There are some definite do’s and don’ts when it comes to achieving fast and healthy weight loss. These are true, and should be taken seriously, by anyone trying to lose weight at any age, but I'm writing this article especially for those of you who are over 50. The aging process does not have to involve sickness or weight-gain. With the right kind of healthy diet, especially if the diet program accounts for maintaining a proper pH-balance within the body, you can regain your health as well as your figure. As most people age, their supply of pH buffers becomes depleted, and for the sake of multiple-disease prevention it is crucial to 1) give yourself a daily/hourly supply of alkaline buffers, and 2) try to avoid things that deplete this supply if you can. 

Any kind of weight loss tends to use up the supply of alkaline buffers, but it really isn't healthy to be overweight. So, it's a serious dilemma sometimes: "What to do?" and "What to not do?" That's why I put so much emphasis on pH-balancing and drinking ionized water while dieting.

This is a list of the exact right do's and don'ts of healthy weight loss to help you.

Do’s

• Deliberately choose what you eat daily. If you’re going to diet, do it right. Dieting should be effective, so you can lose weight fast and not gain it back. You don't want to keep on dieting for years! Learn which foods are the healthiest, and eat a variety of them. Examples: grass-fed beef & dairy, organic vegetables, wild-caught fish, and only the best fats. 
• Eat the right amount and kind of carbohydrates for your body. Your body needs a daily supply and good variety of vegetables. Keep a tight limit on the carbs though. If you over-eat carbs, it will stimulate an insulin reaction, fat storage, and make you hungry. If you under-eat carbs, your body has other energy sources it can use. 
• Drink enough water throughout the day. Water is the transportation system for wastes to be removed from the body. It’s also the universal solvent, meaning that when you’re removing toxins from the body they will dissolve temporarily in water. Water, especially alkaline ionized water, will act as a temporary neutralizer until the toxins are removed. Frequently toxins are stored in your fat cells, so when you burn fat these get released. Alkaline ionized water will help to neutralize toxins (which are mostly acidic) and balance your body’s pH. Read more about the benefits of ionized water.
• You want to burn fat when losing weight, but fat is acidic. So, that comes back to one of the big "Do's" (to drink ionized water throughout the day) and the reason why alkaline ionized water is so important to anyone trying to lose weight. 
• Eat the right amount of proteins for your body. Proteins are needed to rebuild and repair all of the cells and tissues in your body. Certain meats are better than others, and when you're trying to lose weight it's important to chose the meats or other proteins that are BEST. Make every calorie count for quality. This will help you succeed in your weight loss goals more quickly and ultimately be healthier for you. Fish, such as wild-caught Alaskan cod or salmon are just about the BEST protein source that I know of. When I'm trying to lose weight I will try to eat high quality fish such as this every day. Eggs are a pretty good source too, and I will usually have a few servings of eggs per week. Processed meats are more acidic and taxing on the body, and so I usually won't eat them. Cheese and milk products are okay if they come from grass-fed cows only.  
• Get enough proteins, but don’t over-eat them. Excess proteins will turn into fat (or be burned as energy if your diet is low in carbs). Burning protein as energy can cause an extremely acidic condition in the body.
• Eat the right amount of good fats for your body. The two essential fats, which your body can’t produce, are Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids. Make sure you consume these daily, because without them your brain, nerves, and cell membranes won’t be healthy. We can usually get enough Omega 6 without much effort, but Omega 3 can be tricky. It's best to try to balance these two Omega vitamins about 1:1 (i.e., equal amounts). A good source of Omega 3 oil is in eggs and in fatty fish, such as Alaskan cod or salmon. I like wild-caught fish better than farmed fish, because of the fewer toxins in the fat. It's a cleaner fat. The cleaner the fats, the better for weight-loss and health. When I eat beef, I prefer grass-fed beef for this same reason. Fats are also needed for the transport of vitamins A, D, E and K into and out of our cells. Some of our hormone production requires fat as well. I can tell if I'm eating enough fat, because my skin will be softer, sleep will be sounder, nerves will be calmer, and appetite will be less. I usually supplement my daily diet with about 3 grams of wild-caught cod-liver oil.
• Get enough fiber throughout the day. Fiber is necessary for healthy digestion. Whole vegetables and other plant-based-foods are the best sources of fiber. Fiber not only gives bulk to your stools, but even more importantly it becomes food for your good-bacteria in the gut.
• Get exercise every day. Exercise makes the various body systems work better. Your food digests faster; your wastes are eliminated faster; your lungs work better to bring more oxygen to your cells; your muscles work better; your bone density improves; your brain functions better; you lose weight faster; and your metabolism improves (making it easier to lose weight). What I do (because I am usually very limited in time) is I use the body exercise ropes for about 10 minutes daily. I have a hook set up in the wall behind my bed, so I save time and add comfort to the process.
• Consume the right amount of vitamins and minerals for your body. You should get most of what you need from foods. If you consume the right amounts of each vitamin and mineral it will very likely make your body stronger and healthier. It’s much better to get your vitamins and minerals from whole foods if you can. They are not only more bio-available that way, but they come to your cells in the right proportions to each other, and so are balanced. Supplements are sometimes necessary, but don’t blindly consume supplements, because that could cause an off-balance within the body, making you deficient in some other vitamin or mineral. 
• Eat a good amount and variety of vegetables daily. Vegetables are normally very high in nutrients and fairly low in calories. They have good fiber, and they’re also alkalizing. While trying to lose weight, you should try to eat the maximum of veggies that you can, so as to make your body the healthiest it can be. I will usually try to eat about 2 cups of organic spring mix with spinach and then another 2 cups of stir-fried or steamed veggies. The lower-calorie veggies are best when dieting. They are usually very alkalizing. The importance of eating alkalizing foods is that while your body is burning fat on a routine basis it will need alkaline buffers to allow the fats (which are acidic) to be safely removed.
• Take some probiotics. The way I do this is to cut up some fresh vegetables and ferment them. This is easy to do and can be looked up online for a variety of techniques. The way I like to do it is take a 16 oz. mason jar; fill it with fresh-cut veggies; add a tablespoon of sea salt and fill with alkaline ionized water. Then I use a plastic lid to close it, and store in a dark cupboard. Every day I'll take about a half cup of the veggies out to eat. I usually have a few jars going, so I don't run out. I've never experienced them to go bad or rot in any way. They just taste a little like a pickle. It's a great way to supply your body with probiotics in a natural and cost-effective way.
• Know an estimate of how many calories your body burns daily.
• Reduce your calorie intake by 500 to 1000 calories per day lower than the amount you burn, while still consuming all your essential nutrients. Notice I said "while still consuming all of your essential nutrients". This is crucial. Your body needs a certain amount of carbs, fats, proteins, etc., not every meal, but every day. Some weight-loss programs tell you to cut carbs or not count calories. These are the programs that suggest way too many proteins and too few complex carbs. While that may work for a while, it isn't going to take you to your weight goals in a healthy-enough way. You could end up burning proteins and fats to such an excess that it causes your body to get overly and dangerously acidic. Getting the right amount of each kind of nutrient is completely doable even with up to a 1000-calories-per-day deficit. You just need to know the right foods to eat. My diet program brings all of that to light. For most people it’s safe and even healthy to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week as long as you are consuming all of the nutrients your body needs. Losing more than this may happen naturally with people who are severely overweight at first, but at a certain point losing 1 to 2 pounds per week is what you should expect. Burning too much fat per week could cause your body to become overly acidic, ill or malnourished. None of these conditions will help you in the long run, because I'm sure that in addition to losing weight you want to become healthier and more attractive.
• Weigh yourself daily every morning before you eat or drink. Don’t pay attention to people who say not to do this. Weighing yourself may not be 100% accurate, but it is a good way to see that you are trending over time in the right direction. If you always weigh yourself first thing in the morning, before you’ve eaten, then your results will show a fairly accurate picture of your progress.
• Get my Diet Program, because it will help you to calculate all of your body's needs (as described above) more easily, so you don't really have to think about all of this very much.

