Being at an unhealthy weight is just that, incredibly unhealthy. In fact, being obese has actually become the second leading cause of preventable death here in the United States (second only behind smoking alone). Unfortunately, the majority of our population is overweight or obese, up to two thirds of it with one third of the entire adult population considered to be clinically obese, if not morbidly obese or even super morbidly obese.

There are many reasons that this has become such a widespread concern throughout the country. For one, many people are not exercising to the extent that they should be, with only about one third of all adults here in the United States getting the recommended weekly amount of exercise (and, not coincidentally, only about one third of all adults currently being considered to be at a healthy weight). In addition to this, fast food restaurants have become more prevalent and prominent than ever before, with up to two times the amount of them that there were less than fifty years ago in the 1970s.

And many people are very conscious and aware of the fact that they really need to lose some weight in order to improve their health. In fact, more than half of all adults in this country (around fifty four percent of them, to be more exact) are currently in the process of trying to lose weight, as losing just five percent (and up to ten percent) of your total body weight can lower your risk of developing various cardiac complications like cardiovascular disease by a considerable amount.

But weight loss is certainly not always easy and many people who are on a weight loss journey find that they struggle and even fall back into old habits when it comes to eating and exercise. Support is essential to having a good and successful weight loss experience, as up to seventy five percent of people say and, as eighty percent of all people who are looking to lose weight are trying to do it on their own, there is really no surprise that fifty percent of people who have failed at weight loss say that it was because they didn’t have enough self discipline to succeed.

Fortunately, there are certainly steps you can take to get the support on your weight loss journey that you so very much need. For instance, hiring a nutritionist is key, as a nutritionist can not only help you to develop meal plans that promote weight loss but plans that promote a healthy lifestyle as well. If you simply go on a diet and then stop it once the weight has been lost, your weight loss is all too likely to be very temporary. A nutritionist can help you to transform your relationship with food and change your eating habits entirely, something that is likely to make your weight loss far more permanent and long lasting.

And in addition to diet, you will likely to need to incorporate more physical fitness and exercise into your lifestyle if you are looking to have truly significant weight loss. Weight loss programs can help you to find workouts that work for you, something that will be absolutely essential, as workouts that are too intimidating or not at all enjoyable for you to do are unlikely to be part of a workout calendar or workout plan that you stick with in the long term.

Of course, regular exercise can look like a wide variety of things, all of which can have significant health benefits. For some people, working out is mostly just walking and perhaps some light aerobic exercises. Other people become very dedicated to weight lifting and focus on primarily that. Others partake in yoga and swimming (or even both) on a regular if not even daily basis. All of these exercise routines will not only help you in the realm of weight loss but can help to improve your health aside from simply losing weight as well, strengthening muscles, improving flexibility and overall health of your body.

Weight loss is important for many people, and it’s important to remember that it is a process.