Successful weight loss does not happen instantaneously. Over an extended period of time, as you ingest more calories than you burn off, this surplus transforms into fat and can result in outright obesity. Since this process has taken time to develop, it stands to reason that it takes just as much time, if not more, to burn off. To accomplish long-term weight loss, you need to incorporate three necessary factors: a healthy lifestyle, a healthy exercise routine, and most importantly a healthy diet.

In fashion terms, a healthy diet accentuates the immune system. It does not mean starving yourself as you count calories (how boring!) or settling for bland foods that are void of spices and flavor. Instead, a healthy diet aligns your calorie intake with your lifestyle, while meeting the requirements of your physical and psychological needs. With this in mind, a healthy should be different from one person to the next as each person arguably has different calorie needs.

Almost every healthy diet will push anti-oxidant foods. The reason for this is that anti-oxidants are shown to reduce the effects of natural aging by keeping your skin tissue soft, hydrated, and pliant — youthful, in other words. Certain vitamins contain anti-oxidants, many of which are available through the consumption of fruit (hence that old “fruit and vegetable” diet of the 1980’s) and fiber, and consequently should be an essential “menu item” on your diet.

Even after Atkins’ no-carb diet has been proven more harmful than beneficial, a lot of people still believe that they need to eliminate their carb intake. This is untrue. Again, remember the lifestyle factor! What you should normally see happen is a reduction of carb intake, not full elimination. This means balancing your carb intake with your protein intake. Ideally, you should give preference to animal and plant protein, which can serve as a carb replacement or supplement. Now, as a caveat, this doesn’t mean going crazy with a high-protein diet. In fact, some protein like most red meats should be avoided altogether as a result of their high fat content (as a catch-22, leaner meats are an important component to your diet).

An often-overlooked area is dairy. These products need to be restricted because they have high fat content and show a direct link with obesity. However, low-calorie and/or non-fat yogurt and cottage cheese are not only great alternative, but should be incorporated into any healthy diet. (In fact, you might consider yogurt as a carb component and cottage cheese as a protein component — there you have 1 meal). Another alternative to dairy would be health shakes or, preferably, protein shakes where the protein count is rather high and the carb count low.

While we start regulated exercises along with a recommended diet plan we tend to lose the extra fluid level in our health system and thus our figure becomes toned. But during this period proper intake of water to the tune of eight to ten cups every day, is essential to retaining the necessary fluid level. Otherwise there the probability of muscle cramping increases and this does not prove convenient for an active work schedule.

As you have seen, a healthy diet is more than fasting. As cliche as it sounds, it really is a lifestyle change. But that lifestyle change, including the exercise and diet need not be bland and boring. Incorporate tasty foods that align with your individual needs. Invite friends or partners to exercise with you, or don’t even call it exercise — call it an after-dinner walk or jog, call it cleaning up the garage and you will see that joining a gym or equipping your own home-gym will become much easier and exciting.