One of the biggest problems with loosing weight is that people often get discouraged if they don't see results. The problem with this is that to get these results people often do what will work in the short term, but at the expense of the long term. One major example I've seen of this is when people will drastically cut their calorie intake and throw themselves into hard core cardio. The problem with this is that, yes, you will loose weight fast. But, that weight will return once the manic exercising and extreme caloric restriction has ended and nine times out of ten the person will gain back more weight than they originally lost. The main reason this approach is bad for weight loss is that you're doing everything to tell your body that it's starving. Because of this your body will hold onto fat and will often loose muscle, it's the loss of muscle that causes you to gain more weight back than was originally lost. The reason behind this is that to keep 1 lb. of fat off a person has to eat about 30-40 calories less a day, but to keep 1 lb. of muscle off you have to eat 350-400 calories less a day. So, an individual who goes on a crash diet eating under 1000 calories a day and does only cardio, or no exercise at all may loose 10-12 lb. But, if only 4 of those lb. are lost muscle that person will have to eat roughly 1400 calories less to keep that weight off, meaning that our person on a crash diet will not be able to return to a normal eating range and maintain their weight loss.
What can be done to make sure you don't loose muscle when you're trying to loose fat? First, don't go extreme with you calories. The best bet it to find out what calorie intake would needed to maintain your desired goal weight at a sedentary lifestyle. for example my goal of 140 lb. means I need to eat between 1700 and 1900 calories a day (and that's if I'm doing absolutely nothing). Eating this larger amount lets your body know that it doesn't need to hang on to its current energy resources because starvation is not a current danger.
The second thing you can do to encourage long term weight loss is weight training. Muscle has a resting metabolic rate, that means that even when you're not working out your muscle is burning calories. The muscle (lean muscle) you have the more calories you'll burn at rest.
In the end it comes down to some very simple things. 1) Eat! Find out your resting BMR and start eating the amount it says (http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/). 2) Weight train! Alternate weight training and cardio, or try doing the circuit training at a gym (they're there because they work). 3) Give yourself a year! I'm not kidding, I know it sounds hard to do but if you really want to not just loose weight but live the rest of your life as a healthier thinner person this is what you'll have to do because short term results will only cost you in the end.
Tara
P.S I know I got on a rant. I don't know why, I just did.
