Losing weight is a struggle for most people and is a battle with many ups and downs. The main reason weight loss is hard to achieve and maintain is because they don’t have a clear long-term plan regarding their diet. This article will help you understand that dieting is not something you do for 10 weeks and then go back to your old habits.
Dieting is about analyzing your lifestyle and understanding that you must change things in order to obtain a healthy weight and then incorporating those changes into a new, better way of living. If you are planning to lose weight, here are the 10 basic laws of dieting:
1. Find your healthy weight range: People sometimes have a distorted perception of their own bodies. The best method for finding your healthy weight is by calculating your Body Mass Index (BMI). There is a reliable Free Dieting BMI calculator where you can find out what your BMI Index value is and how much weight you need to lose in order to get to a healthier BMI Index value range.
2. Don’t set unrealistic goals: If you have a lot of weight to lose you won’t be able to lose it within one week, one month or another over-ambitious amount of time. So don’t set goals such us, I have to lose that much weight by Christmas, Valentine’s Day, my birthday, my wedding or whatever. You will be tempted to starve yourself and resort to unhealthy diets in order to achieve your goal. Instead of such unrealistic goals, make it a goal to eat healthy, to exercise and to sleep properly every day.
3. Visit your doctor, do a set of basic blood tests: Contact your family doctor and talk to them about your decision to start losing weight and ask them to send you for a set of basic blood tests. Simple indicators such as your cholesterol or blood sugar levels are a great stimulant for losing weight. If you know that your weight is affecting your health this way you maybe more determined to shed those pounds.
4. Take a good, hard look at your lifestyle and diet habits: How many times last week have you skipped breakfast because you were in a hurry to get to work and then compensated later with a doughnut and some sugary beverage? How much time per week do you spend exercising? Do you get at least 6-7 hours of sleep each night? If you really want your diet to work you need to discipline yourself. Eat three healthy meals per day, exercise at least two times each week, get enough sleep, trade in doughnuts for carrots because small changes like these make huge differences.
5. Ask for help if you feel that you need it: Being overweight or obese for years takes its toll on your body and on your mental health too. You might need to talk to a nutritionist or a psychologist about your problems in order to figure out the best way to resolve them.
6. Pills were invented with a reason: Fortunately we live in an era where we have electricity, running water and modern medicine. Every day scientists are discovering new and wonderful remedies such as diet pills. So, why not use them if they are available and can help you lose weight without affecting adversely your health?
7. Start cooking: This might sound counter intuitive but if you cook you are controlling everything you put in your body. Takeouts, fast foods, and canned foods all contain high levels of salt, sugar, unhealthy fats and carbohydrates and with far too low content of fresh fruits and vegetables.
8. Find hobbies that keep you physically active: Going to the gym is boring for a lot of people not to mention expensive. But there are a lot of ways to exercise without going to the gym like taking walks everyday with your family or your dog or you could start gardening, join a hiking club, or find friends that enjoy cycling and tag along.
9. Don’t obsess about your diet: Ok so that one day someone brought pizza or cake to the office and you had a couple of pieces. That’s totally Ok if it’s not a daily habit. It doesn’t mean that you have failed. It simply means that you indulged one day and you will compensate with a little more exercise the next day.
10. Don’t weigh yourself every day: It will only create a lot of stress, since weight can vary from one day to the next without actually indicating that you gained or lost weight. It might simply mean that you are a little dehydrated or that you retained fluids. Weighing yourself once every two weeks it’s enough.
Dieting should be more about changing your lifestyle and making healthier choices. Only this way will you be able to lose weight and keep it off.
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