Many times when you are searching for weight loss tips online, you come across a lot of dietary fads. 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 looked for topics on the entire internet. They are extremely popular for one particular reason - they bring you almost instant results in dropping a few pounds. They actually do work to get some weight off right away, within a week for many of them. 



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



This sort of weightloss 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 decelerates and stops burning calories.



That is why you gain the weight back.



Listed here are a couple of things that you can do to help achieve a more permanent weight reduction.



Stop eating so much - but don't 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 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 that your body gets accustomed to running on the calories it already has stored away.



Gradual weight loss with a diet change that is not a crash kind of diet is much 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 rest of your life?



Another essential 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 stuff yourself. A reward is supposed to be a nice thing you do for yourself, not something which is practically 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 trip to the local mall with no kids or anything else you enjoy. And if you prefer, 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 wind up penalizing yourself all over again.



Slimming down does not have to be rough 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 cut your calories gradually and give yourself a small reward when you succeed and you will be on the right path to lasting weight loss.