Ten Tips For Weight Loss Success

Ready to go on a weight loss diet? There are certain things that will make it more likely that you will succeed- see how you measure up:

1. Motivation

You have to really and truly want to lose weight and you have to be prepared for some hardship along the way. It isn’t easy and its best to know that right from the start. The most important factor in weight loss is what your subconscious says to you. If you want to lose weight but not yet, or not if it means giving up your beer or your wine or perhaps your chocolate and ice cream, whatever it is that you think that you can’t live without, then you will not be able to do it.

Your subconscious will keep telling you that you can’t possibly live without those things, because that is what you have said.Whenever you break your diet by  eating or drinking one of those “must have” items, you are telling your subconscious that you “must” have them. It believes whatever you tell it.  Because you keep saying to yourself that you can’t resist certain foods you are training  your subconscious to make sure you never say “no” to them.

To overcome this state of affairs you must re-train your mind to do what you want it to do. You must tell yourself all the time that you can do it and will do it. Visualize yourself saying no and visualize the results. Imagine yourself as you will be when you reach your goal, or even part way reach your goal. Don’t keep doubting yourself. Watch the Affirmations Video on the right several times a day- or create your own list of positives.

2.  Goals

This is akin to 1 above. You must have worked out what you are aiming for so that when times get tough you have an  image in your mind of where you are going and why. Writing down your goals and re-reading them regularly will make a big difference to your final outcome.

3. Eat Less

You are never going to lose body fat until you stop eating so much. Sorry but there it is. In the end it does boil down to eating less of the foods that you love because those are the foods that have made you fat. When trying to lose weight you have to create a calorie deficit. That means the amount you burn each day has to be more than you eat.
Don’t make the mistake of eating too few calories though or you will lose more lean tissue than body fat. Also eat plenty of protein, it increases metabolic rate and you lose weight faster. Aim to eat around 9-13 calories and  0.8-1.0 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day. We recommend Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle weight loss plan.

4. Write It Down

Keep a food diary or use diet software to keep track of every morsel that you eat. Studies show that weight loss is more successful in those who write it all down.

5. Support

Research shows that support helps. Find a diet buddy, one of your friends is ideal but a diet forum online can fill the gap.

6. Sustained Effort

Be prepared to make an effort.  We would never have put weight on if we found it easy to resist certain drinks or foods. You need to harden your self up for the battle ahead. Talk of miracle diets, diet pills or supplements keeps us searching for an easy way, but there isn’t one.

7. Exercise

You simply can’t avoid it. It isn’t just to burn extra calories, aerobic exercise has been shown to make little difference to weight loss. No, its to prevent the loss of lean muscle. Studies show that those who go on a weight loss diet without doing muscle building exercise lose lean muscle. If you accompany your diet with strength training exercises you will lose more fat and less muscle.

Muscle has a higher metabolic rate than fat so it pays to hang on to the muscle you have. That does not mean that you have to join a gym, you can do some strength training at home with weights, bands, swiss balls etc.Another thing about exercise is that it makes you feel better.

It raises endorphins and reduces the chance that you will get blue. That’s a great thing when trying to lose weight. The happier you feel the more likely you are to be able to keep up the diet program.

8. Alcohol

Alcohol doesn’t turn to fat but it is burned as fuel preferentially over fat. So if you drink half a bottle of wine, which is after all only two largish glasses, then 375 calories that would have been burned away stays there and the alcohol is used as fuel instead. There is no way around this.

You can’t live on alcohol so cutting down food to take a drink is not going to help. When you are dieting it is really important to get all your nutrients since you are cutting down on foods that provide nutrients. If you are attached to your alcoholic beverages you will need to work on your subconscious mind in the way discussed in 3 above.

9. Drink Enough Water

Keep hydrated. If you feel hungry try a drink of water first.You can drink other fluids than water so long as you count the calories in them.

10 Sleep

You must get enough sleep it isn’t called beauty sleep for nothing. Studies show that not sleeping enough does cause weight gain for hormonal reasons. It also gives you more hours in which to snack!

So there you have it, a complete weight loss plan! Successful fat burning diets are based on these 10 principles. They might have come up with a gimmick or a fancy name, but to work they have to conform to the basic rules of weight loss.

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