Are you one of those who believe in starving yourself in order to lose weight? Well, here's a bit of reality check: Living on water and crackers WILL NOT make you thinner. Proper and healthy weight loss does not happen instantly. It takes a bit of time and a lot of patience for you to see significant results from the right weight loss efforts.

The reason why starving yourself or cutting down on your food intake does not work long-term is that the human body has an unlimited ability to adapt. This means that in time, your metabolic rate will adjust itself to match the less amount of food that you consume. What's worse is that it takes longer for your metabolism to match an increase in food intake than it does to adjust to less food consumption. So if you eat more than usual, you end up gaining even more weight than you lost.

A more effective way to lose weight is to eat more of the foods that work best for weight loss and less of those that wreak havoc with your weight. Protein-rich food is among the best for healthy dieters because it naturally boosts your metabolism, and its calories are converted into energy rather than fat. The best examples of this food type are spinach, lentils, unsalted nuts and black-eyed peas.

Also an integral part of losing weight effectively is increasing your water intake. We usually mistake thirst for hunger pangs, so drinking a lot of water is definitely the safest and most natural way to suppress one's appetite. Water is also more difficult to burn, such that it causes an increase in your metabolic rate as well.