A long-term dieter writes: For me, the most challenging aspect of reaching my perfect weight after I have put on the pounds has been discovering lose weight diets that I will truly stick to for a sufficient length of time to reach my target. Many of the most common weight loss diets ask you to give up eating anything that really tastes great, or even to give up consuming food entirely. Whenever I attempt to stick to one of those diet plans, I usually catch myself cheating or giving up within the first week. I don’t believe there is any way any person can truly lose weight if they can’t even stick to their weight loss programme.
Lose Weight Diets
If you are truly going to make use of weight loss diets in order to reach your targeted weight, then you have to make sure that you pick the best diet plan possible. I have found that when I’m on a diet which truly permits me to eat a healthy, balanced and varied meal then not only will I have the ability to lose weight, but I will really feel better than I generally do. I am eating well and I really feel a lot better on a balanced diet than on a damaging dieting fad, or even on my typical unhealthy diet.
Normally, I tend to grab something to eat whenever and wherever I have time. I pick up snacks and eat junk food even though I know I shouldn’t, simply because with two children to feed and look after, there’s rarely enough time to look after myself. A whole lot of the diets that I’ve tried actually make it even a lot more difficult to eat properly. They tell me that I need to eat annoyingly specific types and amounts of foods that it takes ages to prepare. If I was going to stick to one of those food plans, then I would really have to attempt to fit my life, and my children’s lives, around my meals. These diets are by no means going to work.
Lose Weight Diets: What Really Works?
- The importance of goal setting
- The first of my keys is GOAL SETTING, It may seem simple enough and yet it is anything but. In my experience almost all my problems with following a diet plan and achieving satisfactory results were a result of not having clear and measurable goals to start with. I would go so far as to say, don’t even think about starting a diet until you have first decided on exactly what you wish to achieve from it. Define your goal clearly, write it out and read it every day and every night before going to bed, put a picture somewhere you will see it of the type of body you wish achieve. This will be your main motivation. Another big motivating factor about having clearly defined goals is having something to measure your progress against, this is a biggie. In my case I would get my body fat measurements taken every 3 weeks and to see my body fat dropping and getting ever closer to my goal body fat percentage was like throwing petrol on my fire of motivation. It literally fired me up to keep going and was the fuel to creating momentum in my fat loss goals. One final tip for your goal setting is break your goal down into small easily achievable bite size steps, and once you reach each one of these steps reward yourself with something worthwhile, for example a new pair of jeans, a new shirt etc. If you have clearly defined, measurable and achievable goals you will never need worry about losing motivation!
- Find someone to be accountable to
- Its funny but we seem to be able to do things for other people that we wouldn’t for ourselves. I found this out by accident but it was a turning point in my life and I still use it in my training today. The first thing I did was made a pact with a friend of mine, he was another personal trainer at the gym I work at. My deal was that he take my measurements every 3 weeks and I would take his. Well the thought of failing in front of another trainer was more than enough motivation to stay disciplined and not cheat on my programme, the funny thing is that he too got his best results because he also didn’t want to fail in front of me. It went one step further and became competitive … We both wanted to achieve better results than each other which eventually made us achieve our goals rapidly !! If you wish to keep your motivation high and keep your discipline to a maximum I would advise on finding someone at a similar level or ability to train with, and create some kind of competitive goal between the two of you. If you can do this one thing I guarantee you will find your motivation will remain strong and you will achieve your weight loss goal.
- Find the right diet to follow
- Well finally we come to the diet, which is about 80% of the equation when it comes to weight loss. There are many diets out there today with their own specific good and bad points. I have been through many different diet plans over the years including Atkins, The Fat Burning Diet, The Metabolic Diet, The peanut butter diet, I have even done the cycled ketogenic diet. The problem I found with all of these diets is that they were just to hard to follow … I would crave carbs while on low carb diets and I could never stick with the diet for any length of time. I believed in the science of low carb diet it was just impractical and I didn’t feel good while on them. My best results eventually came from getting a personalised diet plan by a certified nutritionist. While on this diet I could eat food from all the food groups, I was eating regular and never went hungry. There were some days I couldn’t even eat all the food on my plan and yet I was losing weight!! It also happened to be the easiest diet to follow as my whole diet was on one piece of paper. My advice to you is to find a diet plan that allows you to eat from all the food groups, a diet plan that allows you to eat at least every three hours and a diet that is simple to follow. Unfortunately it can be quite expensive to get a personalized nutrition plan as I did but if you search the internet there are a few good diet plans sprinkled out there.
- Well there you have it! My keys to achieving your weight loss goals. I honestly believe that if you follow these three keys you will go a long way to achieving your dreams of a leaner body.