Have you ever been in this place? You have gained weight, you hate the way you look, you feel dreadful, your clothes don't fit?and you feel like you want to panic! The obvious thing to do is to go on a diet. You feel you need to cut back and limit the amount of food you are eating as that is the reason why you have gained the weight right?

So you hear about the new super diet and you get all excited and decide to try that. But you feel hungry all the time on the diet so you pretty soon fall off the wagon? but then you discover to your dismay? you have put back on more weight than you lost.

This scenario is being repeated by millions of people all around the world at any one time. The problem is that diets don't make you slim?they make you fat, probably fatter than you were before you went on the diet.

You may say what is happening here?

Your body has a built in survival mechanism that protects it from starving. Any diet below 1800 calories a day is considered by the World Health Organization to be a starvation diet. The trouble is none of us know at what level of calorie reduction this ancient mechanism is activated.

Our genes are hard wired to slow our engine (metabolism) if food is scarce so we do not starve to death. Our body does not know there is a fridge full of food in the next room and that we only want to fit into our skinny jeans.

The longer you carry on restricting food below this 'set point' the worse it gets. Your body will also start going after precious muscle tissue to further lower the metabolic rate and preserve the fat stores. This is the exact opposite of what you were actually wanting isn't it? You seriously would not want to damage your health in this manner right?

If what you want is a strong, lean, firm, shapely and energetic body you need to only do a few simple things. The first one is your eating. Your need to get your head around the fact that you need to eat more and better, not less if you wish to coerce your body into losing the fat.

The trick is to eat 4-6 small meals every 2-3 hours. Start early and eat often. Each of these meals should contain around 20-30 grams of protein and the balance vegetables.

Focus entirely on what you 'should' be eating not what you 'shouldn't' be eating

This means you need to plan and prepare your meals the night before and take them with you wherever you go during the day. This way there is no chance you will get hungry and eat the wrong thing. Try this for 5 days each week increasing to 6 days when you get control. Always have the seventh day off and eat freely anything you fancy.

The other important component of this sure fire plan for weight loss is your exercise program. This should be made up of at least 60% strength training exercise to rebuild lost muscle tissue. This is where the fat is burned and it is imperative that you have as many of your natural fat burning furnaces working for you every minute of the day.

The balance of your exercise program should be interval training. These are short burst of all out activity alternated with slower recovery periods such as ten seconds of sprinting followed by 30 seconds to one minute walking repeated 6-12 times depending on your current fitness level. Start with one session each week increasing to two when you get fitter.

That's it, you have a perfect fat loss program and it will take some effort to bring these components together but the better you can do it the better your results will be. And the most important factor is that this concept is one you can live with for life unlike old fashioned, cruel and ineffective dieting. Give it your best shot and see how well it can work for you.