If diets worked, we'd all be skinny. The secret to losing weight is behavior management. The human body is an efficient machine when it is fueled properly. When improperly fueled it stores the excess as fat. The problem isn't how to lose weight. The problem is effective management of the human lifestyle - nutrition, exercise, and stress management. When this is accomplished, weight loss follows.
Excess weight is easy enough to lose. Pick a diet - any diet. They all work if you follow them, but then what? The key to successful weight loss is doing what it takes to keeep the weight off permanently.
The Secrets to Successful Weight loss:
1. Implement a gradual change in eating habits. Merely by eliminating sugar, flour, potato, and rice products (anything white) most people lose weight automatically.
2. Eat small meals several times a day instead of a large noon and/or evening meal. Have a healthy snack in between breafast and lunch, another in between lunch and dinner. That counts as five meals, but make them small. They are not banquets. Avoid seconds of anything. Have your last meal of the day no later than 7:00 p.m. and avoid bedtime or midnight snacks.
3. Inlist support. Just as AA works for Alcholic cravings, having a support person works for those fighting food cravings. It takes a lifetime to develop eating habits. Changing them is a slow process. It works well to have support for those times the cravings seem to be taking over.
4. Keep in mind that it is easier to lose five pounds than it is to lose fifty. Once you are at your desired weight, manage it accordingly. Variation of a pound or two can happen from day to day, but when the scales begin creeping up, take note and change behavior. Lose a little to avoid having to lose a lot.
5. Focus on what you are getting, healthy and fit. Avoid thinking of losing weight as "deprivation." This is defeatest thinking, and it will defeat you. Replace negative self-talk that focuses on what you have to give up with self-talk that promotes what you get.
6. Consider your body management plan to be your lifestyle, your nutrition and fitness plan rather than a diet. This sets a positive mental tone that encourages positive action.
7. Recognize that managing weight is a process, part of your lifestyle, like hygiene. Consider it so. Daily you shower, brush your teeth, and manage the fuel intake and energy consumption of your body. You are the manager of the corporation named, Your Body. Like a well-managed business, a well-managed body pays dividends to the CEO.
8. Educate yourself regarding appropriate fuel for the machine called, Your Body. Learn which foods are good for it and which are not. Still avoiding the concept of "diet" and deprivation. Think in terms of how to keep the machine functioning, not what it craves.
9. Become the "parent" to your body. It will demand that you indulge it. It will rebel when it doesn't get what it wants. Like a wise parent, it is important for you to consider the long-range benefits of wisely parenting it without depriving or abusing it. Train it wisely. Nurture it. Protect it. It will reward you with health and longevity.
10. Accept that exercise is good for you. Develop habits that require you to burn calories. Park in the back of the parking lot, not at the door of the store. Take the stairs, not the elevator. Get off the phone, away from the computer and the TV and walk the block daily.
Weight loss is accomplished only by changing behavior. It is a well-established fact that the body does not make fat our of air, even though it seems that way to those struggling with diets. Some overweight people have bona-fide health issues that contribute to the body's inability to process fats and sugars appropiately as energy sources, instead storing them away in the form of fat. For most, however, excessive weight is the result of excess in life. The secret to weight loss for most people is no secret. It is as simple as positive behavioral change.