I am now approaching a milestone birthday-my 50th. By this time, I have been on more diets than I care to even mention. I have tried the pre-packaged foods to the magic diet pill to the liquid diets. The moral of the story is that the only way to accomplish sustainable and permanent weight loss is by diet and exercise. By diet, I am not referring to carrots and celery-what I mean is a healthy meal plan complete with fruits, vegetables, proteins and lean meats. The best weight loss programs for women, are the ones that incorporate proper nutrition with exercise. What good is it if you lose the weight, and you look and feel terrible, so staving yourself is definitely not an option. The effectiveness of any weight loss program is to ensure sustainability-so what this entails is a lifestyle makeover, whereby proper nutrition and exercise are part of your daily life. It is all about permanent and healthy choices.

Exercise: Exercise is imperative for fitness and aids in rapid weight loss. Best forms of exercise to lose weight are to incorporate weight training and cardio. There is really no need to join a gym. Any form of cardiovascular activity, alternating with strength training at least 5 times per week for 50-60 minutes is the optimal formula for weight loss. I suggest purchasing a few exercise DVD’s along with a kettle bell and few sets of dumb bells. Now there is no reason to make an excuse why you cannot workout! You must set aside the time each day-either morning or evening or whatever time your schedule permits to exercise. You owe this time to yourself! You will feel better and it will allow you to handle your daily stresses better and before you know it you will look great! Your mind and body will thank you for it.

No Fad Diets: In order to achieve healthy weight you must stay away from fad diets. They do nothing for you but give you the illusion that you are losing weight when actually you are endangering your health. What fad diets do is that they rob your body of the necessary nutrients. This is best seen when you come off the diet and the pounds come back on and sometimes even more weight. The reason is this happens is because you have deprived your body if the essential fats, nutrients and calories it needs to function properly. So if you are on a fad diet stop immediately!

Plan Your Food Intake: Breakfast: The key element, start your day with a piece if fruit. Fruit will jump start your metabolism and the sooner you eat it the quicker the calories are burned. The natural sugar in the fruit gets absorbed as good sugar and will not to harm the body, unlike any other time. Wait half an hour after having the fruit and eat a breakfast that has cabs in it. Lunch: Include a balanced diet that has all the nutrients-proteins, fat, lean meats, soy coupled with many colorful vegetables. Each color has a different nutrient. Our bodies need each and everyday day for good health. Don’t deprive yourself. Dinner: Make your dinner the smallest portion of the day. Perhaps grilled fish, chicken and a salad. Avoid eating dinner too late. Try to have eaten at least 2 hours before bedtime. Get a good nights sleep. Sleep is a vital component to healthy weight loss.

Women tend to think that weight training means bulking up to look like body builders. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one, women body builders take steroids to pump up like men. And two, when women gain muscle, the muscles are lean, giving the body a slim and toned appearance. Adding a weight workout to your fitness regime is what you need to get that nice slender body that you want. And if you are in the process of trying to lose weight, weight training will give you what you need to drop the extra pounds. Training with weights, builds muscle and muscle burns fat. And once that fat sheds away, you will be delighted to see a feminine sculpted body begin to emerge.

Gym or Home, Where to Train?

Now to get started, you of course know that you will need some weight training equipment. If you have a gym membership you can use theirs and if not you can buy your own at any sporting goods store. Alternatively, you can order a weight training machine to place inside your home. You will want to get three sets of weights: light, medium and medium-heavy. How you determine the heaviness of the weight is based on your own strength.

Always, always remember that before you begin your weight training routine you must first warm up. A good warm up should last for about 15 minutes to get your muscles good and prepared. First stretch your whole body to warm your muscles. Then you need to get your heart ready with some form of light aerobic activity such as walking or cycling. Now you want to prepare your arm muscles by raising your arm over your head with your fingers laced together. Then rotate your palms facing the ceiling and pull your arms back slightly. Next you’ll move to your legs and place one hand on the wall, while the other hand grabs a foot on the opposite side of the body. Bring the foot up toward your back, hold for 20 seconds and repeat the same stretch with your other leg.

Next, here are some basic safety tips to keep in mind. It always a good idea to have a weight training partner. This is a matter of safety. With a partner, you two can spot one another and help each other out with lifts. Also think carefully about your gym apparel. You should only wear gym shoes and clothes that are not too baggy. If your clothes are too big, they can get tangled in the weight machines. In addition, never go outside of your personalized training routine. Trying to follow another person’s routine can cause you injury that can lead into pulled muscles or worse.

Finally, here are some ideas to help you structure your weight training workout. You can always tell if you are working with the correct weight, if you have difficulty completely the last rep. Let muscle exhaustion at the end guide you on which weight amount you should use. If you want to gain endurance, use light weights and use them for 12-16 reps. If more strength is what you are after, the you need to concentrate on doing a lower number of reps and using heavier weights. Finally for building lean muscles use medium to heavy weights at 8-12 reps

For most women, getting fit and lean is a battle that’s often lost. With so many things to keep your whole day occupied, it’s no wonder that most end up depressed after weigh-ins, having discovered a gain of 5 pounds, seemingly overnight. So, how do we fight a “impossible” enemy? First, gaining 5 pounds is not an excuse to go on a major eating binge. Second, we have to weed out the facts from the fallacy. Third, we go for major commitment.

People often go on eating binges during stressful times and I wouldn’t hold it against them. Men probably wouldn’t understand, but 5 pounds is major stress, and it’s up to you whether you use this major stress as a reason to binge, or if you use it as a springboard to your fitness success.

With all the articles written on fitness and health, it would be so easy to get lost, not to mention confused. So, let’s try to keep it simple. Fitness requires cardio exercises. Any form of cardio exercise will use calories, that is, on top of all the calories that our body uses just to stay alive. Any cardio activity is beneficial, depending on the level of fitness we are trying to achieve. It would be too much to expect to finish a 5 mile run when all the cardio you’ve done in the past was walking 10 times around the mall. Also, getting lean and fit requires diet as wel as exercise. Trying to get lean without a diet plan will likely result in failure. Why? Because even if we exercise, if we still eat more calories than what our body requires, exercise and all, we’ll still end up adding pounds on the scale. Now, if we’d like to add some definition and toning, exercise and diet plus weight training is a must. Of course, weight training has other additional benefits because muscles use up more calories than fat.

Fitness is a lifestyle. We’ve heard it countless times. In the end it’s up to you to decide what kind of lifestyle would you like to have. And that’s where commitment should come in. Not the commitment that you’re not allowed to fail, but a commitment to get back on track whenever you fall off the wagon. A lifestyle of fitness is all about management, not about doing something one time. Women today face great pressure from all corners of society. They face career pressures, maternal pressures, spousal pressures and on and on. And to add to tall that, there is the pressure to look good. Is it okay to want to look good? Yes, of course. So long as you realize that realistically, it will have to be a lifestyle change, not just a temporary change, if you want to look good and be healthy for a long time.