How to Design a Personal Weight Loss Program

EVERYONE in the United States is trying to lose weight! Well, almost everyone... With diet after diet, pills, exercise equipment, and fast food commercials bombarding us on a routine basis it is no wonder that our country has the highest obesity rate in the world. When you hear promise after promise followed by failure, where do you turn? You turn to yourself and here are the steps to help you do that.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Time
• Motivation
• Determination
• Self-forgiveness
• Patience
• Perserverance

1. The first thing you need to do is be honest with yourself. Why are the diets not working for you? My answer was because I wasn't sticking with them. I was rarely hungry (and I mean REALLY hungry) until I would put myself on a diet. When I put that thought in my mind, even the cardboard box the food came in looked SO good! And with some diets I have been on, the food that was allowed was just not anything I found very appealing (that's when the cardboard boxes would be a possible meal alternative). The only solution I have found to this problem is to stop putting myself on DIETS. It's not healthy or natural to severely cut your calorie consumption and your body will immediately go into mental starvation mode, especially when you try to completely cut certain types of food out of your diet. So the first step to designing your own personal weight loss program is to NOT put yourself on a diet.
2. The second thing you want to do is keep track of how much, when, and why you are eating. Are you really eating when you are hungry, or are you eating because everyone else decided to grab a bite and you didn't want to be left out? I kept track of my eating habits for a week and noticed that most of the time I would eat lunch because it was expected of me. Everyone I worked with would tell me, "You better go get you some lunch or you'll be hungry later." The problem was that I get hungry at about nine in the morning and at three to four in the afternoon. I would eat lunch with my co-workers, not because I was hungry, but because it was expected of me. When I took control and just sat down, drank a glass of tea, and did NOT eat, I felt better. I had to look at my personal pattern of eating and start eating when I wanted to or needed to, not when it was expected of me.
3. The third thing I started doing was trying to control HOW MUCH I ate when I did eat. Did I really want that second plate of food, OR did I just want it because it was there? I started fixing my plate when I prepared a meal and immediately put the leftovers away in the refrigerator. It cut back on how much I ate cause if I was REALLY hungry, I would fix that second plate. If I wasn't, the food stayed in the refrigerator until I was hungry again. When I ate out, I ordered appetizer portions cause I noticed that usually after the appetizer I was full. I would just keep eating cause I didn't want to waste the food.
4. The last thing I started doing was moving. Not EXERCISING, but moving! I had noticed that when I gained control of how much I was eating, I had more energy (my body wasn't having to use so much energy to store that extra food). I wasn't as tired all of the time, so I started moving more. You don't have to exercise at a gym or on any type of special equipment to be fit, you simply need to MOVE. Your body was designed to work best with some type of regular motion, whether it is going for a walk, doing housework, or working in your garden. As long as you move, you help your body work better. You will discover that the more you move, the better you feel.
5. The key to designing a PERSONAL weight loss plan is to listen and work with YOUR needs and preferences. We are not all meant to be a size 2, but we are meant to be healthy. If you like ice cream, don't try to cut it completely out of your diet. Let yourself have some (in moderation, not the whole gallon). You have to create a plan that will last your entire life. That's why diets don't work. No one can live on a restrictive diet forever. We all need to LIVE, LET GO, and LOVE ourselves as the truly unique creatures that we each are. Good Luck!

Tips & Warnings

• Read this article "How to Fix Common Diet Mistakes and Boost Weight Loss" for additional tips to help you with your diet