healthy body tips

One of the biggest industries around today is the weight loss industry. Everyone is selling machines and pills that will melt off pounds like lightning. The truth is: healthy weight loss requires time and dedication. If you’re committed to losing weight the right way, here are a few tips to help you out.

Set Realistic Goals

The biggest part of a healthy lifestyle is setting healthy goals. While focusing on how much weight you’ve lost may seem like a good idea, it may discourage you if you don’t lose weight even though the diet is working. Retaining water, muscle gain, and other factors can all make you heavier even if you’re healthier. Set goals related to getting enough exercise and eating right, not weight loss. You may not notice a weight loss, but if you feel better and have more energy, some thing’s going right.

Avoid Fad Diets

Try to stay away from fad diets, and diets that cut out entire food groups. They may very well work, but many times they are very hard to stay on. A semi-healthy diet you stay on is more beneficial than an extremely healthy diet you don’t. If you want to go on a more drastic diet, ease yourself into it. The best diet changes are made slowly.

Start Exercising

Don’t forget to exercise. Getting your heart rate up at least 20 minutes a day is important to keep your heart and yourself healthy, not just losing weight. If you can’t dedicate this much time to exercise, try splitting it up into 10 minute intervals. It may be hard in the beginning, but if you keep at it you’ll find yourself more energized and feeling great.

An important factor many people neglect in their weight loss program is building muscle. Muscle burns more calories than fat. If you build muscle while you lose weight, you’ll start losing faster and be more likely to keep the weight off. Normally, diet causes you to lose muscle mass along with the fat; this is why many people gain the weight back when they’re done dieting. If you’re not really active, you don’t have to do much to build muscle mass, just lift small free weights or do use machines that require more force, like rowing machines.

These are just a few tips for getting started on your weight loss journey. Good luck!