Losing weight can result in dramatic improvements to your health and appearance. According to the Mayo Clinic, weight loss can help prevent heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The improvement to your appearance is also a powerful boost to confidence and self-esteem. To provide the full benefits of weight loss, make sure that the methods you use are healthy ones.
Avoid Diet Pills
When you have your sights set on weight loss, it's easy to fall victim to the claims made by diet pill manufacturers. For healthy, permanent results, it's best to avoid their siren song. Diet pills are a poor choice for healthy weight loss because it is easy to build a dependence on them, and when you stop taking them, the weight tends to come back. As your body builds a tolerance to diet drugs, you may find yourself needing to take dangerously high doses to keep the effect. According to the Mayo Clinic, ephedrine, a popular weight-loss drug, has been linked to heat exhaustion, stroke, cardiac arrest and death.
Circuit Training
Exercise experts, such as the American Council on Exercise, have for years recommended muscle gain to aid in weight loss. Muscle has a powerful effect on metabolism because it's an active tissue, requiring calories just to exist. Circuit training is an efficient way to combine the muscle-building effects of weight training with the health benefits of cardiovascular exercise. In an interval training protocol, you move to one resistance exercise after another with no rest. The key is to train a different muscle group at each station while your cardiovascular system keeps going. Circuit training makes for efficient workouts because you do not need a separate cardiovascular workout.
Drink Before You Eat
Water is a potent natural appetite suppressant. Dehydration is a common reason for overeating because thirst is often mistaken for hunger. Drinking a full glass before each meal will prevent you from overindulging for the wrong reason. Since water takes up room in the stomach, you will also feel full sooner. Staying hydrated will help prevent water retention because with regular water intake, your body no longer feels the need to hold it under your skin.
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