6 Tips For

A Weight Loss Plan

My personal experience.

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6 Tips For A Weight Loss Plan

The first step for healthy weight loss is to

create some sort of weight loss plan.

I know that sounded a little vague, but

your weight loss plan does NOT have to be

something that only NASA could understand

or approve.

YOUR weight loss plan should include

such simple things as what activities (exercise)

you are going to indulge in, when, where,

and so on. You will want to outline your goals,

both long term and short term goals You will

definitely need to outline what your strategy

will be for nutrition...notice I DID NOT say

"diet"!

Why have a formal, or at least semi-

formal, weight loss plan?

It has long been known to those who are

successful in business, sports, entertainment,

motivation, and other areas, that one way to

improve your chances of success is to sit

down and write out where you are, where

you want to be, and how you are going to get

there.

It is easier to plan for losing weight, or

any other goal related activity, if there exists

a clear picture of starting points, ending

points, and how you intend to move from

one point to the other. It is very easy to start

a weight loss program or any other activity

with intense motivation and a flurry of lofty

plans only to lose site of the objective or to

be led down unproductive paths by daily

activities and the blurring effect of time.

Here are a few tips to consider when

putting together YOUR personal weight loss

plan:

1. Make your goals realistic:

Wanting to weigh what you weighed in

high school is, for most of us at least,

unrealistic. Using some movie star's weight

or a relative's weight as your goal is also

possibly detrimental to actually

accomplishing effective weight loss. Each of

those people arrived at THEIR weight by a

combination of genetics, diet, and exercise

which may not apply to you at all!

Most people do not realize that a healthy

weight loss program should, for most people,

result in a weight loss of only a pound or so a

week. To many who have been striving for

years to lose weight, this may seem a

depressing statement. However, let me put it

in perspective.

I have a close friend who was so

desperate to lose weight that she opted for

gastric bypass surgery. She weighed 340 lbs

at the time of the surgery. When the doctor

was briefing her on what to expect, she

learned that even with surgical intervention,

she would probably only lose about 70 lbs in

her first year. That works out to 1.35 lbs a

week, which would be a healthy weight loss

that most people could achieve through a

combination of physical activity and proper

nutrition. The doctor also informed my friend

that she would continue to lose weight over

the following years until she reached some

new level which would be determined by

genetics, nutrition, and activity. This is the

same expectation that anyone bypassing the

bypass and opting for a healthy weight loss

program could expect.

Finally, unrealistic weight loss goals insure

failure, while an average of a pound a week

over a period of a year is relatively easy to

attain with motivation and effort.

2. Do not focus on weight loss:

I know that sounds strange since your

goal IS weight loss, but it is easy to see failure

if you are only looking for weight loss. For

example, people's weight fluctuates from day

to day and even within the day itself. A

temporary setback where weight is regained

becomes inflated if viewed against the

background of only weight loss. However, if

your goal is to do the things which are going

to make you healthy, for example, then those

few days of overeating at Thanksgiving may

be more excusable in your own heart if you

know that you have been taking your walks,

or have cut your use of sugar, or are still

taking action in some other form.

This is something that should be

considered in your weight loss plan. How are

you going to make your life better overall?

How many ways can you approach "weight

loss"? Do not make it your goal to lose so

many pounds this week. Rather, set a goal to

walk so many minutes, lift so many pounds,

garden for so many minutes. That way, even

if your weight does not change that much in

that period or even goes in the wrong

direction, you still know that your body is

benefiting from the parts of your weight loss

plan that you are still in touch with.

NOTE: People who begin exercising as

part of their weight loss program often

experience a weight GAIN somewhere in the

first few weeks of their new exercise

experience. THIS IS PERFECTLY NATURAL! If

you have just begun exercising to lose weight

and experience a weight gain, this should be

only temporary, and is most commonly

caused by your body adding muscle mass

faster than it loses fat.

3. Plan to go slow:

I don't know if there is a statistic

somewhere that demonstrates how many

people drop out of their weight loss program

due to stress, strain, pain, or just plain

burnout. However, I have experienced it

myself, I have read about it, and I know

people it has happened to. Sometimes the

simplest statements are most true. One that

you will often hear is, "It took years for your

body to get this way, and you cannot change

it overnight." This is so true. Also, take into

consideration that, even though you might

not be SEEING significant changes, if you are

taking the steps that you have outlined in

your weight loss plan, your body is adapting

inside, in places you cannot see, but it is

repairing and preparing to move to higher

levels of fitness and health.

4. Plan to measure your progress:

I know I said not to stress so much about

the weight loss, but you do need to see what

is going on. You don't have to concentrate

exclusively on pounds lost, however. If you

can walk farther this week than you could

two or three weeks ago, you are progressing.

Hopefully, in another two weeks, you will be

walking farther, or faster. If, at the start of

your weight loss program you could only

exercise for five minutes at a time, and now

you can exercise for 15 minutes, that is

progress, isn't it? That's an accomplishment

and is something you should be proud of.

NOTE: One measurement of progress in a

weight loss program is quite simply "size".

Two weeks into a weight loss program, you

might actually have gained weight, for

example, as I pointed out a few paragraphs

ago. However, if your clothes are looser, or

you need to buy smaller clothes, or friends

are coming up and asking, "Have you lost

weight?" these are good signs that your

program is working even if your scales

haven't gotten the news yet.

5. Plan to stay motivated:

One of the most common obstacles that

knock people off their weight loss program is

loss of motivation. The drive and excitement

that gets you started is very seldom still

around when you lace up your walking shoes

for what seems like the millionth time and

have only lost two lbs.

Including your reasons for losing weight,

the emotional and perhaps physical triggers

that got you started in the first place, as part

of your written weight loss plan gives you a

means of reinvigorating your desire to

achieve your goals. We often forget how we

felt and what we believed at the start of such

a journey, and being able to pull out the

paper and review the dreams and

expectations can bring us back up to that

original level, or at least remind us of what

we are enduring this for.

I used to be an instructor for a major

national corporation, and one thing that I

and other instructors would tell our students

was, to achieve their goals, they had to, "plan

their work, and work their plan."

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