Of course losing weight is all about encouraging the body to burn more calories at every moment. However, first and foremost you need to have the right mental approach and a definite vision in your mind’s eye, of how you want your body to look; this is either the shape that you used to be or how you dream you could look.Lesson 1.Your thoughts and subconscious attitude to the way you are and want to be, are going to have a big influence on the result, and it is important that you have an open mind about this fact. To get a better understanding of how the mind body connection works, read our article which is called ”How to use the Mind and Body Connection for Better Health“.If you have a picture of how a younger, slimmer you used to look, find it out and put it by the side of your bed, then every morning and night look at it and say out loud to yourself “I will be slim again/ I will lose 30 pounds, in 3 months-time “, or 6 months, or however long you give yourself to achieve your goal. You must believe what you are saying, and have a firm belief that it is possible. Because it is!Another good idea is to start a journal and write in it how you want your life to be in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years. Write it as though it has already happened. Don’t worry how these things will come about, just have faith that they will. You can include here, how you have become slim, improved your health, become more prosperous, or done or experienced anything your heart desires. Read it several times a week, and in the years to come you will look back at your visions and be amazed at how they have come true. It worked for me and for a lot of people I know. It will work for you.If you do not have a picture of a slimmer you, don’t worry. The messages you are sending to your subconscious may take a little longer to manifest, but with good will power, a strong determination, and a strong belief, the cells in your body will soon begin to work towards a firmer, slender body. If you are able to visualise a slimmer you by all means, see this image, in your minds-eye, when you are saying the affirmation. Everything you can do to enhance the new image as you see yourself at the end of your given time, will help tremendously.If you want to set yourself mini-milestones along the way, that is also a good idea. Always remember that you will not lose the same amount of weight every week, but just be proud of the where you have got to and keep focused on your goal, don’t get disheartened.The cells in your body are controlled by your thoughts, and if you keep telling yourself you are fat, slim, healthy, sad, happy, someone who loves exercising, or any other recurring thought you might have; that is how you will eventually be. Do you now understand what the power of thought can do? You need the backing of your thoughts to end up with the desired results. Remember to do this at least twice per day, together with anything else you want to tell your subconscious, which will help the whole process to work for you.Lesson 2.The second part of this regime is the diet itself. There are more in-depth articles about metabolism, so read these as well if you can. The more information that you understand about how the body utilises different things and how it helps to shape your body the more you can help to achieve your desired goals. Here are some facts which explain how to get your metabolism to work more efficiently.There are metabolic balancing supplements that will help you to keep you blood sugar level throughout the day. Kelp is another supplement that has been shown to speed up your metabolic rate by increasing the amount of iodine in the body.When you don’t eat the body goes into starvation mode and the rate you burn calories slows down to preserve life. Therefore you never want to go a long time without food. I suggest the longest you want to go is about 2 hours. A good idea is to have meals every 4 hours with a snack in between. This way, your meal frequency is having the best effect on your metabolic rate.Lesson 3.Now you know when to eat, next we need to cover what to eat. The food you eat, just like your thoughts, also has an effect on your physiology. Basically we want to improve the quality of your digestion, and by cleansing your intestines we are aiming to speed the throughput of food from beginning to end. This will help to alleviate any build-up of toxins which your body tends to store in fat cells. Toxins stored in these fat cells are in a safe area, and the body is not so willing to let go of the fat, because of what the free toxins can do.Very briefly, if you are not going to the toilet at least once a day, your food is taking too long to get through your system. Not only is your digestion inefficient you are building up toxins from the waste food and we have just covered what that means.Follow a detox diet to rid your body of stored toxins and the body will let go of stored fat or if constipation is a daily issue you can supplement with a blend of herbs called soothing bowel fornula.Read our article called “Constipation Advice and Natural Remedies”, which