Often times when you're trying to find weight loss information online, you come across a bunch of dietary fads. These are the diets which tell you how much bodyweight 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 try to eat.



As a matter of fact these diets are probably the most highly looked for topics on the entire internet. They are extremely popular for one particular reason - they bring you almost instant results in dropping a couple of pounds. They 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 returns with a vengeance and often those pounds you lost bring their friends back to stay with you and you wind up weighing even more than you did before you began the crash diet.



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



That is why you gain the weight back.



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



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



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



Steady weight loss with a diet change that is not a crash kind of diet is much more successful for many more people than those fad diets. Do you really want to be eating cabbage soup three times a day for the rest of your life?



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



Give yourself a reward for losing weight.



Now this doesn't mean that when you lose one 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 certain to make you feel bad all over again. That's not what 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 prefer, you can give yourself 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 - don't order two for yourself.



Rewards are excellent things to do for yourself. Just don't overdo the reward system or you will end up penalizing yourself all over again.



Losing weight does not have to be hard or painful. But you do have to make a couple of changes in how you think and behave. No more punishing yourself, that didn't work before and it won't work now. Instead reduce your calories slowly and give yourself a little reward when you have great results and you will be on the right track to lasting weight-loss.