You want to lose weight, but the first thing that comes to your mind would probably be to perform a crash diet with nutritional restrictions. This is not the long term way to achieve weight loss because your body is going to retaliate against your plans later by sending your body into a fat storage mode. So the first step in losing weight is actually to keep eating! Aren’t you glad to hear that?

The 3 principals involved in weight loss programs that work long term are also used and followed by fitness models, body builders and athletes. This 3 tiered approach includes eating often, building muscles, and adopting an maintaining your fitness level for the long term.

First, understand you need to eat. You want to eat often to keep burning fat. Visualize a fire in your belly and you have to keep kindling on it to keep it burning. Eating certain foods throughout the day keeps your body in “fat burning” mode. When you skip a meal or a snack, guess what, you may actually be telling your body that you are in starvation mode and it stores the fat to keep you from starving. Look at this as a bonus if you love to eat. In saying that, you’re getting to actually eat all the foods you love, while at the same time, you are still keeping the weight off. You do need to eat the right foods though. Some of the most common foods also known as “secret foods” that burn body fat include foods like cruciferous vegetables, low fat dairy products, almonds and other types of nuts (not peanuts so much). Build your muscles to burn the fat. The more muscle mass you have on your frame the more calories and fat you will burn. Most of the programs I have reviewed include an exercise aspect accept one. Because diet plays a bigger role in your fitness level than exercise can, diet is number one on your list. Make sure you are following a proven workout program.

With that said, your second tier is your exercise regimen. It’s going to ramp up the effects of your new foods and how you’re now going to be eating them. All but one of the top weight loss programs I have reviewed have very effective exercise routines. All levels of fitness are addressed among the programs reviewed, spanning a fit-but-normal body type to totally lean and hard body type as like a pro body builder. Know what you want before you start. Keep that image of yourself pasted on your wall. You know the old saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”? Do you want to lean and fit or do you want to get ripped. Choose your destination and your road will be hard, but straight.

Your third tier is maintenance. The effectiveness of the weight loss method you choose lies in your ability to actually follow it. If you are forced to eat foods you don’t enjoy, you’ll never keep it up. If you don’t like the stair climber, then try the more fun alternative that burns even more fat. Just don’t come up with excuses. You can follow a good program and succeed.