will explain the importance of fibre in the diet. We recommend taking a dessertspoon of oat bran 2-3 times a day with plenty of liquid, and then just once a day when the bowels are working efficiently again.A very good product, worth considering, which will speed up your digestion and improve the good bacteria population in the intestines is called Lepicol. This product combines the best vegetable fibre (psyllium husks), with the best probiotic (acidophilus), and a prebiotic (fructoligosaccharides or F.O.S.), to enhance the action of the probiotic. FOS has also been studied as being helpful to lose weight in its own right. It is available from your local health food store. Lepicol will improve your gut health and aid slimming.Lesson 4.To have a healthy digestion you also need the help of enzymes. These amazing biochemical compounds will help you digest your food, and without them you will find it difficult to get maximum digestion of your food. These enzymes are found in fruits and dark green leafy vegetables. These foods are also rich in fibre to aid the throughput of food in the digestive tract. With their help your digestion will be far more effective.We recommend you to use grapefruit as one of your main fruits. It has a low glycaemic index and there is evidence that it can help weight loss because it appears to lower insulin levels. Keeping insulin levels normal is important for weight loss because high insulin levels encourage the body to store fat, make you feel hungrier and prevents the breakdown of fat. Just one half of a grapefruit is recommended prior to each main meal.To obtain your enzymes consume about 40 grams of rocket per day, either organic or wild harvested, or an equivalent raw salad. This highly nutritious food is now widely available from most supermarkets. Have some rocket salad with each meal and you will notice how much lighter your stomach will feel after each meal.If you have read our article about constipation you would have been introduced to flax oil and its properties. Regardless of whether you are suffering with constipation, flax oil is a perfect weight loss aid. Flax oil contains mostly omega 3 essential fatty acids or E.F.As., also found in dark torpedo-shaped fish like salmon and mackerel. These wonderful oils together with omega 6 oils, found in raw nuts and seeds should be used liberally as they are perfect weight loss allies. In contrast to what you probably expect by consuming more fat, these oils are good for your body and will encourage weight loss. Used extensively by many Harley Street clinics as a basis for their weight loss programs, these oils will help you to shed those pounds as well as substantially improving your health in general.We recommend that you only buy organic flax oil in dark amber glass bottles, keep them in the fridge and never heat or cook with them. You can buy the oil in capsules but this is a much more expensive, and the quantity you need to take would be too many capsules for you to sensibly swallow on a daily basis. Start by adding one half of one teaspoonful to your food and build up as you get used to it. Aim for 2 dessert-spoons of oil twice a day. If you are taking the capsules, this is equivalent to 20 – 1 gram capsules. You can add this oil to any food of your choice, but good examples are cereals, yogurt, vegetables, pasta or baked jacket potatoes.Lesson 5.The next step is to regulate the acid and alkali balance of your body. To do this make sure you are eating approximately three times more vegetables and fresh fruit (not fruit juice) to everything else. Unless you do this your body will be too acidic and your digestion and health will suffer. If you don’t already eat this way you may already be suffering with some associated health problems like joint pain and stiffness, which is one of the first signs of a PH imbalance.Lesson 6.Your intake of carbohydrates needs close scrutiny. Your body requires a certain amount at each meal to maintain your energy levels. Unfortunately anything over the amount required is stored as fat. So even with your ways of increasing your metabolic rate there will be an amount you do not want to go over. At first it will be best to edge on the lower side until you get an idea of what the correct amount is. Also, make sure that most of your carbohydrate consumption is complex carbs. Read our article called “Proteins, Fats and Carbohydrates in Foods (Including Calorific Values)”, for clarification, if you are not sure what carbohydrate foods are. It is important that you know exactly what foods not to over-eat on, especially at your evening meal. Also, always attempt to eat foods with a low glycaemic index, and ideally always below 59, or ideally less.Lesson 7.Protein foods are good to help you to lose weight as they contain little or no carbohydrates, but remember that some proteins like meat and chicken also contain a lot of saturated fat which is not good for your weight or health. A better protein to meat is tofu which is made from soya beans. This contains low carbohydrates and very little fat, which is not saturated. Fish of course is ideal.Lesson 