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Diet and Lifestyle Plans
Want to lose some weight, and look and feel better?
Want to decrease your risk for some of the diseases of aging?
Think slightly new life
To be successful in both losing weight and keeping the weight off, you have to think of the future as a slightly new life. Think of it as a somewhat healthier lifestyle going forward, not just losing weight.
To succeed you need to find a few changes that you can keep up (most of the time). Nearly all of us can lose weight in the short term, but then find diets hard to maintain and end up piling the weight back on.
Think more along the lines of substitution, not denial.
What will work for your lifestyle?
The type of diet that works for you is one that you can keep up, and fits with your lifestyle. You need to be able to find the changes not be a big hardship or difficult. Start with what you can definitely do. Once you are comfortable with the lifestyle changes and you start to look and feel better then it is much easier to make a few more minor healthy changes.
So think about your lifestyle. Like to cook? Hate to cook? Got a family? Eat together? Seem to have time only to snack? Stressed and rushed all the time? Have a snacking habit? Eat when bored? Eat when depressed? Tend to binge?
Decide what is really practical. Be realistic. How can you change things around? For most people just picking a diet plan does not work long term. You have to think how to incorporate a plan (usually with modifications) into your life in a way that you can do for the majority of the time. For most of us, one very positive step is incorporating more vegetables (frozen? pre-prepared?) into our meals. This is a great start.
As with any diet, consider how healthy the overall diet will be. Does it have enough choice not to become boring and hard to maintain? Is it flexible enough to fit into your daily life?
Think long term
Think about your long term goals. Think about your future, not just how it is just at this moment. Focus on how much healthier you will and how you will age better.
Remember all of us, have unexpected events in our lives, as well as days when we sabotage ourselves. Absolutely everybody has times when they eat too much and/or eat stupid stuff. This is part of life and will happen. Realize this will happen, and make it part of your long range thinking.
Think about trends and goals. Think of the “bad” time as a blip on the downward line of your weight loss graph, or a blip in your healthier lifestyle. It is a blip, not the end. Let it go. Don’t beat yourself up, or worse give up. There are 365 (or 366) days in a year, what difference is the odd day here and there going to make?
Put the now and your future plans into perspective. If you keep long terms goals in mind, it is much easier to cope with day to day difficulties.
