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and sugar. Stick to whole-grains, fruits and vegetables.

Carb controlling:

Replace sugar with stevia. Stevia is a calorie-free herb that you can get in powder form. It is super-sweet, natural and completely safe.

Also, even though you are getting your carbs from whole-grains, you still need to keep them at a minimum. Make the switch to brown rice, but also reduce the amount you use.

Exercise:

Exercise is an essential part of this plan. Not only does it burn calories and stimulate your metabolsim, it also prevents you from losing muscle mass. With a carb-restricted diet, your body will burn off it's fat stores, but, unfortunately, it will also use muscle. To prevent this from happening, you need to use those muscles. In other words, you need to exercise. It doesn't need to be overly strenuous. Just find something you enjoy and get out and do it. Any time of the day is fine, so long as you fit it in.

The key to fast weight loss is a combination of calorie control, carb control and exercise. Unfortunately, even though this plan is quite healthy, because the weight drops off very quickly, it is more likely to result in subsequent weight gain than if you lost the weight at a slower pace. The reason for this is that if you've been at a certain weight for some time, your body gets used to this and accepts this as your 'set weight' - the weight at which everything is stable. When you lose weight quickly, your body freaks out and thinks there's a famine on. It will strive to get you back to that set weight, where everything is stable. It reduces the amount of calories it needs to function and, if you consume any additional calories, it will store them as fat to see it through this perceived crisis. You will also experience strong cravings - this is your body's way of trying to get you to eat the food that will get it back up to what it considers to be a safe weight. Because of this problem, most nutritionalists would advise you to lose weight slowly; about a pound a week is a good pace. This allows your body time to reduce your set weight. Eventually, you will be slim and healthy and your body will have accepted this as your new set weight and will then strive to keep you at that weight.

This does not mean that you can't lose weight fast. It simply means that, if you wish to maintain the weight loss, you have to be quite strict with yourself for a while. They key to maintaining the weight loss once you are at a weight you are happy with, is to continue with the exercise and to very very slowly increase your daily calorie intake and carb consumption until you are back at a normal level. You may experience some small weight gain at first as your metabolism readjusts. However, if you stick with your healthy life-style, this will be minimal.

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