8.Fried food should be avoided, and ideally should not form any part of your weight loss diet. Eating fried foods make certain-protein foods, such as fried eggs or omelettes, hard to digest. So when eating eggs have them in an easier to digest form like boiled, poached or scrambled. Any good oils that are used are changed by the heat to bad oils and it is probably one of the worst ways to ruin your health. In the fried food category I put crisps. If you eat these on a regular basis and think they are o.k., cut them out and watch the weight fall off!Our last advice about food is to buy organic where possible. Read our article called “Organic Food and Produce Explained”, which will explain about chemicals in your food if you don’t already understand this suggestion.Lesson 9.Drink plenty of water, this ideally should be bottled spring water or reverse osmosis filtered water, not mineral water.To recap where you are, you have put the idea of being slim into your subconscious, and you have made all the right changes to the food you eat regularly. There is just one other piece of the puzzle left to put right. Yes, it’s the exercise. It may be that your diet is o.k. You may have wondered why you are eating all the right foods, but still not losing the weight, add to this a good regular exercise programme. Read our article called “The Importance of Exercise in Health and Fitness”, to understand its use to lose weight and keep healthy.Lesson 10.You need to exercise 3-4 times per week, and each time should contain at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. At first you will need to build up to this, but if you do this in stages gradually you will find 30 minutes is an acceptable amount, and even more is fine.We all have our own levels of fitness and no two people are the same, so go at your own pace but try to get your heart rate elevated a little more each time. Start of gradually, start gently and make increases to volume and intensity as the body gets used to each new fitness level.Don’t stay in your comfit zone. Increase by a small amount in effort when necessary and always remember to congratulate yourself when you succeed in attaining a new level.If you need a bit of help with the weight loss, a tried and tested supplement, which has gained great success at slimming clubs is called train and slim.If you are committed to losing weight, the method l have described will not fail you. But the advice is only the beginning. How you use it will test how successful you will be. If you have a bad day anytime and eat some of the wrong foods, don’t be too hard on your-self, just start again the next day and don’t let the negativity of one day spoil all the effort that you have put into this diet so far.If you are struggling with the exercise don’t tell yourself, “I could do this if it wasn’t for the exercise”; or maybe the diet with “I hate eating all those vegetables”, because guess what, you will always have a problem with the exercise or with eating the vegetables. Be more positive. Say “I am getting used to the exercise or the vegetables” and in time you will be. Work with your mind and not against it.“I really enjoy my exercise regime, and eating my vegetables”, is what you need to work towards thinking.Lesson 11.If the actual eating of vegetables is a hard chore for you, then consider buying a juicer. For most people who don’t eat many vegetables it is usually a texture problem. With the new juicers on the market you can produce a litre of juice in about 5 seconds, from inserting the whole vegetables or fruit and vegetables to drinking the juice. Certainly juicing for weight loss is very effective and easy to do. If you would like some help with new recipes, ideas or more information a great eBook download called “Amazing Natural Juices“.Tackle each of these lessons one at a time. Don’t try and do them all together otherwise you may be overwhelmed by it all. Concentrate on just No. 1 to start with then do the others one by one as you integrate them into your life.Although this is a weight loss programme, it is a new way of life and the body needs to adjust to the change very gradually. Only once you feel happy with each change should you go on to the next lesson. It is easy to think you can do it all at once because you are eager to become the new you, but resist this temptation, and the results will be better and more permanent.Picture how you will eventually look and feel on a daily basis. Remember to be positive in your thoughts and actions and you will succeed. Any negativity will have a spiralling affect. Remember when you see a change in your appearance or feel more energetic, it is you who has made this change and all the praise belongs to your hard work. Nobody can do this for you. You have to do this yourself. It will be down to all your own work.When eventually you have mastered all the lessons follow them every day. Make them a regular part of your day and soon they will be a permanent part of your life; a permanently slimmer, healthier, confident, energetic person, with a new positive attitude to life and living.Believe me; that will be YOU!
