The search for ways to speed up your weight loss is over. With these seven tips, you can be seven pounds lighter in the next two weeks. Be ready to make some changes, but your thinner self will thank you.

Make water your best friend

While it should come as no surprise that water is your best weapon in weight loss, some still haven't caught on. By increasing your water consumption to six to eight glasses a day, you will help you body flush out toxins that are impeding the weight that you want to lose.

Water helps to speed digestion as well as many other processes in your body. And if your body is running more smoothly, then you can burn more calories along the way.

A new appetizer

If you're looking to cut back on the foods that you're eating, here's a trick that works for anyone. Start your lunches and dinners off with a small cup of soup. Of course, the soup shouldn't be cream based; a broth will work very well.

The warm soup will help to make your stomach feel fuller so that you eat less at the meal that follows. This is also a good trick if you are going out to eat. Have that bowl of soup before you go to curb your temptation for larger portions.

Take away the salt

A lot of the extra weight people carry is due to a large intake of salt. Salt can be found in many of the things that we consider healthy—frozen lunches, canned soups, and condiments.

Take some time over the next two weeks to look at the labels of the things that you eat to see how much salt (as sodium) are in the foods that you have been eating. Avoiding prepackaged foods is the best way to remove the salt from your diet.

Take away the sugars

While we don't want to admit it, sugar is keeping us overweight and unhappy. And sugar isn't just a candy bar or a milkshake, it's also in the white breads and pastas that we love.

But if you want to lose weight, it's time to find better ways of eating. This can include switching to brown rice and whole wheat bread. And of course, limiting your sugary snacks to once in a great while.

Get moving

When you're trying to lose weight, you need to start exercising. If you haven't exercised before, you're in luck. Studies have shown that you can walk just a few times a week and burn the calories that you want to burn.

Thirty minutes a day is the best way to lose seven pounds in two weeks, but if you don't have that much time, try to split it up over the course of the day—say ten minutes three times a day, or just try to fit in three good thirty minute walks a week.

Slow down

One of the main things that trigger overeating is not taking time for your self. When you're trying to lose weight, it's essential that you set aside a little time each day for you and you alone. By giving yourself some quiet time, you'll be able to slow down and remember that you're worth the extra effort that you're putting in to lose weight.

Just like mom said

And don't forget about your fruits and veggies. Though fruits do contain sugar, they also contain fewer calories than your traditional sugary snacks.

If you really want to jumpstart some weight loss, eat steamed vegetables at every meal. Not only do they have a slightly diuretic effect (makes you lose water weight), but they also energize your body to keep making great choices.

When you want to lose weight, you need help, but with these tips, you have everything you need.

Daily Health Tips Blog

Hey, we all want to shed some pounds and get back to the body that we had when we were younger and didn't appreciate it but it takes discipline, planning, and dedication to make that happen. All too often people shed 10 or 15 pounds and then seem to stop losing weight. There is definitely a reason this happens and it should not be seen as failure or an excuse to give up on your weight loss goals. Here are 7 absolutely killer ways to maximize your fat burning routine and help ensure success with your weight loss goals.

1) Anaerobic Exercise

If you think you can just run laps or pedal that fat away, think again. Muscle tissue is what burns the most calories in our bodies and you need to life weights in order to create bigger muscles that will burn more calories. Now although aerobic exercises such as cycling or swimming are also necessary, the fact remains that building bigger muscles is the best way to lose weight and keep it off. This is because you are creating a more efficient calorie burning machine by lifting weights which will ensure you success with your weight loss goals.

2) Warm-up and Cool Down

Warming up before exercising and taking the time to cool down afterwards with some light exercises are not generally seen as essential to a fat burning program. However, the reason why a lot of people tend to give up on their weight loss goals is because they failed to see the progress they hoped for when they began. An injury, even one that only lasts for a few days, can set your weight loss goals back by weeks and lead to a loss of stimulation. You need to plan an extra twenty minutes into your weight lifting routine for these two essential activities or you risk injury and derailing your weight loss plan.

3) Diet, Diet, Diet

This should not be a killer way to maximize your weight loss goals but it is. The reason for this is because people tend to think of losing weight in two ways: diet, or exercise. Hey, these two go hand in hand and you are never going to maximize your fat burning routine in the gym unless you take care of your body outside of the gym. Stop thinking of meals in terms of three: instead, think 5 meals with smaller portions. The FDA recently developed a new food pyramid with this very idea in mind and you should check it out before starting your fat burning program because it can save you a lot of time and energy if you get the diet part figured out before even stepping into the gym.

4) Plan Workouts

The body is the most complex machine on the planet and you can't just hope to step into a gym and jump on a machine or some weights and think that you are going to see the results you want without knowing how they affect your body. The ideal exercise routine is done only 3 or 4 times per week and only for 30-45 minutes at a time. You cannot work your body more than this because it will actually cause your muscles to break down which means you will be burning fewer calories, and therefore, not maximizing your fat burning routine in the gym. If you have any doubts about what kind of routine is ideal for your goals, don't be afraid to consult an physical trainer to help you set up a program that is best suited for you.

5) Nutritional Supplements

If you really want to maximize your fat burning routine in the gym, then you need to consider using nutritional supplements. Now I am not talking about those crazy supplements that promise to burn fat for you while you sit and watch tv! I am talking about essential fatty acids, amino acids, whey protein….things that will truly maximize your workouts that you can't always expect to get in the foods you eat every day. Again, consult a physical trainer if you want to know which supplements are best for your weight loss goals.

6) Set Weekly Goals

I know that this just seems terribly obvious but the truth is that most people are not thrilled with the idea of working out so it is easy for them to skip a session or indulge in some pizza and think that they will make up for it next time. Listen, next time never comes and when you stop seeing the scales go down, the motivation just seems to stop. By setting weekly goals, you can track your progress and make it that much more likely that you will adhere to the goals when you see things are not going as expected.

7) No More Late Night Snacks

This one may not seem to make sense, but I assure you that it will help maximize your fat burning exercises. The reason is your metabolism. When you eat right before you go to bed, it throws your body off and you probably notice that you awaken and don't feel hungry. Then, you skip breakfast entirely or only snack on a bagel or something on you way into work.

The result: the body goes into conservation mode. This means that it slows down your metabolism and that means you are burning less calories throughout the day. Plus, it increases the likelihood of snacking and basically just sets the scene for a bad cycle. Eating five smaller portioned meals per day also has to do with your metabolism as it has been found that metabolism remains highest when there is a consistent supply of food in the body. You might not believe that late night snacking affects the way your body burns fat when working out, but it does.

Now some of the things listed above are obvious while some just seem silly. And yet, taken together and consistently adhered to, these 7 little ideas will maximize your fat burning in the gym and get you to that body you can see in your mind but not the mirror far quicker than if you just go about things in a disorganized and inconsistent manner.

Daily Health Tips Blog