5 Tips To Help With Your Weight Loss

Some strategies or behaviors you can adopt in order to help keep your weight loss goals on track. Make Success Happen Automatically: While weight loss is a long-term goal, make shorter term goals as well that are easily attainable yet still move you toward your ultimate goal. For instance, strive to eat a salad for lunch at least twice a week to start. Once the week is over and you have eaten 2 salads then you have accomplished your goal!! SUCCESS!! And nothing feels better than being successful. As time goes on, change your goal to eating 3 or 4 salads a week or skipping that weekly trip to McD’s. All these short term goals that you can accomplish lead to your long-term success and make you feel better along the way.

Rewards: Don’t forget to congratulate yourself on a job well done. Think about a reward you can give yourself for reaching your long-term goal. It could be new clothes, a weekend get-away…the sky is the limit. Don’t forget to reward yourself for reaching your short-term goals as well. These could be smaller items like going to a movie, some quiet time alone, a nice relaxing bubble bath with music and candles (ok for the guys reading this, you can skip the bubbles and candles if that was just too much) DON’T forget this…rewards reinforce your efforts and heck…you deserve it.

Keep Track: Keep a journal! Write down what you are eating, your exercises, how long you exercised, how far you jogged. Whatever you think is important, write in it every day. Over time you can review your journal and see how you are progressing. If you stop making progress, a review of your journal almost always shows why. Perhaps you ate poorly for a couple weeks, missed going to the gym here and there. All these things are easily forgotten but with a journal it’s all there. Don’t underestimate the power of a journal.

Look For Obstacles: Check your calendar and see what you have coming up. Do you have family gatherings, a party, a vacation on the horizon? If so, plan now how you will handle these situations. For a family dinner perhaps you can arrange to bring a healthy dish or offer to make a low-fat dessert. A party? Maybe you can eat beforehand making it less likely to over-indulge later. Dining out for the evening? Check menus online for the restaurant you are attending and have a selection in your mind ahead of time. Whatever it is, if you know what the obstacles are ahead of time then it lets you prepare ahead of time how to handle the situation.

Forgive And Forget: Ok, so the inevitable happens and in a weak moment you chow down on some pizza, wings, soda, chips, cake and then some cookies for dessert (now that sounds like a really really weak moment!!) What do you do? You give up and tell yourself you will never reach your goals right? WRONG! These things are bound to happen…it’s expected. You just need to brush it off and get back on track. Slipping up like that most often happens when you’re tempted by something unexpected. You can get rid of the junk at home but you just can’t stop Sally from bringing in muffins to work! The key is, don’t waste any of your time on blame. I like to tell people to live by the 80/20 rule. Eat right on target 80% of the time and allow yourself “treats” here and there. One bad meal or one bad treat does NOT derail your efforts…just the same as one good workout doesn’t make you lose weight, one bad meal won’t make you gain either…weight gain is cumulative. If you allow yourself “cheat” meals then temptations become less powerful an urge. #youaregoodenough #dreambelieve