W.H.A.C.K.

Do you Want to Change?

That may seem like a stupid question but many people that struggle with weight loss eventually come to realize they like themselves just fine the way they are. They like their eating habits, their movement habits, and they have no intention of changing their basic day-to-day routine. They have learned to simply enjoy life and give up the quest to be someone they are not ever going to be. In most cases they were attempting to change for someone else, not themselves.

Have you gone on countless diets only to end up back where you started, or worse, a little heavier? What's going on? It could be that you never made a decision to change your basic habits, and without this most basic starting point, all your efforts are wasted.

If you do not fit that description and you do want to make a change, you must decide to what extent you are willing to change your daily habits. The gambit ranges from bodybuilder to obesity. You'll fit somewhere in between. Deciding just how far you are willing to go is the first step.

Choose your level of effort

Choose the level of freedom you want with your eating habits. Here are a few levels of choice:

1. Diet plans that provide what, when, and how you'll eat.
2. More flexible diet plans but still someone else decides what you'll eat.
3. Plans which suggest choices but leave it up to you to choose your own menus.
4. Exercise - Are you will to add more or are you already over doing it?
5. Alcohol? Yes, no, a little?
6. Fast foods?

All of these are choices you'll make in designing your own lifestyle. Some people want more assistance up front, and some people balk at being told what to do. You must decide how far you are willing to go with your dieting efforts and whether you want to make small changes to your lifestyle or whether you prefer going all out, reducing your intake and staying on a strict plan for a set period of time.

Most diets, lasting for a short while, do work for quick weight loss. It's what happens when the diet ends that causes the grief. This time, you'll decide in advance about how you'll reentry into your usual routine. You must alter that usual routine in some manner, by either changing your food choices, adding exercise, or both, or you'll just end up back where you started.

Exercise

Begin at the beginning. If you are over 300 lbs and just getting out of a chair is an effort, then an exercise program for you may be no more than walking to the front door and back a few times a day. I'm not kidding. I'm not a couch potato but my initial plan when I got back into the fitness routine involved just five or six minutes a day on my exercise bike. Why six, why not 10 or 20? Because I knew riding for 20 minutes would be an effort, and I also knew that if I didn't make it easy, then I wouldn't be motivated to continue the next day.

I knew I could do six minutes, but no more. As time went on I added a few minutes and worked up to 10, 15, then 20, etc. Eventually I was riding an hour a day.

Only you know what you can do, but it is far better to take a five minute walk down to the corner and back, and do it again the next day, than to walk for half an hour one day and not again for a week or more. Consistency is the effort that gets things done.

Diet

For me, I altered my daily habits one at a time, to see what I could learn to live with and what I couldn't do without. I gave up drinking wine in the evenings and lost pounds by that alone. I added more movement to my daily routine and firmed up. I make an effort to eat healthfully, I quit eating sugared cereals for breakfast. I weaned down to no more than once or twice a month fast foods I stopped eating burgers and fries every week, and now do so once a month or less.

Small changes, little effort, big results. None of this is painful or restrictive in any way. If you want results, then you'll make small changes. Next, you must know How to change.