You answered:

"I have always been a little heavier than I would like to be."

"Everyone in my family tends to be heavy."

Here's what you can do to lose weight:

The overweight family

Since everyone in your family tends to be overweight you may have a body that likes to gain weight.

So it was natural to want to store up all the fat you could. Then you wouldn't starve later. You could live off the stored fat.

Well, food isn't scarce now. But your body doesn't know that. And apparently it is good at storing fat.

It might be in your genes

This is especially true if a lot of people in your family are overweight. Your genes are probably set for weight gain.

So, it might be harder for you to lose weight than it is for some people. But it isn't impossible.

Does it mean that you have to work a little harder? Yes.

But you are just a little overweight, so that helps.

Adjust your diet

If you want to take the weight off you need to use your diet to your advantage.

This means more protein. And it means protein -- at least a little -- at every meal.

Protein speeds up your metabolism. No other food does this.

And get more fiber in your diet. These are the green, purple, red, and yellow vegetables. The beans, the peppers, celery. Fill up on that stuff. You can eat all you want.

Cardio is your friend

You also need to get some cardio exercise.

Any exercise is good for you. Resistance training -- like weight training, pushups, etc. -- will keep you strong and will increase your metabolism.

But you'll tend to gain weight if you do resistance training.

It's really the cardio you need.

If you are doing cardio and you aren't losing weight then it just means one of two things:

It is either not enough volume -- meaning you need to exercise longer each day or more times each week.

Or it means that the cardio intensity is not high enough. This second one is the most likely.

You can't just plod along on the treadmill or wander around at the mall and expect to get anywhere. Not enough intensity.

Do this and you can take off those extra pounds.

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