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You already know that diets rarely work.

You lose weight for a while, only to put it back on (and more!) when you stop your weight loss program.

So what’s the best way to lose weight naturally and keep that weight off?

In a nutshell, you need to listen to your body.

Instead of eating when “it’s time to eat”, you should eat when you feel hungry. Whether that’s at regular meal times or some other time that your body tells you.

That’s stage 1. The second part is to stop eating when you feel full. Not when you’re so bloated you couldn’t force another morsel of food into you!

This means listening to the triggers you’ve been ignoring for so long…

Eat slowly to give your body a chance to tell you when it’s feeling full. One of the easiest ways of doing this is to put your cutlery or food down between bites. The extra seconds give your body chance to listen to itself.

Don’t worry if you miss a trigger and keep eating for a while longer. This will happen, especially at the start. You’ve been ignoring yourself for so long that it will take time for the habit to change.

Don’t count calories. Just listen to your body instead.

Don’t weigh yourself obsessively. Weigh yourself once a  week if you really must.

Don’t beat yourself up if you slip occasionally. Get back on the path instead.

If you need more help, check out this fat loss resource.

One of the first things you should do when you start out on your weight loss program is to increase your metabolism rate.

By increasing your metabolism, you’ll find the task of burning off that excess fat becomes much, much easier.

So just how to go about increasing your metabolic rate?

Eat breakfast! A lot of people think that skipping their first meal of the day is beneficial. It isn’t. You’ve already been “fasting” for likely half a day. Don’t push it further - eat a meal soon after you wake up.

Eat slowly. Take the time to notice what you are eating and listen to the signs your body gives you that it’s starting to get full.

Increase your exercise. Whether it’s a full work out at the gym, walking more often or using the stairs rather than the elevator. Any or all of these will help increase your metabolic rate.

Keep a diary. What gets monitored gets worked on. Jot down your weight and waist measurements once a week. Either in a notepad or a spreadsheet or even a Post It note stuck to your monitor. Whatever works best for you.

Spice it up! Spicy food increases your metabolic rate. Now’s the time to fall in love with curries, chillis and other hot foods.

Don’t give up if you slip up on your new weight loss program. Changing habits takes time - don’t give up the first time you miss an exercise slot or eat something you “shouldn’t”. Keep going - we all stray occasionally. The ones who succeed are those who don’t let these temporary slipbacks change their entire course.

Find out more about how to turn your body into a fat burning furnace.

OK, let’s be honest. There isn’t really such a thing as a negative calorie food. But there are foods which consume more energy when you eat them than they give you. They may be foods like lettuce that are almost completely water or they could be a food like celery which, when eaten raw, takes a lot more effort to eat than you’ll get back.

The idea of negative calorie foods is attractive. Many diets give you an “allowance” of other foods that you can eat in pretty much unlimited quantities.

The trouble with these foods is that, with a couple exceptions, they’re quite boring.

Sure, if you want your diet to live up to the “rabbit food” slur then you could munch your way through a plate full of lettuce. But without a nice dressing, it’s hardly going to seem attractive to eat on a regular basis.

If you’re fasting for the weekend or a day as part of a detox then these foods can come in handy. The thought of being able to eat something sweet like an apple or a bowl of strawberries could be just what you need to get through an otherwise uneventful time.

Whilst the thought of regularly using more calories to eat than you are eating is tempting, you need to be careful. If you do this too long, your body will start to eat away at your muscle. Which almost certainly isn’t what you intended when you started out on your diet.

But if you’re careful, adding negative calorie foods to your diet can be a useful way to bulk up your meals and stop you getting hunger pangs. You could easily nibble on a carrot as a snack between meals without feeling any guilt. So it’s definitely worth investigating these “miracle” foods further.

