Download - 6 Tips For A Weight Loss Plan
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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