Posts Tagged ‘food’

Writing notes in a diary is a great way to keep an eye on what you’re eating. For seven days, stick to your usual pattern of eating. Put all the items you eat and drink into your food diary – bar none! When a week has passed, analyse the contents of your diary. Try to identify any patterns where poor food choices are more evident.

If it’s evident you’re eating fast food meals and too many cakes, then those should be the first to go. Maybe your diet looks pretty good. But if you’re too heavy then you’re probably eating too much of it. Either option will reveal what you need to change to achieve your desired weight loss.

Make notes about how you intend the following seven days to pan out. Put everything down relating to exercise, food and drink. Write down different food categories to list what’s banned and what’s restricted. In a different section, make a list of the different foods you are allowed to have.

As far as alcohol is concerned, keep it to a minimum. Write down when it’s not allowed, and when and how much it is allowed. Cans of soft drinks containing sugar are out. Next look at exercise. Decide what you are going to do each day and write it down.

Weigh yourself at the beginning of your regime first thing in the morning. Go through this every seven days, making modifications if your results aren’t good enough. Make a note of your weight in your diary once a week.

You’re in the driving seat with a regime like this. Add little observations to remind yourself how you feel. Mark down which days you completed your proposed exercises. You’ll notice the difference it makes once everything is committed to the diary.

It’s important not to expect too much too quickly. In the beginning, a few pounds off probably won’t look much difference. You should soon start to feel less pull on your clothes though. Remember patience is a virtue! Keeping up your motivation is sometimes tough, so try to dwell on the end result and the joy it will bring!

Should things start to go backwards, make haste to get back into the diary regime. Perhaps the plan needs a little adjustment. There are some relatively easy ways to introduce more exercise. Why not take a twenty minute walk every lunch time, and increase the pace each day?

Recognise your successes. Dieting is much more motivating when you quantify your results and reward yourself for your efforts. A lovely new suit should probably wait until your full weight loss is realised. However, you could go to a live concert to celebrate a victorious week or month.