The first thing you need to know if you want to lose fat is that you need to BURN fat. Burning fat is all about using up more calories than you take in. If you eat more calories than your body uses throughout the day, these additional calories will be stored as body fat.

To prevent a build up of body fat you need to either reduce your calorie intake or increase your daily activity levels - doing both will have the best effect on reducing body fat.

This simply means that the more fat you want to lose then the greater the amount of calories you have to burn off. To help you achieve and speed up your fat loss, here are few things that help.

Speed up your metabolism. Exercise speeds up metabolism. The more active your lifestyle the more likely you are to have a quick metabolism and lose weight.

Metabolism - What is it about?

Metabolism does control weight, this is true. What most people don't know is that they do in fact have the ability to control and adjust their metabolisms and thereby control their weight. Exercise does speed the metabolism up.

The more active your lifestyle the more likely you are to have a quick metabolism and lose weight. It may not be healthy for all of us to get into a highly active lifestyle all at once but it is possible to get there as quickly as you safely can as an individual.

Eat healthy balanced diet. Be sure to eat a variety of foods, including plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grain products. Also include low-fat dairy products, lean meats, poultry, fish, and legumes.

Drink lots of water. and go easy on the salt, sugar, alcohol, and saturated fat. A large part of the battle in fighting fat and a slow metabolic rate is the western world's view of food as entertainment.

In addition to taking on an active lifestyle you will need to stop looking at food consumption as a means of gratification. This is what causes us to be gluttons. Instead of stopping when our hunger is sated we continue on until we are stuffed to get more enjoyment out of it.

Get plenty of rest and sleep. Sleep and other lifestyle patterns can help or hinder the rate at which we metabolize foods. An active lifestyle should lead eventually to being able to exercise to exhaustion; this in turn should keep your metabolism quick and your fat content low. By extending oneself to ones limits you fully utilize the lungs, heart, and muscles and burn fat most efficiently.

Be strong mentally. Try not to be obsessed by your weight. Everyone has a bad day. Do not punish yourself. Try to lose any guilt feelings towards the mistakes you have done. Instead, just move on, start again and enjoy life as it comes.