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Weight Loss Diets and Healthy Weight Loss

Relying on weight loss diets isn't necessarily the same as having healthy weight loss. Although diet and weight loss are usually linked together, healthy dieting should also mean healthy eating.

One problem usually associated with weight loss diets is that a person may lose weight but the diet plan itself is not sustainable as a lifestyle. Healthy weight loss needs to be a lifestyle choice. Diet and weight loss are a connotation developed over several decades. Ever since fashion and women decided that thin is “in”, losing weight and diet are the same thing.

But people wishing to lose weight often prefer quick weight loss programs than engage in healthier and leaner eating habits. For those who rely on weight loss diets, nonetheless, they should look into diet and weight loss programs that provide long-lasting results.

Looking for Permanent Healthy Weight Loss

The South Beach diet, for example, attempts to do just this, but in a drastic way. This is a diet that advocates lots of protein and fats but few or no carbohydrates. First off, it may not be a healthy weight loss plan because it causes abrupt changes in metabolism that alters the body's pH and puts stress on the kidneys.

Then once a person loses weight, this diet proposes a change back to a more normal diet but with a lower calorie intake. It requires a rather sudden change in lifestyle, tastes, and eating habits. For many, such an abrupt change may not be a sustainable diet and weight loss program.

A problem associated with many weight loss diets is that they are intended for weight loss but do not introduce or teach a student how to eat a nutritionally balanced diet. Something else that may be missing is training in proper eating habits that lead to healthy weight loss.

Drinking lots of water, for example, is one of the best habits for losing weight. Water is inexpensive and non-fattening. It reduces the urge to eat and cleanses the body.

Some of the currently technologically advanced weight loss diets and weight loss programs now rely on a charted program and not so much on counting calories. The central theme is about losing weight and keeping it off. This can make it easier to make the transition from pure weight loss into a new nutritional lifestyle.

Toward Effective Diet and Weight Loss

Ingredients often missing from weight loss diets are:

• training in physical activity and the building of muscle mass. Muscles burn calories because they need to burn oxygen. 
• water for proper hydration. Water provides the proper environment for chemical reactions to take place. Drinking plenty of water also trains the body not to retain water. 
• consumption of generous portions of dietary fiber. For one thing, dietary fiber excretes solid waste promptly before all the calories in food are totally absorbed into the body. It also makes one feel fuller yet leaner. 

Everyone needs to be careful before engaging in weight loss diets that may be harmful. High protein weight loss diets often propose meals high in saturated animal fats which affect the cardiovascular system and promote stroke, peripheral vascular disease, and heart disease.

Eating a diet with less than 1,200 calories per day causes the body to take calories not only from fat but from the muscle tissues. Depending upon a person's age, it can be difficult or impossible to recover that muscle mass.

The path to long-lasting and healthy weight loss relies on a balanced diet and good nutrition habits as well as a well-rounded physical activity program. Diet and weight loss requires a gradual adjustment in lifestyle. This means lots of fruits and vegetables, smaller intake of animal fat and proteins, high amounts of water, and plenty of dietary fiber.

The final ingredients missing from all weight loss diets is self-discipline, will, and determination. One must also keep in mind that people respond differently, either faster or more slowly, to dietary change. For any single individual, healthy weight loss can mean a combination of various factors.

See the complete list of articles on Weight Loss.

Other wiki resources:  weight loss diets; protein and weight loss; being overweight; water retention