Baby steps to weight loss

Since you're here - I'm assuming you want to or are trying to lose weight. It's no big secret - the key to weight loss success is a healthy diet with regular exercise. We all know that - but what are we doing about it? Probably 9 out of 10 people reading this are doing nothing to improve their health and lose weight. No need to raise your hand - you know who you are. Don't worry, my hand is half raised. . .

Here are some easy weight loss tips for all of us (I include myself in this group) who want to lose weight but for one reason or another lack the motivation to follow through with exercise or diet plans to see real results. Of course, if you do nothing - that is the exact amount of success you will have.

What I hope to instill, at least in a few of you, is that you can achieve better health and lose weight with a few tiny changes to your everyday life. Nothing drastic like an extreme exercise program or unhealthy like starvation. . . . just a few simple things that will get you looking better and the most important part - feeling better about yourself. It's all about baby steps.

Personally, I am not exceedingly overweight. According to my "ideal weight" I am still about 20-30 pounds overweight - but ideal weight is just an estimate. A poor one at that. Don't judge yourself by what a book or some diagram tells you that you should weigh.

What weight would you like to achieve? That is the most important question. Set a goal for yourself, and start out small. It's those small victories that lead to winning the war so to speak. It's the small victories in losing weight that give you hope, and when your hope grows, it causes motivation and action. Maybe you're not at the point that you feel like you can commit to running a half an hour a day, or using a treadmill, or eating only tofu - and that's ok. Like I stated before - it's all about baby steps.

Baby steps to losing weight Here are a few small things that you can do that will help you shed the pounds:

Start with Breakfast Seems pretty simple & straightforward. I never used to eat breakfast. I'd eat one to two times a day (if that) but never until several hours after I woke up. My normal eating time was about 7pm-8pm and sometime after midnight. Eating breakfast will help to get your metabolism going. . . which is a problem for me and many of you. After a certain age the metabolism changes - It happened to me at 26. Some people are just blessed - they're in their 30's, 40's, 50's or older and they maintain the same weight as they had in high school (without having to work on it, I might add). I bet you wish that was the case for you.

Eat multiple times daily Eating several small meals a day will help keep your metabolism running. Forget the 3 meals a day routine - try for somewhere between 4-6 small meals a day and see what it does for you.

Don't stuff yourself Eat until you're satisfied, not until you're stuffed. It kind of goes with eating multiple times daily, but it's an important side note. How many times do you continue to eat just because there's food left? You're full, but you can still eat more. . . so you do. Hey, I am guilty of it, too. Beating this will help you to keep off some of those additional pounds and will help your effort to take off the existing extra weight.

Eat a healthy snack If you're feeling the hunger pains but there's no time for a food break - try munching on an apple, some grapes, celery, carrots, etc. Sure, it's not as filling as the bag of chips, a candy bar or the quick run to the fast food joint - but you will be glad later on for this one tiny sacrifice. There are some foods out there that actually cause to you burn more calories when you eat them than you are consuming in the food itself. There's a book on that exact subject of eating foods that cause you to burn calories - you should get it and check it out. The book is called the negative calorie diet.

Drink Water instead My weakness is pop. (or soda, depending on where you're from). I like it and tend to drink a lot of it. There are a lot of people out there just like that. The thing is, it's so loaded with junk that it's preventing you from shedding a few of those unwanted pounds. I hear this complaint from women all the time - it's about that little "pouch", the little "extra" on their belly. A lady I used to work with stopped drinking pop and took on drinking water instead. In less than two weeks her "extra" was gone. No kidding. I don't know how many pounds she lost, but that had to feel good losing that extra inch or two around her midsection.

Don't eat too late Eating late at night was my specialty. I still deal with it. Remember when you could eat whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted to and still look great? Well . . . those days are over for most of us. The problem with eating late at night (or shortly before going to bed - if you work over night it'd be in the morning) is that we tend to be much less active when we are settling down for the day. Less active means we're burning fewer calories. . . thus storing more fat. The "more fat" is what we're trying to get rid of. I think you see my point.

It's all about the baby steps. Some people, including me, have a hard time committing to an exercise plan or diet. The few steps I've outlined above can help you lose some extra weight and feel better within a short amount of time. It's a fairly well established fact that it takes 21 days to form a habit - just take a minute and see where you're physically at right now. Weigh yourself, take a picture, get out the measuring tape - whatever works for you to gauge where you are currently. Try one or all of the above suggestions for 30 days. I am certain that if you try a few of the outlined suggestions above you will see a difference and that difference might just give you the motivation you've been lacking to get into the best shape of your life.

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