Achieving success with weight loss for a more beautiful and healthy looking body has become a major focus of people of all ages. People are beginning to realize the importance of obtaining an appropriate weight to help them live longer and achieve optimal health.
If you are going to be successful with weight loss you need to develop a strategy that you are willing to follow to achieve your weight loss goals. A strategy that allows you to stay motivated to follow an exercise and diet plan that works and still have time to enjoy your family and friends.
You will need to plan your meals in advance to help you maintain a healthy approach to losing weight. You can prepare your own foods or consume prepackaged foods.
Make losing that first pound your primary goal. Once you lose that first pound then continued weight loss is simply a matter of duplicating your success.
The following tips will help you achieve healthy, stress free weight loss:
1. Lose One Pound- understand what it takes to lose one pound of body weight. If you decrease your calorie intake 500 per day, you will lose one pound per week. Performing some form of exercise that burns 250 calories per day will then only require that you decrease your calorie intake 250 calories per day to lose one pound per week.
2. Food Diary- keep a diary, journal, or write in a notebook all of the foods you consume. This will allow you to determine how many calories you are consuming daily. Monitoring your calories will make it easier to see where adjustments can be made in your diet to help optimize your weight loss. You will also be able to see if you are consuming healthy calories or foods poor in nutritional value.
Also, making notes in your diary about how you are feeling and what you are doing at different times of the day. Day to day activities, relationships, and unexpected events can all be factors that affect your dieting and weight loss success.
3. Weight Loss Goals- you should have long and short term weight loss goals. Your long term goals are achieved by the achievement of many short term goals. If you are wanting to lose 10 pounds your first short term goal should be to lose 1 pound per week.
If walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes is part of your exercise strategy, but you are not able to walk for that length of time make your short term goal to walk 5 minutes. Then make it another short term goal to increase your time 1 minute per week until you have achieved your long term goal of 30 minutes.
4. Plan Your Exercise- your calorie intake can only decrease so far before it becomes unhealthy. Planning to eat healthy, balanced meals and increasing the amount of exercise you do will help you achieve your weight loss goals. Make exercise part of your daily routine and try to make it fun. Change your routine periodically to keep it challenging and prevent exercise from getting boring. If you choose walking as an exercise do it with someone you love being around.
5. Reward Yourself- give yourself little rewards each time you achieve one of your weight loss goals. This will keep you motivated to achieve you long term goals. Reward yourself with whatever makes you feel good. It does not have to be related to money. An afternoon alone without children, getting your nails done, or going to a movie. Do whatever helps clear your mind and keeps you motivated to keep pushing forward.
6. Support Groups- make friends with others that are striving to achieve the same goals you are. Encourage and challenge each other to keep watching your diet and exercising.
7. Allow Yourself To Fail- it is important to discipline yourself to exercise daily and watch your diet; however, we all have bad days and will fail to follow our routine at some point. Instead of seeing this as a failure, look at it as a way of motivating yourself to get back up and attack the next day with a vengeance. Small failures may be just what you need to stay motivated to achieve success with your weight loss goals.
Follow the above tips and take time to plan if you want to be a success at weight loss and achieve optimal health.
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