How to Succeed in your New Year's Resolution to Lose Weight

Congratulations! You've made a new year's resolution that this will be the year you finally lose weight and get the body you've wanted for years. Maybe you're trying to get back down to a size you used to be, or maybe you've never been lean, and want to lose weight, get healthy and be happy. Either way, I have some tips to help you succeed this year and lose weight.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Start with your diet. Diet is 80% of how you look. A person who never works out and eats well will almost always look better than a person who works out all the time but eats terribly. Young people have metabolism on their side and can get away with eating poorly, but if you are trying to lose weight, you do not have that high speed metabolism working for you, so you need to consistently eat well to succeed.
2. Take out all the sweets, treats and processed foods you've been eating over the holidays. Throw out all of you cookies, pies, cakes, candy, chips and anything else you know is bad for you. Do not allow this food to be in your house. If it's there you will eat it. Don't lie to yourself.
3. Stop buying soda, packaged dinners, bagels, pop tarts, anything fried and most white foods. I say that because many startchy carbs like potatoes, pasta, and bread are white, and these are not the kind of carbs you want.
4. Learn to love vegetables. Replace your packaged dinners, bread and pasta with salads and vegetables. There are literally thousands of great vegetable dishes, so don't say you can't eat vegetables all of the time. You can. Millions of people do it every day. They're called vegetarians.
5. For meat, stray from pork and beef. Most turkey is very low fat. Grilled chicken isn't too bad of an option. The best option is fish, but some people worry about mercury poisoning from too much fish. I personally eat A LOT of fish, and well, I'm still here typing this for you. So you can make your own decision on that.
6. Vegetables, grilled chicken, and fish. You can eat for a long time and never have the same meal if you're creative. Don't get lazy and eat foods you shouldn't because you don't want to cook. Hold yourself responsible for your weight loss and you'll get a lot further.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't get down if you gain a little weight back. It's very typical to lose a lot of weight in the first 4 weeks of a diet and then gain it back. That's why so many fad diets say that you can lose 15 lbs in 30 days. You can. Anyone can. But it won't stay off. You need to be disciplined and consistent to succeed this year. If you are, you should average 1-2 lbs lost per week and could lose over 50 lbs this year if you need to. Success in fitness isn't luck, it's consistency and desire. Remember that as you start this year right.