Your must know guide to losing weight the healthy, natural way. Since obesity is now prominent among one third of our population, we must be aware of the serious health risks associated with being overweigt. Many of these diseases, that are so common now, are preventable by controlling your weight. They include: arthritis, cancer, stroke, diabetes and heart disease.

I will offer you information on not only losing weight safely, but how you can achieve a better quality of life.

Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realize that there's more to fast, healthy weight loss than you may have first thought. Quick weight loss methods may work for a time but they don't give you lasting results. Oftentimes fad diets, which seem to be extremely abundant nowadays, will not have the permanent effect you are seeking. Very quick weight loss seems to be so satisfying but the happiness is fleeting (kinda like my first spouse).

A healthy, lifestyle change, NOT a diet, will offer you lifetime results that you can keep up and not berate yourself for "falling off the wagon" (so to speak).

Here's something that may surprise you.

Unless changes in the American diet are instituted immediately, the life span of the average American could be shortened from 2 to 5 years in the coming decades.

It's silly to starve yourself as you may lose the weight quickly but you won't keep it off. Starvation is NOT a lasting method to staying in shape. The key to losing weight and keeping if off is do NOT diet! Make a lifestyle change for the better. You may lose weight fast if you starve but your body will not tolerate this for any length of time as you need food to keep up the energy you use every day.

If your body gets accustomed to you skipping several meals a day, your stored calories will be used up instead of the energy that would have been provided by eating properly proportioned meals. Then you go and eat one HUGE meal because you're so hungry, and where does it immediately land .... on your hips, on your bottom, on your belly! Exactly where you don't want it.

Starving yourself is NOT ever the answer. You have to change your way of thinking. There are better and healthier ways to lose weight and keep it off for your lifetime.

Pat Morgan is a retired auto finance dealer who has successfully had a 'lifestyle weight change' through the Burn Fat For Dummies program. "It is so great to feel better about myself. I never realized how carrying around the extra weight was affecting my life."