Body fat is not all bad. It is only when we have excess body fat that we should be concerned. Not only does excess body fat distorts the outer appearance of a physical body, for example, at the belly or on thighs and legs, but it can adversely affect the health of a person.

When you are young and fit, and up and running, excess fat might not be too much of a problem to you. But for many, whether they are young or old, attempts to keep their weight down has been a difficult task.

Many desiring to lose weight would try to go on diet. Low calorie dieting plans might be the starting point. However, after starting off on these plans, some just don't seem to lose weight by using these low calorie dieting plans. Why is this so?

When you go on diet with low calories, you will be slowing down your body's fat burning engine!

This ruins your chances of losing weight because at best, low calorie diets will allow you to lose a few pounds of weight at the initial stage but then all weight loss will stop thereafter as you hit a dieting plateau, with your body's fat burning engine slowed down.

Some may consider fat loss supplements. The fact is there are over 300 different weight loss products ranging from thermogenics to carb blockers, not including all the low carb bars and shakes, and it is sometimes a bewildering exercise to learn about each individual fat loss supplement and to pick one or a combination to try.

There must be some consideration to your health and other medical condition if you intend to try fat loss supplements. Some people don't tolerate ephedra, used in fat loss supplements, or may have a heart condition or other medical condition. It is important that the supplements do not have any contra-indications to current medical treatment or drugs the person is already taking. In the first place, it is important to determine whether the person is a suitable candidate to lose weight by supplements with his or her medical condition.

The basic idea in using supplements is that if supplements can raise your metabolism even a little bit, you will be able to burn more calories each day, even while resting.

Another way to lose body fat is to exercise. Exercising is seen as a way to lose body fat and to create a healthy way of living.

Burning the fat is just one way to fat loss. Exercises such as sit-ups, crunches, leg-hip raises, leg raises and hip adduction will exercise the muscles under the fat. This may be taken a step further by indulging in weight training which will also help in building the muscle instead of feeding the fat.

The benefits of exercise are immense. Exercise elevates your metabolism while cutting down the calories. As you increase the frequency of your exercises and the intensity of your exercises, the net effect is that your metabolism rate can be elevated and thereby prevent fat accumulation.

Research has shown that there is a general improvement in fat loss when you follow an optimum exercise duration. It has been reported that just by cutting your usual 30 minute cardio session into two 15 minute sessions per day, your benefits can nearly double, with almost double the amount of calories being utilized.

There is a saying that you are what you eat daily. An adjustment in what we eat can assist in fat loss and maintain a preferred body weight.

That is why fiber, lots of fiber, can help us feel full sooner and stays in our stomach longer. This slows down our rate of digestion, so that we feel full longer and has less craving to indulge in another round of eating anytime sooner.

For example, a single serving of whole grain bread which has more fiber can be more filling than two servings of white bread which has its fibre and nutrients stripped away and which can turn into blood sugar or glucose fast enough to spike up our insulin level. What happens then is that the insulin spike is followed by a drop in the insulin level. The result is that we feel hungry, tired and lethargic and just want to eat more.

The simple fact is that whatever we eat and don't burn up eventually gets turned into fat anyway.

So, in the quest of burning the fat and feeding the muscle, a combination of techniques can assist us. There are programs devised by weight loss professionals which have assisted countless people to maintain some dieting discipline and to keep their fat off, and their weight down, and to have a healthier physique and shapely body.