Natural Weight Loss with a Healthy Balanced Diet and Herbal Supplements

The end goal of all healthy weight loss plans is to lose weight while maintaining overall health. Therefore weight loss is best accomplished slowly. A balanced diet that comprises of a healthy and diverse variety of foods helps in achieving both the goals, albeit slowly.

You will probably get a lot of advise on how to naturally lose weight fast. The fact however, is that if you lose weight rapidly, you are, in all probability, losing water and muscle rather than fat. This is obviously not a healthy weight loss option. A rapid weight loss also affects the nervous system negatively, leaving you sluggish, tired and sick.

Most of the quick weight loss advice that you get is based on myths. These myths lead to erroneous solutions that are presented as weight loss programs. Some common quick loss solutions that don’t work so well for a sustained effort are:

• Fasting - Starving may help you to lose some pounds but you will regain the lost weight once you start eating again.
• Completely avoiding fatty foods - Fat free is not necessarily calorie free. Most fat free versions have the same amount of calories, if not more, than the original. Fat free foods can raise blood sugar, which promotes weight gain.
• Sugar Free Diets - Diet soft drinks and artificially sweetened desserts and yoghurts are low in calories. The artificial sweeteners, however, interfere with the body’s regulators and lead to weight gain indirectly. They promote a craving for sweets leading to overindulgence in other sweet foods and beverages.

A healthy balanced diet is essential for the body. It can help you in providing the body with all the nutrients that it needs for vital biological processes. Healthy diets can help you accomplish a weight loss of one to two pounds a week. Anything above that is, anyways, detrimental to overall health.

A healthy diet must contain carbohydrate, protein, fat, minerals, vitamins and fiber in the correct proportions. No one single group of foods should be eliminated - not even fat! The serving size of each group depends upon various factors like age, activity, size and gender. Over reliance on any one of these nutrients is actually an invitation for disturbing the natural metabolic processes. On the other hand, diminished intake of these nutrients by wrong selection of foods, leads to accumulation of toxins resulting in chronic disorders.

The five main food groups from where you can get all the necessary nutrients are:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Cereals and pulses
• Dairy products
• Poultry, fish and meat

Your aim should be to consume a variety of foods that fall under each group by rotating them on a daily basis. The more close to nature you remain the better it is for gradual weight loss and optimal health. Eat foods in their original form and cook them in healthy mediums like butter and virgin oils. The basic mantra is to avoid temptations of over eating. Even when you plan to eat out, try to avoid buffets, which normally tempt you to eat more due to the wide variety of food items displayed. Natural weight loss supplements can be used to supplement your efforts.

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