Top 7 Weight Loss Tips That Spell Success
I have been right where you are, trying to lose weight, reach my goal weight and then keep it off. I have spent my life going up and down with yo-yo dieting and at times doing double duty with 5 hours a day of exercise, while my mom sat down with a pound of her favorite candy and lost weight without any exercise.
Losing weight is hard. It's much easier to pack on the pounds than to take them off. I have been on the starvation diet, the low carbohydrate diet, the cabbage soup diet, nothing but chicken diet and every other diet and form of exercise that I found.
I always managed to take some of the weight off, but not all of it. Additionally, once I was beginning to feel good about myself, I became subconsciously uncomfortable with my new found slim line and packed the pounds back on again but with more added weight than before.
I finally decided I was going to look inward and make decisions. I realized it that it wasn't my fear of failure; it was my fear success that was actually holding me back.
There is always some 'latest miracle magic' diet pill or fad diet for weight loss and miraculous cures for appetite. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. What is the answer? The answer is actually within you and it has been all the time.
The real winning strategy is all about decisions. It's a decision I had to make for myself and now I am here to share those tips and strategies I figured used that have helped me make changes in my attitudes towards food, my attitude towards me and the world around me that always said I was fat.
It's not about losing weight; it's about gaining your life and health back for you, your family and your children if you have them. You have to decide (D.E.C.I.D.E) to make a change and refresh that decision daily in your actions, reactions, subconscious and conscious mind.
It's a lifestyle change, not a practice in deprivation. What happens when a child really wants to touch the burning hot flame, even after you've told them 'no' a million times? They still have the urge to touch the flame. You have to give yourself permission to eat and the cravings will begin to subside.
*Always check with your doctor of course before you change your eating and exercise routines.
It's time to eat to live instead of living to eat. The following is my Top 7 List for successful weight loss and keeping it off or my (D.E.C.I.D.E) strategy.
- Tip 1. D - Decide to eat to live instead of living to eat and make exercise a regular part of your routine. Mark a spot in your daily calendar for a time to hit the gym, hit the weights, hit the pool, hit the hiking trail or hit the mat. Whatever you enjoy most hit it and hit your subconscious appetite with permission to eat the foods you love in smaller portions.
- Tip 2. E - Educate yourself on your body and how it works with foods. Why don't diets work? Because deprivation makes you want it more.
- Tip 3. C - Calories. It's all about calories. The only diet that actual works is, to burn off more calories than you take in. Never starve yourself or you will put your body into famine mode, which is built into your historical chemistry. One day my doctor said to me, when I was in my dieting yo-yo mode and 10-lbs shy of my goal weight, that people like me were meant to survive famines, where someone like her would die in a famine! I laughed my head off. Really, when is the last time I had seen a famine? Never! The trick to eating is to eat only what you want, in small portions, exactly when you want it and not on impulse (meaning you saw it then you wanted it). If after thinking carefully about the food you are craving and deciding that it wasn't about seeing it and wanting it you still can't live without it, eat one, not the whole bunch. Give yourself permission to eat it and eventually you won't want it as much. Food is not an enemy.
- Tip 4. I - Intermittent training, also known as "IT," helps to burn calories. IT is short intervals of exercise that has more speed behind it (either aerobic or anaerobic) with short intervals of rest in-between. You need to consult your doctor and a fitness instructor to find out what is best for you.
- Tip 5. D - Dedicate yourself to your commitment to living each day and bring a friend along for the ride. Nothing spells success like a friend in fat.
- Tip 6. E - Eradicate the saboteurs in your life. The sad truth is that many family, friends and co-workers want you to succeed, but are more comfortable subconsciously with the way you are than the way you want to be.
Let those around you know that you need their help to succeed. Ask them to kindly not offer any extra cakes, cookies and ice cream purchased as a special treat just for you. After that it will be about willpower and making a decision not to eat all the extra goodies, only those you have decided you wanted based on your hunger not on your sight. One goodie won't hurt. However, the entire gallon ice cream or package of cookies will.
That finishes the D.E.C.I.D.E but there is one last tip - Tip 7- Last but not least, celebrate yourself. Don't celebrate with food, but with family, friends and fun. Take a walk in the mountains or down Main Street instead of going to your favorite restaurant.
Read excerpts from Shop for a Day with Jaci Rae
Table of Contents for Shop for a Day with Jaci Rae – How to Get Almost Anything for Free or Next to It [PDF, 69KB]