The list you can choose from includes:

• Apples
• Asparagus
• Beets
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Cantaloupes
• Carrot
• Cauliflower
• Celery stalk
• Celery root
• Cranberries
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Endives
• Garden cress
• Garlic
• Grapefruit
• Green beans
• Green cabbage
• Lemons
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Papayas
• Pineapples
• Prunes
• Radishes
• Raspberries
• Spinach
• Strawberries
• Tangerines
• Tomatoes
• Turnips
• Zucchini

Find out more about the negative calorie diet here.

There are thousands of different weight loss products available.

All around your supermarket, you’ll see “lite” or “reduced fat” products that you can buy to help with

your weight loss program.

There are also pills and potions that you can buy. Together with specially formulated diet plans such as

Slim Fast, Weight Watchers, etc.

But do they work?

After all, the small print always says that these products can only work as part of a calorie controlled

diet. Which is the manufacturer’s get-out clause if the product doesn’t work for you.

If you’re tempted to buy reduced fat weight loss products, remember that sometimes the reduction in fat is made up for by introducing more sugar. This can take many forms - it’s no use just looking for the word “sugar” in the ingredients list. It can also be mentioned as fructose (look out for high fructose corn syrup, for instance), glucose, galactose, lactose, maltose and mannose.

If the product you’re thinking of buying has a nutritional information panel, this will give you some more help.

Then there are all the different pills that claim to help you lose weight. You know, the ones where all you need to do is eat a normal diet but make sure you take a specified quantity of pills before each meal. The fatter you are, so the mailshot claims, the more pills you need to take (and the more profit the manufacturer makes!).

Check the internet before buying these kinds of pills. Whilst it is possible that some of them can help with weight loss, most of them are just selling dreams. Hoodia is a possible exception to this rule as it is an appetite suppressant.

Generally, it’s better to eat a sensible diet than pop lots of pills that may or may not help you in your weight loss quest.

It’s also important to remember not to quit if you slip up on your diet occasionally. We’re all human and slipping up on diets is part of what we do. The trick is to not let a slip up “get to you”. Just take it as part of the variety of life and get back to your weight loss program as soon as you can.

Instead of buying lots of weight loss products, check out these sensible fat loss ideas.

Often people will discover that when they have been going to the gym regularly and eating the same kinds of foods for a number of weeks in order to help lose weight that they soon reach a point where they do not seem to being losing any more.  This is more commonly referred to as the weight loss plateau and there are steps that a person can take to ensure that as soon as they reach this point that they can continue to lose weight.

Below are a number of different steps that you can take if you happen to reach your plateau and look at thinking on giving up on your new diet and exercise regime.  Unfortunately many people will soon discover that they may hit this plateau during their weight loss regime and decide that because they are not losing any more weight then it is time to give up, but this is just not the case.  When it comes to losing weight a person will need to be patient and may find themselves having to make constant changes to their diet and exercise regimes in order to ensure that they still lose the weight and also to ensure that the weight they have loss is not regained.

Tip 1 - Reduce the number of calories in your diet

It is important to remember that in order for you to lose body fat you need to eat less than you body is actually burning.  However do not reduce your calorie too much or this will only have a negative effect on your body as your metabolic rate will slow down and so the chances of your body burning more fat is greatly reduced as well.

Tip 2 – Make alterations with regards to the foods that you are eating

If you can increase the amount of raw foods you are eating and reduce the amount of processed ones.  Also ensure that you eat much leaner cuts of meat and increase your intake of fish (if you like it) as well.  Plus look at altering the kind of dairy products that you are consuming move away from the full fat ones and go for the low fat versions instead.

Tip 3 – Portion Sizes

If you able to actually reduce the sizes of the portions that you are eating at each meal you have and if you can start to drink more water.  More water will actually help you to feel fuller for longer and will also help your kidneys and liver to work more effectively in removing unwanted waste and toxins from the body.

If you keep the above tips in mind you should soon find a way to get past the weight loss plateau that you have recently reached.  This will then help you to persevere with your new weight loss regime and keep you fit and healthy.

For more tips on overcoming your weight loss plateau, check out this site.