Don’ts

• Don’t eat fast foods very often. Fast foods are very calorie dense, and they won’t help you reach your weight loss goals very easily.
• Don’t over-eat carbs. Over-eating carbohydrates causes an insulin reaction, which then makes you hungry, tired and triggers you to store fat.
• Don’t over-eat proteins. Eating too many more protein than you need in a day triggers fat-storage and creates an acidic condition in the body.
• Don’t eat junk fats To keep yourself from over-eating fats, avoid the junk fats, such as saturated fats and poly-unsaturated fats, which are also known as trans-fats. Junk fats have been proven to be unhealthy.
• Don’t eliminate important food groups from your daily diet This will cause malnourishment and make it harder for you to lose weight in the future.
• Don't eat processed, refined carbohydrates and sugars. Refined carbs and sugars will trigger insulin fat-storage reactions. They are calorie dense and void of good nourishment, so will thwart your efforts to lose weight fast in a healthy way.
• Don’t suffer ever. If while you’re dieting you have any sense that you’re suffering, you are probably not getting the proper nourishment your body needs. Any time this happens, take a look at what’s happening and, using the principles in this article, correct the situation.
• Don’t starve ever. Starving is just another way of saying you’re not getting the proper nutrition your body needs. You should never have a reason to starve, and you should be able to lose weight naturally in a healthy way right on down to the last pound you want to lose. 
• Don’t allow yourself to get a brain fog. If you’re getting a brain fog you are either malnourished or dehydrated. Your body may stubbornly refuse to allow you to lose any weight until you correct the situation. If ever while dieting your brain feels foggy, review the principles of this post and correct the situation in a hurry.
• Don’t worry if you go off your diet periodically – just don’t do it too often. It’s actually not a bad thing to “cheat” a little here and there while dieting. It tends to remind your body that all is well and there are no deficiencies. The only problem happens when you do it too often, which would of course keep you from ever achieving your weight loss goals.
• Don’t eat foods that are too tempting to overeat. I avoid things that I like too much, because those are the foods that could tempt me off of my daily calorie goals. What I usually do to solve the “tempting foods” dilemma is just resign myself to use will-power or eliminate them from my meal plan altogether.