Keep your expectations realistic - weight loss

Have you ever been on a "diet"? If you haven't you're definitely in the minority, and lucky to have been blessed with a better than average set of genes, metabolism and healthy respect for your personal shape, size and look. But if you are anything like the millions of people today who are on a "diet" did you expect to see dramatic changes to the numbers on the scale in a short period of time (after all the reality show contestant manage it so why can't you?), and did you expect to see an even more dramatic change to your body shape too.

How many times have you been promised the earth by some advertising gimmick and felt completely out of sorts, starving hungry and disillusioned with the whole health, diet and fitness industry when the promised results didn't happen?

No matter what anyone will tell you, there are no magic bullets, diet pills, creams or anything else that can offer safe and effective fat loss. Just a daily understanding of your bodies needs and the appropriate amount of exercise to ensure your body shape and size reduces in a healthy way. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but even with the best will and motivation in the world it can be hard to lose more than 1 or 2 pounds of weight per week, and the first of those will be water not fat. And lets face it we need to reduce "fat" our bodies carry and not just "weight".

So one of the biggest things to remember this is not a "diet" for a short period of time, but a changed way of life eating and exercise plan. Whatever you choose has to work for you - long term ... as in between now and the end of your life (whenever that is). So a few suggestions (from someone who has tried every short cut known to man, woman or fitness expert) - there aren't any:
1. Keep it realistic
2. Be consistent with your eating plan
3. Be consistent with your exercise. Weight loss and weight gain is an energy equation - to lose weight you need to eat less calories than you expend in energy. The greater the difference between the two and the more chances you will have of failing...that's right I did say fail. You see if you restrict your calories too much you will fall off the dieting band wagon faster than you can say chocolate....why? Because your body can only go on starvation mode for so long before it starts to get grumpy.
4. Set yourself realistic goals....
5. Reward yourself with something other than food or alcohol when you reach your target.
6. Your target weight is only the beginning - remember, when you have reached your target weight you have to find ways of staying there...and that comes from slowly reintroducing things back into your diet until your weight loss plateaus and stabilizes.

Remember, if you have a lot of weight to lose, just remind yourself now and again how long it took you to reach that point in your life and you will be able to cope with the time it takes to get rid of the problem once and for all.

Oh and photos are a great reminder of what not to do also.

Remember you are entirely responsible for what goes into your mouth and body, so lets make a change to our thinking and accept responsibility for everything we do, say and eat.

To add your comments go to - http://www.motivateme.info/daily-dose-ezine/2008/8/27/keep-your-expectations-realistic-weight-loss.html

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Kind Regards
Elle
Overcoming the procrastination habit with a daily dose of motivational medicine.
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