1.Set goals. You ll be better able to make a realistic weight loss plan if you know how much weight you want to lose. 2.Identify your weaknesses. Are you a bread fiend? Do you have dessert after every meal and every snack? Is McDonald s your second home? Find the weakness and throttle it. It does not own you, you are stronger and cooler than to allow some silly little craving to knock you off your path. 3.Throw away anything you know is tempting. Those cinnamon buns with 500 calories each? Gone. The ramen noodles in your cabinet? Gone. The problem is that this is not always feasible. Often times we are not the only ones in our homes and therefore the call of the food must be withstood. In this case, out of sight truly is out of mind. Put unhealthy, unfilling foods in a drawer or in a cabinet that you rarely use. Put them all together to make a particularly unappetizing sight. Don t place them all in a decorative basket out on the counter. Place them in a drawer. A drawer heaping with pastries rarely looks like anything but a drawer of fat. 4.Eat less, but eat more often. If possible, eat 4-5 meals a day. This helps your metabolism and blood sugar to stay level as well. This does require a change in your schedule. Eat less within 6 hours of your bed time. You re less likely to burn the calories closer to your bed time. It s fine to eat a large breakfast and lunch because your body will be working on burning those calories for the whole day. Large dinners are likely to go unburned and converted into fat. 5.Do not skip breakfast. If you don t have time to prepare breakfast, buy healthy breakfast bars or those smoothies on the go. It is important to eat breakfast to jump start your metabolism and give you energy for the day. Otherwise you will probably end up falling back on unhealthy foods during the day. Yogurt is also known to boost your metabolism. 6.Eat healthy snacks when you feel hungry between meal times. Healthy snacks would be things high in fiber, fruits and vegetables. Avoid high sugar and high calorie snacks. This will help you get nutrients as well as help lower your appetite so you won t overeat during meals. 7.Increase your fiber intake. Fiber acts as negative calories. It s also filling and healthy for your digestive system. Make it a part of every meal. 8.Eat slowly and chew more. Take time to enjoy your meals. This will help you to finish at the same time as others, and you ll not be tempted by a second helping. Also, chewing more will ensure you get the most out of all the food and it will be digested faster. The more you chew, the more your appetite will be satiated. 9.Drink more water every day. Stay hydrated. While you don t need 8 cups of water a day to stay hydrated, it ll make sure you re hydrated as well as cut down on your hunger levels and force you to get a little bit more exercise (trips to the sink, water cooler, water fountain, and bathroom). If you re a heavy soda drinker, permit yourself to only one diet soda per day, maximum. Just one extra soda each day can add 15 pounds. Recently, fizzy drinks, even diet ones, have been said to slow down metabolism. 10.Increase physical activity. There are two ways to reduce net caloric intake: 1) reduce the number of calories in your diet and 2) Increase the number of calories that you burn in your daily activities. Both approaches are usually necessary and healthful and both are effective in losing weight. You can pick and choose which exercise you want to do, depending on your fitness level and drive. For example: walking, jogging, using the stair stepper, using cross training machines, swimming, tennis, and basketball. Weight training (and resistance training) can help reshape your body. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism will be. 11.Find active friends. Find people that will drag you out to do more active things. It doesn t have to be much, but any exercise even walking around the mall is better than none. 12.Don t get discouraged. After one or two weeks of initial weight loss, it is quite common for your metabolism to slow down as it adjusts to the new calorie count. Stay on course and you ll see results. In some cases, the scale will tell you your weight is barely changing, but you may be gaining muscle weight while losing fat weight. Also make sure to weigh yourself first thing in the morning to try to avoid the fluctuations in weight due to water. 13.Take all advice with a grain of salt. Everyone is going to have some tidbit of information for you. What worked for them might not work for you. Take it all in stride and work with what is getting results for you. Trying to do everything everyone says will only cause overload. 14.Eat more protein. If you choose to go this route, do not cut out all carbs. If you do so, as soon as you start eating carbs again you will regain your weight back. Instead of eating stand alone pasta, throw some meatballs or chicken in. Eat some beans, they are high in protein and very healthy for you. Increase the ammount of protein, but not by too much. The more protein you take in, the more water you should drink as well. 15.Eat less calories. The average woman should eat around 2,000 calories a day and the average male 2,500. There s many ways to reduce the calories you intake. Try not to eat frozen dinners, pizza, or from fast food joints. There s also certain drinks, such as Green Tea that are calorie reducers. Lettuce is another calorie reducer, but be careful because dressing tends to have the calories. Low fat/light vinnegette, balsomic vineger, red wine and vineger are pretty healthy dressings, but do not load it on.
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