You have to eat right and exercise to lose weight. Really. Those are the two secrets to real weight loss. The part you may not know is how to eat right and how to find exercise that you enjoy enough to stick to. There are 4 ingredients in foods that will sabotage your weight loss efforts. Knowing them will help you tremendously as you set goals to become a healthier you. The other good news? You can get exercise by having fun. You just need to figure out what you enjoy doing that will get you moving.

The 3 ingredients that will slow your weight loss progress are, high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, and artificial sweeteners. Avoiding these three ingredients will allow your body to recognize when it is satisfied and function in a more efficient and healthy way.

High-fructose corn syrup is so widely used in processed foods today that it takes extra efforts to avoid it. Most sodas, ketchup, breads and even yogurts are sweetened with it. It is cheap to manufacture and is able to extend the shelf life of the foods it is mixed with.

However, many nutritionalists are blaming HFCS for our country’s overweight epidemic. This is because of the way the body metabolizes HFCS. In short, every cell in our bodies is able to process glucose sugar but only the liver is able to process fructose. This stresses the liver. At the same time, the hormones that regulate the metabolism are affected. This perfect storm results in our bodies processing HFCS into fat at a much higher rate than it does other types of sugar. On top of that, HFCS does not trigger the body’s natural appetite suppressing hormones, leaving us to remain hungry and consume more foods.

Partially hydrogenated oils are trans fats. These are the fats that are now becoming widely known to cause obesity and heart disease. They were originally created to avoid the health problems of saturated fats; unfortunately, they are now known to be even worse and should be strictly avoided.

Artificial sweeteners are also suspect. The new theory is that when the body consumes sweet foods, it prepares for a high calorie boost. When the calories do not materialize, the body actually craves them. That can of soda makes you want a brownie to go with it. The artificial sugars also fail to trigger the body’s natural response to sweet foods, boosting the metabolism to better burn off the extra calories. That diet soda really may be hindering your weight loss instead of helping it.

Eating healthier, however, is only half of the battle. In order to lose weight, you simply must burn more calories than you consume. That doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym and sling weights around. You can, of course, but you don’t have to. What you do need to do is get moving.

Any sustained physical activity that raises your heart rate to the range and keeps it there for 20 minutes triggers the body to boost fat burning. You can go for a brisk walk or a bicycle ride, you can join a dance class or use an exercise video, or you can play a game of basketball, soccer, tennis or the like. Adjustable basketball hoops can be quickly and easily installed, a game of soccer can be played with trees as the goals, a bicycle friendly road can provide a pleasant outing, a dance class can help you meet new friends that will help keep you motivated. Just be sure that your activity keeps you moving for at least 20 minutes, such as a game on the local outdoor basketball hoop. (Longer is even better.) A friendly game of baseball just won’t do the trick.

Finding activities that you enjoy and friends that expect you to join them in that activity will help keep you moving. Enlighten your friends to the three ingredients to avoid and you can work together to find healthier food choices as well.