Making A New Year's Resolution
It's that time of year again. This is the one big promise we make to ourselves every year but seldom keep. I can't speak for everyone, but for the ones obsess with losing weight, don't make that resolution about the bathroom scale. If this is the promise you have been making for years, "this is the year I'm going to lose weight", it's time for a change. This year you want to promise your going to "live a healthier life", exercise regularly and eat better.
Step off the scale now and no one will get hurt. Focusing just on weight loss can lead to cycles of losing and regaining weight, lower self-esteem, and a preoccupation with food and body image.
“You’ll do better if you have goals that have to do not with weight, but with health,” says Carol Landau, Ph.D., clinical professor of psychiatry and medicine at the Alpert Medical School, Brown University. While a New Year’s resolution is a great way to get in touch with what’s important and how you want to change, “Most diets don’t work,” she says.
“A focus on weight loss tends to result in a quick-fix approach to a permanent challenge,” she says. “Instead, focus on finding health results in lifestyle changes that are more likely to last.”
The irony is, if you make your resolutions about wellness, rather than weight, you may get the best of both worlds: You’ll feel better, get healthier and yes, lose weight. By eating the right foods and being more active your body will burn up that excess body fat. Just don't look for any quick results. If you gained a pound or two every month, that's the way you should take it off. Quick weight loss causes the body to think you are starving so it stimulates your appetite so you regain the weight. Quick weight loss is almost impossible to maintain. By losing weight slowly your body doesn't realize what's happening and won't through out any defensives measures to stop you.
"The reason most people fail to lose weight is that they don't realize that it's their lifestyle that caused them to gain the excess body fat and it's their lifestyle that prevents them from losing their fat." In most cases when an adult gains weight it's because they're gain body fat.
Good: Resolve to change daily behaviors
“If you’re totally inactive, it may be walking a mile every day". “If you’re already pretty active, it might be training to run a 5k race.” Or it could be a promise to cut out processed foods. Let your goals be achievable and based on things you can actually do, rather than weight-loss results. It could be eating a healthy breakfast every morning, or eating fish twice a week and making sure you sit down when you eat.
You might resolve to eat a fruit or vegetable at every meal of the day. Eating more fruits and vegetables, along with drinking plenty of water and walking daily, has been shown to be a pretty powerful combo when it comes to weight-loss success. But that’s not your concern now. Before you get there, your goal is to create a healthy habit you can sustain. Same goes for exercise: Your goal is to create a habit that will improve the health of your body and mind.
You won’t have to rely on the scale to know if you’ve been successful, either. If you have an orange at breakfast, a salad at lunch and a green vegetable at dinner, you’ve won. Took a 20-minute walk during your lunch break? Pat yourself on the back. Any improvements you can make in your diet or your activity level will improve your health.
That said, The more improvements you make the quicker the results. Yes, any small improvements will help over the long term, but big improvements can show results in a short amount of time.
When I first decided to "get healthy" I stopped eating my normal diet and started to eat a low-fat, low-carb diet of meat and vegetables. Oatmeal for breakfast and a salad for lunch. That it. I didn't skimp on food, I ate a small amount of food every two hours or so. Between my three basic meals I'd eat fruit or a yogurt cup. I was eating 6 times a day in small quantities. I never got hungry. I was eating all fresh foods. That alone will curb your appetite. Fresh food is more sadisfying than manufactured food and yogurt is manufactured, but I stuck to Greek yogurt, it has less sugar and has more protein. Eating protein is important and you should try and eat protein at every meal.
I write several blogs, Check out some of my other sites.
gettingtoahealthyweight.wordpress.com
If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my Ebooks at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet.
There’s two ebooks. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my Ebook. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.
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