Look at many of the before and after pictures shown on the Internet - particularly those from Body For Life - and you will see people haven’t just lost weight and gained muscle.

They’ve also done a few other things to make themselves look even better - the icing on the cake so to speak.

Here is a list of things you may like to consider:

1) Get a tan.

Yes, most people (myself included) find a nice tan looks great. No more pale skin having been hidden away under layers of clothes for years. It’s time to be loud and proud!

What I personally have done is to use tanning beds in the past as much as natural sunlight.

You need to using tanning beds with care of course but many gyms provide them as an additional service and by slowly topping up your tan in this way you can feel sure that (a) your tan will happen so gently your friends won’t be shocked to see the change, (b) you can brown yourself in the cold, wet months so as soon as there is some sunshine you already have a tan and (c) you can save yourself any embarrasment you might otherwise feel at bearing yourself in public to tan. That is, you can start to work on your tan *before* you reach your goal weight.

2) Get a wax.

Not everybody’s idea of fun - and indeed for men some women prefer a “hairier” guy but a wax will help really show off that new figure of yours and will mean you don’t have to keep worrying about shaving all summer (or worse, stubble!).

3) Get some new outfits.

Don’t keep wearing your old clothes. Splash out and buy some new stuff. New, tighter gym gear and/or going out gear will again help highlight the positive change you’ve made, will help you look even better and feel great about how you look.

Popularity: 61% [?]

In our never-ending journey to make this the best, most useful health, fitness and weight loss blog online (we seem to be winning - we have had over 1,000 visitors more this month than last!) we have just introduced yet another new service for you.

If you’re reading a blog post here and you think to yourself “Wow, this is good quality information!” then not only can you now bookmark us but you can now turn any of the articles here into PDF files.

That means you can easily save the file onto your home computer for future reference!

To use the feature, just click on the actual article title to be taken to the main article page, and look for the button at the bottom of the post that says “Save page as PDF”.

Making sure popups are allowed in your browser, simply click the button and you’ll be able to save the post straight onto your hard drive for later reading or printing.

It’s that easy!

Popularity: 50% [?]

I recently spent a few days up in the highlands of Scotland having my first attempt at skiing.

Now I’m reasonably fit and healthy so I wasn’t expecting any problems with skiing - quite the reverse I was expecting it to be reasonably easy but boy was I wrong!

For some reason I had such problems finding my balance I spent as much time on my back side as on my feet!

Still, I had fun and would definately go back again and try it.

What was interesting was how much of a full body workout it was. Arms, shoulders, chest and back used when pulling myself along with the “sticks” (sorry I don’t know the technical terms for them!). Legs used constantly to keep balanaced, walk up hills, turn and so on. Core used to keep balance too.

What a fantastic workout.

It’s a perfect example of what I keep banging on about - an exercise that’s so fun you don’t even regard it as exercise yet it gives you a full workout and burns off fat while you play!

If you haven’t tried skiing before and you’re reasonably agile I highly recommend you give it a try!

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One seldom discussed topic when it comes to weight loss and weight management is the subject of emotional eating.

You know how it is… something upsets you or stresses you out and next thing you know you find yourself tossing another Mars bar wrapper in the bin. What happened? And where did all your good intentions just disappear to?

That’s just what the excellent article from the Healthy Lifestyle blog discusses.

The biggest point that I took away from it is this: you need to be mindful of what you are eating at all times and why. As soon as you want to eat something “bad” or you find you’ve just done it it’s not time to beat yourself up. You’ll only make yourself feel worse. Instead, stop for a moment and work out *what* feeling caused you to behave like that. Also, what caused that feeling in the first place?

Once you know this, you can consciously work on avoiding or stopping the problem to begin with, and also finding displacement activities for when it next happens.

A displacement activity is one recognized by behavioural scientists as one that is carried out when another one is actually meant. A displacement activity could be fighting with your loved one because you don’t see them enough - except after the fight you’ll see them even less for a while of course.

In dietary terms, just like when quitting smoking or any other harmful yet powerful habit, you need to find things you can do to take your mind off those habits.

Here’s an example I have used in the past. When I’m out running and I start to slow and falter and that little voice in my head starts telling me just a short break won’t hurt me - after all I’ve already run 2 miles - I envision myself in a marathon.

Now I’ve never run one in my life, nor at the moment would I do so, but imagining I’m in second place with the first runner just a few metres ahead of me helps me to pick up the pace as I race my imaginary competitor.

So what can you do to stop you from eating emotionally? Could you imagine the disappointment on your partner’s face when you fail to lose weight? Could you eat a carrot instead? Could you sing a favorite song to yourself? Imagine a beautiful beach with you stretched out tanned and toned on it?

Have a think - then try a few out - until you come up with a behaviour, no an automatic response - that will help you deal with the cravings.

Popularity: 32% [?]

You’re clearly an internet user or you wouldn’t be reading this post today but are you aware of how many resources there are online that can help you to lose weight?

That’s the topic of an interesting new article published over at Fitness Destinations.

The article lists 6 ways that the Internet can help you lose weight however I can add an extra one of my own.

Social bookmarking and networking sites provide user-rated content that can provide some high quality information to you coupled with the “social” element. You can “meet” and network with other likeminded individuals with whom you can swap advice and motivation.

Check out:

MySpace
Technorati
Digg
Delicious

Popularity: 27% [?]