More often than not when you're searching for weight loss information online, you come across a lot of fad diets. These are the diets which tell you how much excess weight you can lose by eating only cabbage soup, or maple syrup and lemonade or some other noxious kind of food that nobody who really likes themselves would ever eat.



As a matter of fact these diets are among the most highly searched for topics on the entire web. They are very popular for one particular reason - they bring you almost instant results in dropping a couple of pounds. They actually do work to get a few pounds off right away, within a week for many of them. 



But then, guess what happens? The weight all comes back with a vengeance and sometimes those pounds you lost bring their buddies back to stay with you and you wind up weighing even more than you did before you began the crash diet.



This sort of weightloss program does not keep you healthy and doesn't result in keeping the weight off forever. You wind up bouncing up and down in weight and your entire metabolism suffers. And when your metabolism suffers it always does so in the same way - it decelerates and puts a stop to burning calories.



That is why you will get the weight back.



Listed here are a couple of things that you can do to help obtain a more long lasting weight reduction.



Stop eating so much - but do not stop all at once



People like to penalize themselves for dietary transgressions. But punishing does not help much. If you simply stop feeding the body, it will not know what to do and just slows down your metabolism to a crawl. Much better if you reduce your calorie consumption gradually. Start eating less a bit at a time, so that your body gets used to running on the calories it already has stored away.



Gradual weight loss with a diet change that is not a crash type of diet is a lot more effective for many more people than any of those fad diets. Do you really want to be eating cabbage soup three times a day for the remainder of your life?



Another important tip is very simple, and works very effectively.



Give yourself a reward for losing weight.



This does not mean that when you lose a pound that you hop in the car and run right over to Cheesecake Factory and gorge yourself. A reward should really be a nice thing you do for yourself, not something that is virtually guaranteed to make you feel bad all over again. That's not the thing you need.



Instead you can give yourself a pleasant treat like a spa day, or a visit to the mall with no kids or anything else you enjoy. And if you like, you can have a food treat. In a normal sized portion. A square of chocolate - not a 5 pound box. Split a piece of cheesecake with your friend - do not order two for yourself.



Rewards are fantastic things to do for yourself. Just don't overdo the reward system or you will turn out punishing yourself all over again.



Slimming down does not have to be hard or painful. But you do have to make a couple of adjustments in how you think and behave. Forget about punishing yourself, that didn't work before and it won't work now. Instead reduce your calories gradually and give yourself a small reward when you succeed and you will be on the right path to lasting weight loss.