eating slows metabolism resulting in a body that stores fat easily. People tend to get hungry about every three hours. That’s because the body performs best when given fuel frequently throughout the day so it’s best to listen to the body. If the body is hungry it needs to be fed.
8. Don’t eliminate carbohydrates - The body needs carbohydrates to function effectively. Diets that eliminate carbohydrates usually end in compulsively eating the same carbohydrates that were eliminated and ultimately, regaining the lost weight.
9. Eat the last meal of the day at least 3-4 hours before bedtime - Metabolism slows down later in the day. By eating the last meal early more of the calories consumed are burned off.
10. Increase activity and exercise – The most fat-burning weight loss tool available to everyone is exercise and general movement. People who exercise on a regular basis and are active tend to be more successful with weight loss than those that don’t use exercise as part of their weight loss plan.

These are only a few of the many easy tips that help people be successful at losing weight. Since gradual progress is more effective than quick weight-loss goals, starting with the ten weight loss gems above is a good place to start. More weight loss gems follow.

Copyright Lavinia Rodriguez. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

If given the choice between weighing more but being leaner, or weighing less and being fatter, most people would choose the former.  It’s a wonder then, why so many people choose fat over muscle time and  again through the choices they make in losing weight.

The TV show, The Doctors, recently reported that a person’s metabolism doesn’t slow down naturally (as many people think). Instead, it slows down because people lose muscle mass due to decreased activity through the years.

Yet, the most common weight loss strategy for most dieters is that of a crash diet minus exercise.  If you want to make your body one that puts on fat easily and burns it slowly, that is the ticket for you.  Keep using that method and through the years you’ll have a perfect fat storing machine due to a slower metabolism.

When you don’t eat enough calories to perform the activities that your body naturally performs (e.g. breath, walk, yawn), as well as those that you require of it (e.g. knitting, running, cooking), your body will slow down it’s metabolism so that it can continue to do its job.  Ultimately, that means a general slowing down of the ability to burn fat the more one engages in drastic dieting and little exercise.

It doesn’t take much energy to maintain a nice, big storage of fat but it does take energy to maintain muscle mass.  This means that it takes calories to keep the muscle mass you have.  The more muscle you have, the more calories it takes to keep it and the more calories you can eat without storing fat. This is what metabolism is all about.

Fantastic quick weight loss promises may be hard to resist but resist you must if you want to have the leanest body you possibly can have.  Just let others continue down the road to more fat, less muscle, and less health through crash dieting.  Remember the saying, “If your friends jump off a bridge, would you jump, too?” Be an individual and use what works.  It may be slower, but you’ll win in the end while they will continue on the cycle of yo-yo dieting.  The tortoise usually wins over the hare.  Is making the decision of muscle vs. fat becoming easier?

Becoming the least fat person you can be starts with stopping the drastic dieting and focusing on an increase in muscle. Forget about the actual weight number on the scale.  It’s useless.  It tells you nothing about how much of the weight is due to firm muscle or flabby fat.

A lean, fit person weighs more than it appears they weigh.  That’s a good thing.  All that muscle has weight – what do we expect?  Do you want to be healthy and lean?  Dare to weigh more- increase muscle and increase metabolism. In the contest between muscle vs. fat, muscle should always be the winner.