1..Keep a food and exercise journal and record everything that you eat and drink. At the end of the week, weigh and measure yourself and compare your results to the journals. See what worked and what didn't and make dietary adjustments accordingly. Reward yourself for each pound you take off and keep off, using a non-food item like jewelry.
2. Don't skip breakfast. Sure you've heard this health tidbit before, but do you know why it's so important? By the time your alarm goes off in the morning, you've been fasting for almost twelve hours (assuming you didn't give into a late night snack attack.) If you skip the first meal, breakfast and run out the door, you're more likely to give in to food temptations on the way to work. High fat egg/sausage combos are not the way to lose weight quick! Invest ten minutes into your daily health each morning, with a filling bowl of bran or high fiber cereal and fruit. Add yogurt on the side and a glass of juice. Skipping meals, is never a reliable or effective weight loss strategy. It will just lead you to binge at lunch or dinner time.
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4. Get your family and kids involved in your weight loss effort. Let them know what your goal is and how they can help you reach it. Remember, kids role model their parent's behavior, even when it comes to healthy, or unhealthy eating.
5. Get back into life. Often boredom or loneliness leads to eating. Get out with friends on nights when you have nothing else to do. Get back into the dating scene. Take your spouse out for a date. Just get back into your own life.
6.Begin each meal with a filling salad or soup. It will help fill the empty spaces so that you feel full long before you really are.There are many low calorie, delicious varieties available in your local store. Explore your options.
7. Exercise can be fun! Pick a new physical hobby; take up tennis; coach the little league team; train for a marathon. Take up kick boxxing or karate. Turn on your music and dance. Or, just go for a bike ride. There's more than one way to work up a good sweat and kick your metabolism into high gear. You can burn just as many calories cleaning your home as you can sweating it up in a gym. So, get up, get out and get moving. Pick a sport or activity that requires you to keep moving at a brisk pace for at least 20-40 minutes daily, seven days week.
8. Diet food doesn't have to taste bad. Go online or to your local library and search for recipes for dishes you can actually live with. Many heart healthy recipes can also be prepared in the crockpot, for career families who just don't have the time to spend in the kitchen.
9. Are you still eating high fat pizza and other snack foods, while dieting? If so, you may need to take a moment to reflect on your weight loss goal. It's often tempting to try to incorporate fatty foods and candy bars from our old lives into our new healthier lifestyle. Decide now once and for all, if you want to eat another piece of pizza or have a skinny waist line. You can't have it both ways.
10. If you don't lose weight one week, don't give up. Go over your records to see what you did or didn't do. Perhaps you've hit a plateau and need to adjust your caloric intake accordingly. Increasing physical activity or adding interval training can also help you over a weight loss plateau to your ultimate goal.
11.Forget the buffet style all you can eat meals. Serve yourself sensible portions, using a food scale. Take responsibility for what goes on your plate. You don't have to eat it, just because it's there.
12. Simply skipping meals as a way to cut calories from your total daily intake is not usually sufficient to lose weight. Doing so may actually help to increase, rather than decrease your weight. Once your body realizes that you are starving, it may go into a "survival" mode, forcing you to crave certain foods, or store excess fat and regain all the weight that you have lost. Instead opt for smaller more frequent meals consisting of healthy, selections you can actually enjoy. Incorporate more low calorie, high fiber fruits that will also serve the dual purpose of satisfying a sweet tooth.
13. Stop eating before you feel full. The simple fact is that it can take up to twenty full minutes for you brain to realize that your stomach is full. During that time it is possible to pack away thousands of unneeded calories. If you only guage how much you eat by how tight your pants feel, you will set yourself up for weight gain.
14. Learn to take pleasure in your meals, seeing them as a chance to reconnect with family and friends. Make mealtime an occasion, where you dress up and entertain. Meal time spent in front of the television is easily forgetten along with the food consumed. Meals spent in the company of loved ones gathered around a table often stays with you long after the food is gone.
15. Don't exclude any food group just because it's so called "forbidden". Any natural foods, fruits, meats or grains in the proper portions can fit into a sensible eating plan.
16. If weight loss doesn't happen overnight, don't sweat it. It may have taken years to develop your current unhealthy eating style. Don't expect things to change automatically. Simply adding healthy fruits to your diet will automatically replace more high fat snacks. The weight loss will also occur naturally over time. Even if you only lose two pounds a month (and keep it off) you'll still be twenty five pounds lighter by the end of the year!
17. Choose resteraunts that offer heart (and waist line) friendly meals. Keep all dressings on the side for occasional dipping and forgo "buttey" dishes that will quickly add on the pounds.
18. Get a weight loss buddy, a support system, someone you can call or talk to when temptations become to strong to resist. Join a support group. Don't go it alone.
19.) Don't be afraid to supplement your food with vitamins and minerals that fill nutritional gaps.
20.) Consider a gentle yet effective appetite suppressant, like Hoodia Gordinii (an all natural herbal supplement that causes no jittery feelings, and no known side effects) for times when you simply can't muster the will power to resist pies, cakes or cookies. This is real life and while it's ideal to believe that will power alone can take you through a world riddled with bakeries and fast food pit stops, it's also unreasonable. Things don't always go as planned. Appeitie suppressants can often help you safely navigate the treachorous dietary waters surrounding family holidays, Thanksgiving, etc. when it's simply not ok to let down your guard, and forget that you are trying to lose weight.
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