I’ve got a dozen steps for you to loss weight successfully
1. Stay
connected. The Real You plan is a lifestyle, not a diet. It may not seem different
at first, but you can go “on” and “off” a diet. You are in a lifestyle for
life. When you choose to stay connected, it only means that you choose not to
disconnect from your plan totally. When you stay connected, it means that you
will focus on avoiding asabotage of uncontrolled eating, and minimize the
caloric damage. One health-promoting activity a day, minimum, will ensure that
you are connected—whether it’s eating five fruits and veggies or a taking a
twenty-minute walk.
2. Think before
you eat anything. The best way to stay connected is to think before you
eat. This doesn’t mean don’t eat. It means make a better choice. So often we
don’t stop to think, and then we overeat, only later wondering why we did it. If
you choose to think before you eat, you can buy yourself some time to make a
better choice. It might be grilled chicken instead of a burger, or it might be
one cookie instead of two. If you think before you eat, you will always make a
better choice.
3. Recognize
contentment. Look for Level 2 of fullness. We all eat to what I call “Level 3” of fullness in our
culture—until we are stuffed. How many times have we eaten until we feel like
we’re going to burst? Level 3 means we are physically unable to eat any more.
So, how to recognize Level 2—meaning you are content and satisfied, but you
could eat more? That’s the new end point that you must accept in order to lose
weight and keep it off. Here’s the challenge: choosing to listen to that
signal. The flip side of this, to avoid feeling deprived, is to tell yourself,
“There’s always more food later.” The question we all fear when we stop at
contentment—that uneasy feeling at first—is, “What if I’m hungry later?” The
answer: “I’ll eat later.” You will find that, surprisingly, a more modest
number of calories will return you to Level 2 of fullness. It will take 100 to
200 calories to satisfy, rather than 900 to 1,000.
4. Minimize
mindless eating. So often we eat without thinking— what I call “mindless eating.” It is
so easy to do, and it does take effort to learn how to manage it. If you are
aware that you do this, make a mental note and gradually change the behaviour.
First, always think before anything goes into your mouth. Decide whether you
are hungry, thirsty, or simply bored. You can take a step back and decide to
have a low-calorie beverage or snack, or pursue a non-food activity (like
cleaning a drawer or knitting).
5. Agree that
there are no bad foods, just bad portions. This is a fundamental you must
embrace for long-term success. It’s hard in this culture of “good” versus “bad”
foods, with all of its definitions and explanations of what makes something
good or bad. Baloney. The old phrase “everything in moderation” is most true
when it comes to food. There is no food that is off-limits forever. That
knowledge is the key to maintaining control, and reducing the pressure of food
restriction is necessary for long-term weight control. A taste is as good as a
large serving. When you learn to be a taster, you can make food work for you
more effectively. The first bite or two is always the most satisfying—and when
you limit your consumption to a small serving, you will enjoy it fully.
While there are certainly no bad foods, there may be selected items that
you personally find difficult to limit. For those items, it’s likely best to
eliminate them for a short period of time—out of sight, out of mind and retry
now and then, if you feel you’d like to include them. Rather than eliminate
those foods, substitute other foods over which you have better control. For
example, if you love nuts but find it hard to limit your serving size,
substitute a single-serving bag of light microwave popcorn. Let your
imagination be your guide.
6. Learn to
barter. Bartering is one of the best tools you have to avoid deprivation.
Whether you do this on a daily or weekly basis, you can take the pressure off
by choosing one food over another— you have control over the food. “I will
choose a roll and skip the potato,” or “I will have a glass of wine and skip
the dessert,” or “I will share a dessert and skip the roll”—you get the idea.
When you provide the choice for yourself, it becomes easier to see that there
is no deprivation in your lifestyle, only prioritizing what you eat at a
particular time. You can always make a different choice later on.
7. Keep your
mouth busy with no calorie items. There may not be a free lunch, but there are some
“freebies” you can pull out of your toolbox to help you stay on track. The best
ammunition for “head hunger” are things
like water, seltzer, low-calorie drinks, and sugarless mints and sugarless gum,
all of which keep your mouth busy with almost no calories. Sometimes it’s not
enough to “just say no” to food, and the helpful tool of keeping your mouth
busy with a no calorie item can help get you through a difficult time. We all
have them.
8. Buy single
servings. Single servings cost more, but they provide automatic portion control and
way more satisfaction—that sense of
eating to the bottom of the bag. Whether it’s a mini-bag of popcorn, a
mini candy bar, a small, prewrapped piece of low-fat cheese, or a prepackaged
meal, it really takes the pressure off to know that you can eat the whole
thing. It is also a major help in learning when the meal or snack is done. You
can preplan and determine that your single serving is all that you will
consume, and when it is done, there is no more. Even if you do not feel
content, limiting yourself to a single serving can help with portion control.
9. Accept your
temperament. You are who you are. Sounds silly, but when you take a step back and
analyze yourself, it’s easy to see the highs and lows of your eating
personality. Identify when you are most vulnerable—late afternoon and evening
are common times— and minimize the caloric damage you may do at that time. If
you are someone (like me) who is an evening eater and really enjoys food a
couple of hours after dinner, then preplan for these times with modest
calories. This approach is another type of bartering: saving some calories for
your vulnerable times to relieve the pres- sure. In order to be successful
here, you will need to take a good look at your lifestyle patterns to recognize
when you’re struggling and when you’re managing well.
10. Remind yourself that daily physical activity is
important. So often we focus only on the caloric intake part of the weight-loss
equation. Daily physical activity is not only important, it is essential to
long-term weight management. We have many barriers to physical activity—and I
don’t mean running a marathon. I mean
making the habit of regular daily activity. Some days may be more active than
others, but having the mind-set to keep moving is critical. If you learn to
make this a priority, no matter what your level ability, you will make time to
increase what I call your “activity of daily living.” We can all park farther
away from the market, take one flight of stairs, walk up the escalator, take
the dog for a walk. Physical activity doesn’t always mean an aerobics class or
an hour on the treadmill. Even five minutes six or seven times a day is a
health promoter.
11. Wear a
pedometer. We often cannot separate mental fatigue from physical fatigue. We can
have a very stressful day and think
we feel physically exhausted. The best way to determine your daily
activity is to wear a pedometer and count your steps. Remember that it takes
about 2,500 steps to make a mile, which is also about
100 calories. Keep that in mind when you think about activity. Extra
5,000 steps added to your day (about forty minutes of walking) can save 200
calories. That’s a big help on the energy balance end. Exercise alone, without
reducing intake, rarely results in significant weight loss, but combined with
modest food restriction, it is the key tool to sustained weight loss and
maintenance.
12. Don’t beat
yourself up; learn from your mistakes. Losing weight is very tough. If it were easy,
everyone would be thin. When it comes to losing weight, we are highly critical
of ourselves. You need to think of this as your own weight-loss journey.
Sometimes it’s easy to lose focus, but that does not mean you have failed. It
means you need to take a step back and evaluate why you feel things are not
going as you expected. When your expectations do not meet your goals, whether it’s
rate of weight loss, or restaurant choices, or selections at a family barbecue,
do not get down on yourself. Life is not perfect, and neither are we. Move on,
and try to see what made you more vulnerable at the time of the lapse. It might
not be perfect the next time it occurs (and it will happen again), but you will
be better able to recognize the vulnerability, and maintain better control. You
do not need to be perfect, only to make your best effort at control. And when
you lose it (which happens sometimes), you regroup, and move forward. No looking back.
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