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Internet weight loss community, The Diet Channel has put out a Top 10 list of the most fundamental steps to losing weight and keeping it off. None of these tips will blow your mind as anything new and innovative, and there’s a reason for that: losing weight does not have to be rocket science. Nearly all successful and enduring weight loss programs incorporate one or more (often all) of the following primary factors in achieving and maintaining one’s ideal weight.

#1 is Cardiovascular Exercise (aka Aerobic Exercise) – The Diet Channel recommends a minimum of 5 sessions per week of 30 minutes in length each for there to be any significant affect on weight loss. Don’t have time for a solid 30 minutes stretch (nor the stamina)? No problem. 3 sessions of 10 minutes each in one day counts as one 30 minute session.

#2 is Weight Training – It points out that the more muscle tissue a person has, the more calories their body can burn. In other words: gain muscle, lose weight.

#3 is Keep a Food Diary – The Diet Channel recommends keeping a written record of what you eat, how much of it you eat, and when you eat it. In addition, it advises jotting down a few words about your level of hunger prior to eating and any thoughts or feelings you had afterwards.

#4 is Health First – The next tip is a change in belief, a shift in your state of mind, whereby you train your focus on staying healthy, not on getting thin. When you’re healthy, you achieve and maintain your natural and ideal state.

#5 is to Identify Your Triggers – The Diet Channel points out that we often eat (or overeat) in response to stress. Identify what form of stress prompts you to eat – boredom, loneliness, guilt, shame, anxiety – and you identify the path to slimming down.

#6 is Join a Group – Support groups are an essential element of a successful and lasting weight loss program,. You’re likely to find numerous options available to you in your area. Don’t cheat yourself of the benefit of support and encouragement from other human beings going through the same thing as you.

#7 is Portion Control – Oftentimes, a larger contributor to unwanted weight isn’t what you eat but how much of it you eat. Proper portion control can open up your world to a whole breadth of food choices you may previously have denied yourself.

#8 is One Day at a Time – Make realistic goals for yourself, and set realistic limits. Make it easier on yourself to succeed in your program of losing weight by avoiding placing unrealistic expectations on yourself. Don’t try to lose a massive amount of weight in a short period of time. Just don’t do it. Spread it out, slow and steady. That, they say, is what wins the race.

#9 is Eat Slower – Don’t race through your meals, advises The Diet Channel. Take your time to chew eat bite well. Not only does your food digest better, but when you eat slowly, you give your brain the extra time it requires to process how hungry, how satisfied and, ultimately, how full you are.

#10 is Smart Dieting – Yes, some foods are worth cutting out of your diet altogether. But choose the right foods. Lowering your fat intake is an easy and obvious choice as, The Diet Channel points out, fat contains twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrates and proteins.

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There are so many nutrients in food, so many ingredients, so many facts to know about what’s supposedly good for you and what’s supposedly not? Fortunately for all of us, the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) created a standardized format for the nutrition label that all processed and/or packaged consumer foods must affix to the outside of their product. So, no matter what the food, you can easily compare its value to you with that of any other food.

There are 3 fundamental areas to look for first on a nutrition label, and they’re all conveniently grouped together near the top, just under the title “Nutrition Facts”.

What is the Serving Size: standardized amount (like cups or tablespoons or pieces) followed by the equivalent amount in the metric system (such as grams). In general

How Many Servings Per Container: Most packaged foods contain multiple servings in a single package, making it easy to double, triple, quadruple, etc. the caloric intake from that of a single serving.

What are the Amount of Calories Per Serving: Typically, a single serving of around 40 calories is considered low-calorie, around 100 is considered moderate, and 400 is considered high-calorie.

Keeping tabs on the amount of servings you take in, based on the caloric intake per serving, is one great way to manage your weight. Another is to balance out eating high-calorie foods with some low-calorie foods earlier or later in the day.

The next step to using nutrition labels to help control your weight is to get the most nutrition out of the calories you take in.

Use the Percentage Daily Value to tell you how rich in each of the required nutrients the food really is. Daily values are based on a 2000-calorie diet. 5% or less of a nutrient’s %DV is low, 20% or more of a nutrient’s %DV is high. Limit your amount of Total Fat, Cholesterol, and Sodium. No daily requirement exists for Trans-Fats (the most dangerous kind), though their quantity per serving does appear on the label; so just be sure to keep them to an absolute minimum. Make sure to get plenty of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, and Iron.

Once you have gathered all the information you need, you simply ask yourself if a food choice is a wise choice for you in terms of both calories and nutrients, and whether it makes more sense for you as part of a meal or as a standalone snack. If the answers to these questions don’t satisfy you for a particular food, then the next question to ask yourself is whether you can find a suitable alternative. The answer that question is almost invariably, ‘Yes’.

The term “fat farm”, as also with the term “fat camp”, carries with it a decidedly pejorative tone, but does that mean the concept behind them is bad? Indisputably not, as it turns out. As long as the participant is attending of their own free will, the idea behind these weight loss resorts and camps is wonderful, and well worth considering for anyone having difficulty shedding those unwanted pounds.

The difference between a weight loss camp (or fat camp) and a weight loss resort (or fat farm) is simple: the former is for children and teens, the latter for adults. Both provide accommodations, fresh and delicious supervised meals, trained health and fitness professionals on staff (usually including a health clinic or at least a nurse on premises), and lots of supervised exercise.

Most weight loss camps for kids and teens include nutrition classes, supervised aerobic activities, and regular weigh-ins, and report an average weekly weight loss ranging from 2 to 6 pounds. Camp Shane one such weight loss camp, one of the more popular ones, and it emphasizes developing improved physical skills that campers can carry back home into their regular lives. Another such camp, Camp Empire Lake, eschews the whole idea of weigh-ins altogether, equating them with the defeatist attitudes like guilt and shame that get in the way of being happy in whatever body campers currently live in.

Weight loss resorts for adults add to this mix of elements more advanced and esoteric methods of weight loss, like yoga, acupuncture, and meditation. Many also employ medical professionals, nutritionists, life coaches, and physical therapists available for participants to consult. Some resorts even hold hands-on workshops in the kitchen, teaching attendees how to cook more healthy and balanced meals for themselves.

What all these short-term homes-away-from-home for young and old alike really provide, however, far more than a little structure and supervision to a person’s day, is the supportive and encouraging environment of a group of people all dedicated to the same goal of losing weight. In a world where overweight people are besieged by outside judgment, these weight loss resorts and camps provide an atmosphere free of judgment, where a person is valued for who they are and encouraged to be all the desire to be.

Taking a break from everyday society to be surrounded by other people with weight issues of their own is one of the safest ways imaginable to face your own weight issues head on.

MTV shed a bright light on this phenomenon with its acclaimed documentary feature Fat Camp: An MTV Docs Movie Presentation. The movie follows 5 teens as they attend Camp Pocono Trails in the Poconos, Pennsylvania. The show received such widespread attention and acclaim that it airs its second season (following 5 new teams and their experiences at the same camp) starting November, 2007.

As all captivating drama should, the MTV Fat Camp doc highlights the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat. But the real fat camps and fat farms aren’t about victory or defeat. Their about support and encouragement. About loving who you are so much that it finally starts to show in how you look.