How To Lose Weight - For
Beginners
Step 1 - Make the Decision | Step 2 - Come Up With a Plan
|
Step 3 - Make It a Priority
Step 2
Come Up With a Plan
There are two types of planning that you can consider:
the first is the overall eating plan that you'll be following to lose
weight, and the second is daily planning that's necessary in order for this
to be successful. This article is about overall eating plans.
How to Choose a Plan
My suggestion for beginners is to follow a weight loss
plan instead of trying to do it on your own. When I first started out I
thought I knew what I should do, but I didn't know. I thought that my eating
didn't need to change very much because I wasn't the type of person who ate
an entire bag of Oreos or a whole pizza in one sitting. I figured that all I
needed to do was make sure to not majorly overeat, and that I should
probably stop buying cookies.
I grew up in a family situation where nutrition wasn't
much of a consideration. We didn't eat proper portion sizes, there was no
effort to make sure that my brother and I ate a variety of foods, and as a
result, I had no idea what I should eat when I moved out on my own.
What I did know was that I didn't get enough
exercise. I concentrated on adding exercise into my life, and although I
made a lot of progress in terms of fitness, I didn't lose any weight. I lost
about five pounds over a few weeks when I first started, and then nothing. I
worked up to exercising regularly 5 days a week, and I was doing pretty
rigorous stuff. Still, the pounds didn't come off.
It wasn't until almost two years later that I came up
with an idea. For an entire month, I ate only half of what I would normally
eat. I was so frustrated with trying to lose weight for so long with no
results that I was starting to wonder if I was physically incapable of
losing weight.
I thought of this half-eating plan as an experiment. I
figured that at the end of the month, if I hadn't lost any weight, then I
must have some kind of metabolic issue or something similar. On the other
hand, if I did lose weight, then I would at least know that it was possible.
I lost eight pounds that month. That told me that I
could lose weight. However, I couldn't continue to eat half of my food the
way I had been because it was too little food to be sustainable for me at
the time.
This illustrates the importance of food in your
weight loss plan. Trainers will tell you that losing weight is about 80%
diet and 20% exercise. I knew that a long time ago, but I ignored it because
I had convinced myself that I was already eating well enough. And truly, I
still wasn't eating pizza and ice cream every day, but when you don't know
what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing wrong.
Not everyone will be starting at the bottom like I
did, but I don't think many people would argue with me when I say that the
majority of Americans don't have a healthy diet. Everyone can make
improvements to their diet and nutrition, and Americans especially need
re-learn their eating habits. I think that, for most people, a huge change
needs to be made. This kind of huge change requires a little direction.
There are lots of different weight loss programs to
choose from, so the question is: which to choose?
Let's start with what we don't want from a weight loss
plan. Four things:
Number One: No Grapefruit Diets
This is the biggest and most obvious, but it traps a
lot of people very single day. What I call "grapefruit diets" are those
crazy diets where they have you eating nothing but grapefruit for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner. Or watermelon, or hard boiled eggs, or tree bark, etc.
Healthy diets are made up of a variety of nutrients, including
carbohydrates, protein, good fats, and fruits and vegetables. Any diet that
has you restricted to one or two foods is nonsense.
The trick of these diets is that they do work
on a very short term basis. Anybody who eats nothing but grapefruit for a
week is going to lose weight, and if you were to continue eating nothing but
grapefruit, your body would start literally devouring itself in order to get
the nutrients it needs. You'd feel terrible and look sickly. But what's more
likely is that before you even got to that point you'd binge and that would
be the end of it.
Along the same lines, don't fall for any diets or
exercise plans that contain the words "magic, miracle, revolution" etc.
There are no magical weight loss revolutions. Just totally ignore those
things. Change the channel.
Number Two: No Major Restrictions
Similar to the Grapefruit Diets, you don't want to be
following a diet that has any major restrictions. A really good example of
this is the Atkins diet, which was the frontrunner of the low-carbohydrate
diets. This has the same effect as a grapefruit diet – if a person suddenly
cuts out a huge portion of their food, of course they will lose weight over
the short term, because they're suddenly consuming a lot less calories than
they were before.
The problem is that carbohydrates are our main source
of energy. Remember the food pyramid? The base of it, the largest section,
is all carbohydrates. Carbs are also found in fruit. People who have
followed the Atkins diet for a long period of time have developed illnesses
like kidney disease.
If you want more information on this, please look it
up – a ton of scientific research has now been done that shows just how
dangerous this type of eating is. I may go over this in more detail in a
future episode.
Number Three: There Are No Magic Pills
Repeat after me: There Are No Magic Pills. There Are
No Magic Pills.
Worse, some of the so-called magic pills have killed
people and were subsequently banned by the FDA.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't take supplements or
vitamins. Some might be very helpful and for most there's no harm in
trying. Just don't expect any pills to burn off all your fat without some
diet and exercise effort on your part.
Number Four: Don't Get Stuck on Your
Friend's Plan
Don't choose a plan just because your friend or
coworker is doing it. There is a lot of value in having a weight loss buddy,
but if the program that person is following doesn't work for you, having
that buddy won't do much good. And the truth is, most of the time your buddy
will quit anyway. Better to do something on your own that works for you.
So what do we want in a weight loss plan? There are a couple of easy
things:
First: One fairly obvious thing for some people is to
consider whether you have any specific dietary requirements that have to be
worked around, such as a medical condition that prevents you from eating a
certain type of food. Whether or not a weight loss plan will work for you
with this kind of requirement will probably be clear when you look at the
materials.
Similarly, you should make sure that the plan works
with your lifestyle. Vegetarians and vegans especially should take a moment
to ensure that their choices will be workable in the program.
Now here are two really huge important points:
Number One: Learn Better Eating Habits
The most important thing to look for is a program that
teaches you how to eat properly. Most of the time, the reason why we've
gotten into this situation of needing to lose weight is because we need help
with our eating. So, a program that gives you pre-packaged meals won't be
teaching you how to eat.
Slim-Fast, for example, has people drinking shakes
instead of meals. That might cut down some of your calories, but what do you
think will happen when you stop drinking the shakes and have to make your
own food again? You'll just go back to doing what you were doing before.
Jenny Craig is another example of this. I personally know some people who
have done well on that program, but I worry about what will happen when they
stop.
Number Two: Sustainability
Your program has to be sustainable -- workable for the
long term. In order to lose weight and keep it off permanently, you have to
change your habits in regard to eating and exercise forever. That sounds
daunting, but the good news is that once you get started and really make the
change, you will figure out how to make it work for yourself, and after a
short time, it will be the new way that you live your life.
That means that the program can't restrict you from
foods that you like and you can't always be hungry. If you are on a program
that's overly restrictive or keeps you hungry, it probably falls under one
of those things to avoid that we discussed.
So, that's it. We've gone over what to avoid, and what
to look for. What is this wonderful program that will encourage you
to eat a variety of healthy foods, teach you to eat properly, allow you to
eat foods that you like, and will be workable for the long term so that you
won't gain the weight back?
I've tried and researched many weight loss plans, the
only one I know of is Weight Watchers. Now listen up: Weight Watchers was
the plan that worked best for me, but you have to try it out for yourself to
see if it will work for you. You might find something different that works
better for you. I am not getting paid to promote them. All I know is that
it's a plan that will encourage you to eat a variety of healthy foods, will
teach you to eat properly, will allow you to eat foods that you like, and
will be workable for the long term. That being said, the most important part
of any weight loss plan is that you DO IT and STICK WITH IT. No plan will
work if you quit after a week.
Step 1 - Make the Decision | Step 2 - Come Up With a Plan
|
Step 3 - Make It a Priority
|
