Setting Your Weight Loss Goals
Most successful people find that setting goals is one of the most important parts of achieving those goals and this applies to almost everything in life including your ability to be successful with weight loss.
What you do have to realize however is these goals need to be realistic and you need to believe that you can achieve them or you will be starting off on the wrong foot and failure will be imminent.
To make your goal achievable you need to look at it over an extended period of time rather than believing that you can lose 15 pounds in a couple of weeks.
While this might be possible it is certainly a lot harder to achieve than to expect to lose that weight over the course of several months.
Keeping a diary helps a lot of people to achieve their goals as it helps to enforce the actions that are required to meet those goals on a daily basis.
In your diary you can record your body weight, the foods you’ve been eating, any supplements you have been taking and the results that you have been getting from these actions.
This helps you to readjust your goals and make changes to your fitness and nutrition as things change in the course of your weight loss program.
Within your major goal you should also have short-term goals and once again these need to be realistic to keep you motivated.
These short-term goals will change from time to time as during the course of your weight loss program you will probably find that progress accelerates after certain stages of your plan.
Sometimes you will also plateau for a while where your weight loss will tend to slow down and by having a diary you will be able to look at those areas that you might be able to change to get over that plateau and continue to progress.
How To Stay Motivated On A Weight Loss Program
It is not an easy task to get rid of weight. Getting rid of excess weight will improve your overall health but it involves the mind and body working together. How will you stay motivated until you reach your goal?
Losing weight is a journey. And, like other journeys, it can be fraught with potholes, hills and wrong turns. Each of these obstacles can derail you, but it doesn’t have to. Knowing what may lie ahead and also how to confront it gives you the tools to stay motivated.
What are plateaus? During workouts, your body can get used to the routine you have been doing for the past four or five weeks. The muscles cease to be challenged anymore and your weight loss may stall. Plateaus are common and are temporary as long as you handle them with the right frame of mind.
* Alter your workout routine. If you are doing 30 minutes on the treadmill, switch to another piece of aerobic equipment. Jogging instead of walking also adds a new component to your workout that your body wasn’t expecting.
* Add weight training. Once you begin to see a loss in weight, don’t forget to build muscle tissue to reshape your body. Muscle building also burns fat for an extra weight-loss boost.
The scale can also stall because of eating habits. When you start any workout, the hardest part is thought to be getting started with physical activity, but it may also be changing the way that you eat. Your workouts will initially cause a weight loss (mostly water weight) but when it stops no matter how hard you work out, it is time to examine the food.
* Substitute favorite foods with low calorie/low fat alternatives. The key to eating for life is to make slow changes that will stick. Instead of apple juice, eat an apple. It will fill you up and provide lots of fiber.
* Cut portion sizes. Eat one slice of pizza instead of two. Use a smaller plate to fool yourself into thinking you have more food on it than you do. Eating proper portions will reduce calories ingested so that your exercise program will burn more stored fat.
* Cook more often. Eating out is fast but it is also fattening. When you cook you can add all of the good ingredients you want to eat and spices to give your taste buds something to look forward to.
Sometimes, you are doing everything right and you are still at a standstill. Now, it’s time to examine your mental state. Stress at work or at home can cause your body to produce more of the hormone cortisol which helps your body to hold on to fat stores.
* Find a support group. Talk over your troubles with a friend, a weight-loss group or health professional. They can offer suggestions for dealing with your problems in a constructive manner.
* Take time out for you. Pamper yourself to reduce stress and increase confidence.
Are you on a weight loss journey? Some of these suggestions may help when dealing with common problems that can crush your motivation.
Organization As An Aid To Weight Loss
A disorganized person is always rushing and a person who is always rushing will tend to eat too fast. A person who eats too fast will tend to eat too much and a person who eats too much will tend to get fat.
Mess causes distress and that in turn causes people to eat too much. Are you beginning to see the picture of how having a well organized life will help you to maintain a more balanced and healthy body?
