Many times when you are searching for weight loss information online, you come across a bunch 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 searched 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 do work to get some weight off right away, within a week for many of them. 



But then, guess what happens? The extra weight all comes back 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 started the crash diet.



This sort of fat reduction plan does not keep you healthy and does not result in keeping the weight off once and for all. 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 slows down and puts a stop to burning calories.



This is why you will get the weight back.



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



Stop eating so much - but don't 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 just slows down your metabolism to a crawl. Much better if you cut your calorie consumption gradually. Start eating less a little bit at a time, so your body gets accustomed to running on the calories it already has stashed 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 important tip is very simple, and works very effectively.



Give yourself a reward for losing weight.



This doesn't 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 is supposed to be a nice thing you do for yourself, not something that is practically certain 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 trip to the shopping center without the 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 - 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.



Shedding pounds does not have to be tough 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 have great results and you will be on the right path to lasting weight loss.