Well, to say losing weight is easy, is perhaps overstating it. But, it can be done and it gets easier once you start. I say this from experience.
- Forget the extreme dieting and exercising you see on Biggest Loser. Unless you are in a hothouse situation with professional dieticians and trainers, with medical staff on hand, you will never make it. You need to be sensible and realistic and to develop the habit of healthy eating and movement. You need to learn new ways of being and doing and to build on that learning and develop the experience to further build on. You need to set yourself up for success.
- Forget diets altogether. Diets only make you fat. Learn to eat right:
- The right food
- The right amount
- The right attitude
- Learn to like exercise. Yes, like exercise. That is, like, enjoy, take pleasure in. Some of you are probably spluttering into your diet cokes or choking on your packet of chips at that comment, but it's not only possible, it's natural. We are meant to move. That's how we developed. And if you prefer, call it movement. Any movement is better than no movement. And movement isn't putting another chocolate into your mouth. It is getting up and walking around the room. It is bending over and picking up all the hamburger wrappers and putting them in the bin preferably with the hamburgers still inside!
- Start easy and build. If you eat a packet of biscuits (cookies) a day and a packet of chips, cut one out altogether and make the other last longer. Half now, half later. Always make yourself wait one minute, two minutes, three minutes before having the next chip, the next biscuit. And after you eat half of what you normally eat, stop, wait at least five minutes, ten minutes, half an hour before eating the remainder. You might even find that you are able to leave the second half altogether. Perhaps finish off with an apple instead.
- Learn to eat slowly, whatever you are eating. How often do you open a bag of crisps, start munching and suddenly you're at the bottom of the packet and there's hardly any memory of the taste and texture of what you ate and less satisfaction? Eating slowly means you are less likely to want to reach for another packet. But, there is a far more beneficial aspect. It takes time for your brain to signal to your stomach that you are full. Eating slowly allows the signal to get through before you consume even more.
- Walking is the best exercise there is. It is what we are meant to do above all else in terms of movement. Its benefits are immense, overall and long term. You don't have to start with a long or fast walk. If you find it hard to walk because of sore joints and acute overweight, walk around one room of your house, then two, then three. Start with once a day, then twice a day, then three times a day. Build up, build up, build up. The real trick is to make it become a habit, and make it purposeful. A walk from the couch to the fridge and back to the couch is not the purpose. Once walking is comfortable, build up the speed and the height of leg lifts and swing of arms. Aim to march, proud and strong. Aim to walk outside, to stride down the street, proud and strong.
- Cut down on processed food anything that comes in a packet and is ready to eat or to heat and eat and is factory made. Introduce at least one new fresh food item a week. A piece of fruit, a vegetable, some nuts, seeds, beans or legumes. If you don't like this real' food, learn. Build up. Develop the taste. It is what we are supposed to eat. Chips don't grow on trees. Pizza doesn't grow in the ground. Hot dogs don't graze in the fields. Chocolate doesn't swim in the sea. Always ask yourself, Where did this food come from? Is it what we developed to eat or was it developed for profit?'
- What are we supposed to drink? Water. Clear, cool, clean water. And that's all. I'm not saying don't drink anything else, I like my morning coffee with full cream milk, but we need to drink 1 2 litres (3 4 pints) of water a day. Again, build up, build up, build up. Half a glass to start is better than none. One glass is better than a half. Two glasses better than one. Caffeine and sweetened drinks strip your body of water, so if you never drink anything else, and never drink or eat anything natural, you are seriously dehydrated and you're constipated. Yes, I know that for a fact!
- Adjust your attitude. Taking regular and positive steps to teach yourself to enjoy the correct foods in the right amounts is the way to lose weight and become healthy. Forget diets altogether. They are for fat people. In other words, they make people fat. Diets lead to more weight because they are short term, too restrictive, nearly always deficient in some health and nutrition aspect, and teach you nothing. Our bodies developed to store food in good times to help us survive the lean times. In today's world, there are no lean times, just good times. That's a problem, especially if we are mindless about what we consume. So, become mindful.
- When you seek reward or solace in food, choose what is going to make you healthy, such as a bunch of grapes or a banana or a meal rich in vegetables. You can still have desert after dinner (supper). If you are eating all natural, fresh foods, cooked or raw, a small desert is the treat it's meant to be and won't do any harm at all. But, remember, you need to move, move, move to deserve the reward. And food is not the only reward. Learn to reward yourself with things that in turn reward you like an extra walk in the fresh air! Or with a craft or hobby that brings deep satisfaction and builds you up. Then, you will need less comfort from the wrong sources and have more strength to refuse the wrong things in the first place, because they do not bring anything but more need. And who needs that?
- This is supposed to be ten ideas, but here's a bonus one because you deserve a reward for reading and (hopefully) contemplating what I've said. Be realistic and kind to yourself. Being kind can mean throwing away the chips instead of consuming them! You took years putting on the weight, it will take a long time to lose it. Set realistic goals. Forget about the weight itself for now, make your goals ones of less energy in and more energy out. In other words, build up, build up, build up.
- And here's another because good rewards can keep on flowing. For three weeks you need to keep a focus on something you want to change and put the effort in to changing it. After that, it starts to become a formed habit. That's all it takes. Three weeks. But, you can't let up after that because it will take longer to be truly a habit that you don't have to put so much emphasis on. But the more you do, the more you will have done. And the more you will have done, the more you will want to do. And the more you want to do, the less you will want to waste (or waist) what you've done.
And remember, it is not the size of the build up although don't make excuses to keep it purposely minimal but the continual increase in the build up. You don't have to suffer or hurt, although you will find it hard and uncomfortable initially. And the kilos (pounds) won't fall off like magic, not to start with, but you took a long time putting them there and they will take time to lose. But as your build up grows, so will the decrease in your size and the increase in your ability to move. As you learn to move more, the more you will want to move and the faster and stronger you will become at losing weight and becoming healthy.
And remember, always believe you can do it. If the long term seems impossible to believe, then believe that you can wait five more minutes before putting that next potato chip into your mouth. Believe that you can eat the packet minus five chips, then tens, then fifty. Believe that today you can drink one glass of water, and tomorrow two, and the next day three, to a minimum of eight. Build up, build up, build up. And you will come to enjoy the actual building up and then, all of a sudden, you will realise you are slimmer, fitter, happier and on a path you know you can stay on, walk down, skip down, run down!
And my final comment on easy weight loss (for now) is: Build up, build up, build up your belief in your ability to build up!
This article is the intellectual property of Hannah Quinn and is protected under International and Australian Copyright and Moral Rights Laws. Do not reproduce without the express permission of the author, Hannah Quinn. © Hannah Quinn 2008 |