Many people resort to eating in the effort to handle stress and being disorganized is a surefire way of increasing levels of stress in your life.
Being organized will also ensure that you have the right food in your house and you don’t have to resort to low quality foods that you keep as a backup for those times when you run out of the nutritious food that you should be eating.
Being organized will also help you to eat at regular times throughout the day and by being regular with your eating it will help you to maintain more consistent blood sugar levels that will reduce the chance of you getting into low blood sugar and over eating to compensate.
By planning ahead with your meals you can plan to have better meals and you won’t need to resort to fast foods because you haven’t got any other food organized by the time you’re ready to eat.
By being organized and having a shopping list where you have determined in advance the right foods for your diet you will be less likely to buy food that you shouldn’t be buying when you go to the supermarket.
Organization is one of the keys to success in following any weight loss program. It also helps to reduce the amount of time that you have to think about food and think about losing weight and when that doesn’t become such a big focus in your life you are more likely to succeed.
The Flat Belly Diet by Liz Vaccariello & Cynthia Sass
October 26, 2009 by admin
Filed under Product Reviews
Belly fat is common amongst developed nations due to a lack of exercise and too much fat in our everyday diets. It can lead to serious health problems, from heart disease and diabetes, to increased risk of certain cancers. As you get older, belly fat is especially stubborn and very difficult to get rid of.
Liz Vaccariello, the vice president and editor-in-chief of the well-known Prevention magazine, and Cynthia Sass, Prevention’s nutrition director, co-wrote The Flat Belly Diet. This book provides a weight loss plan with step-by-step, day-to-day and meal-by-meal instructions to achieve weight loss and a flatter belly.
In their book they give information on MUFAs (Mono Unsaturated Fatty Acids) and their amazing ability to help you lose weight, especially around the belly section. They also provide you with a four day anti-bloating jump-start and describe the connection between mind and body.
Also included is a four-week easy to make recipe plan, a plan journey and a flat belly workout. Following their plan will not only leave you weighing less, but will also boost your energy levels. You will feel great after eating their nutritious and satisfying meals and able to avoid cravings.
If you are having trouble losing some belly fat then this book is well worth a look.
Gordon.
My Sunday Morning Walk (But Not This Week!)
A very good morning to everyone, I hope your Sunday has got off to a great start. We are having to change our plans, I’m afraid, or rather the weather has changed them for us.
Sunday morning usually means a long walk for us and Max, our springer spaniel. But not today, as wet and windy doesn’t really describe how wild it is outside at the moment. Not that it would stop Max, he would go out in any weather. No, it’s us oldies who want to stay in the warm. Our clocks were moved back an hour last night, signalling the end of summer time, and the weather seems to know this, too.
Walking has become popular again as a means of exercise and an aid to weight loss. Most people can enjoy walking as it is a low impact exercise that has a number of health benefits.
Some Of The Benefits Of Walking
- Manage your weight
- Lower your blood pressure
- Improve your mood
- Reduces your risk to, or manages type 2 diabetes
- Helps your good and bad cholesterol to maintain a good balance
- Stay fit and strong
Some Tips To Avoid Injury
Wear comfortable clothing and walking shoes or boots. Try and layer your clothing so that you start out well wrapped up but as your walk gets more energetic you can remove items so you keep at a comfortable temperature.
Spend a few minutes walking slowly or walking on the spot until you warm up.
Once you are warm, do some muscle stretches before you set off.
When you are coming to the end of your walk, let the intensity drop and walk slowly for the final 5-10 minutes. This helps to reduce the stress on your heart and muscles.
And finally, repeat your stretches.
Walking will help you to get fit and if done on a regular basis will aid weight loss as well. But if you haven’t walked any distance in a while, please don’t dive right in. Start off gently and build your pace and distance steadily, and you will soon be seeing the benefits, and the joys, of walking.
Unfortunately, I will not be walking anywhere today. Sit, Max.
Gordon.
