Obesity has attained the proportion of an epidemic in USA, and our own country is not far behind. We have fat kids in school, over-sized adults and even obese senior citizens. Being over-weight is not restricted to new moms any more! Affluence, sedentary lifestyle and fast food culture have all played a big role in making us FAT.

Fad diets rarely work. And when they do, the effect lasts only as long as you stick to the diet. Exercise programs are more likely to provide lasting benefit. But few people have the motivation and capacity to stick with one! What we need is a new approach to weight-loss. Natural Weight Loss is a new strategy that takes a holistic view of an individual’s health. Here are the highlights of the “Natural Weight Loss Program”:

Review Your Objective

What is the objective of your dieting or exercising? Is it just to lose those kilos? Or is the objective to improve your health? When you limit the goal to losing a few kilos, you cannot have a long-term approach to it. But when you realize that “good health” is the real goal, you work at it throughout your life. The whole approach to weight-loss changes by just reviewing the objective!

What Is NOT Food?

You cannot be downing one cola after another if you claim to be going “Natural”, right? When taking the “Natural” approach to health, you have to review your views on “what comprises food”. Anything that does not rot is not food. So all those preservative laden items go off your menu!

Anything that comes out of a can is not food. So get rid of all those canned juices and sodas. If it’s processed, it’s not food. This rule eliminates all those fast food items from your menu. That’s because almost all of them have a “over-processed” white flour base! Also, you have to stop consuming processed rice and sugar if you want to go natural.

What Is Food?

If you want to go natural, your two best friends are fruit & vegetables. Few people know that fresh fruit and vegetables help a lot in weight reduction. You can have as much of them as you want without piling on too many calories.

Research recommends that 5 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables are a must every day. You can eat the vegetables raw or lightly steamed. Over-cooking drains vegetables of all nutrients, so give that a miss!

Water, The Most Important Thing

Enough has already been said about why you should be drinking lots of water. When watching weight, it becomes even more important to drink plenty of water. It energizes you, refreshes you and detoxifies the whole system.

When To Eat

You should have the first (and the most important) meal of the day within half an hour of waking up. After that, you should give your digestive system at least 2 hours to digest it, before you consume anything else. This certainly does not mean that you eat every 2 hours! Eat only when you feel hungry unless you are trying to put on weight!

Get Active

Do you find yourself sitting/lying down for most of the 24 hours in a day? You need to add some form of activity to your life. The easiest, cheapest and most effective activity is “Walking”. Walking improves blood circulation and oxygenation of blood. It is a great form of exercise if done regularly for at least 30-45 minutes a day.

Another good option is to take up some sport. Sports have an entertainment/competition factor that makes them easier to stick with. But you need some motivation to get started!

In our third article in the series, we will bring you weight-loss tips from the “Natural Weight Loss Program”. Till then, be fit, be healthy!