Weight Loss Per Week

Posts Tagged ‘Exercise’

Well it is that time of the year when thoughts of bathing suits, sun tan lotion, and beach balls begin to strike fear in the 63% of Americans that are overweight. With that in mind I got together a group of my colleagues…a virtual think tank of fitness professionals…with over 50 years of experience helping even the self proclaimed hopeless people drop weight and keep it off.
We compiled a list of ten things you can change starting today to begin your weight loss process and keep those pounds off permanently. So grab a bowl of cottage cheese, sit back, and take a few minutes to read this list of simple weight loss tactics; but remember real weight loss does not happen overnight so get to work on your summer body early and be ready to stick it out for at least 8 – 12 weeks.
1. Drink Water
Universal agreement among dietitians, nutritional consultants, coaches, life coaches, personal trainers, and mystic gurus put this simple recommendation at the top of our list. Close your eyes and imprint these two words in your mind. Put down that 4th cup of coffee and go pour yourself a glass of water (don’t worry we’ll be here when you get back). Studies support 8 glasses of water per day to promote weight loss.
2. Load your body
Cardio is great, but remember it is only one piece of your fitness program. A complete weight loss program will incorporate strength and core training on a weekly basis. Be sure to load your body using dumbbells, medicine balls, resistance bands, barbells, or your own body weight.
3. Eat Frequently
It’s a fact. You can eat yourself thin. Yet many health and fitness professionals feel like a broken record saying this over and over again to skeptical clients that cannot understand how eating more frequently will help them lose weight. Breakfast is essential to weight loss, but it is just the beginning. Eating smaller meals more frequently will keep your metabolism purring throughout the day.
4. Vary your cardio program
To keep your cardio interesting try to mix it up. Jog, bike, walk hills, swim, play tennis, team sports… anything to keep your heart rate up for 45 to 60 minutes three times a week.
5. Do not Drink Sugar
I am not going to make this an endorsement for Diet Coke or Pepsi. The jury is still out on whether these can be considered weight loss drinks but one thing is certain; sugar is your enemy. It must be defeated on every front including your daily mocha latte and your late night red bull pick me up. You do not need the calories. Look for sugar free versions of the things you drink daily and watch the calories you save pile up.
6. Bake Do Not Fry
Baking is a great alternative to frying your food. It keeps the fat content down and your arteries will thank you for it later in life.
7. Lean Protein (Not any Protein)
Bacon is not a health food. Ok I will admit it, things taste better with bacon in it… but we are talking weight loss here and, like me, you should substitute lean meats for fatty meats. Skin your chicken, cut excess fat off all meat and increase your consumption of turkey, chicken and fish. Your body will thank you.
8. Join a fitness center
If you have a hard time scheduling time to run by yourself or train at home try joining a gym. Fitness classes are a great way to get fit while having fun and if you have a budget to support it, hiring a personal trainer is an excellent way to guide yourself through this effort.
Above all, remember these are life-changing tips not a fad diet endorsement. Do not expect to lose 10 pounds in one week. One to three pounds per week is an excellent pace for permanent weight loss. So kiss those fears of the beach goodbye, squeeze into your newest two-piece bikini and get ready for a great summer beach season.
(Overweight = A Body Mass Index (BMI) in excess of 25.0 -The National Center for Health statistics)

People who lose weight and keep it off succeed by adapting a healthy lifestyle, not by dieting. You must enforce healthy eating habits that will continue to be part of your life forever. Weight loss isn’t something you can do for a few weeks or month. It’s a life-long commitment.

Here are twenty-five tips that will help you adapt a slow and steady weight loss plan that you keep help you lose weight and stay healthy.

1. Start with achievable goals

2. Don’t expect to drop excess weight quickly. Research shows that people who lose weight slowly are more successful than others who experience quick weight loss.

3. A realistic weight loss goal is two pounds a week.

4. Don’t look for miraculous weight loss. If you lose weight quickly your will probably gain it back.

5. Slowly change your eating habits and lifestyle.

6. Weigh yourself once a week maximum. Hoping on the scales everyday will drive you to distraction and will become obsessive. It actually takes as much as two weeks for any weight loss to occur.

7. Eat smaller portions and replace three meals a day with five smaller ones. This helps to control blood sugar and it’s easier to burn calories from small, light meals.

8. Mix carbohydrates, protein and fruit for a healthy meal.

9. When enjoying your favorite snack, read the nutrition chart and measure the recommended amount into a bowl. Never eat snacks such as chips, out of a bag. This leads to over-eating.

10. Prepare measured snacks ahead of time. That way you can just go to the cupboard and get a small bag. Never go back for seconds.

11. Drink flavored no-calorie water instead of soda, or add lemon juice or avocado juice to water for a refreshing, thirst quenching drink.

12. Don’t use food for comfort or de-stressing.

13. Leave the table immediately after you’ve finished eating. Avoid desserts or have a cup of low fat yogurt.

14. When you are home and craving an extra rich treat, tie on your walking shoes and go for a walk. By the time you get home the craving most probably will have passed.

15. Walk for at least 30 minutes a day. This can be broken into two, five minute increments, if desired.

16. Park your car at the outside edge of the parking lot, where it’s much easier to get a parking space, and then walk to the store. This will help you get in your minimum daily requirement of walking.

17. Wear a pedometer and walk between 5,000 and 10,000 steps per day. This will help you lose weight more quickly while doing so in a healthy manner.

18. Eat a bowl of broth based soup, such as minestrone or vegetable, before eating your meal. This will take the edge off your hunger and you will eat less. Do not eat cream soups, as they are much higher in calories.

19. Reward yourself once a week with a small treat. This helps you to avoid binging and brings weight loss success.

20. Learn to love yourself as you are. Beauty is in the heart and soul. Remind yourself that you are beautiful.

21. Never eat anything after 8 pm.

22. Write down everything you eat. This helps you keep tabs on your food intake. You’ll be surprised at how quickly it adds up.

23. Keep food off the table. Place single servings on plates and put them at the place settings. You’re more apt to take seconds if the food is within easy reach.

24. Eat vegetables first. Vegetables have lots of fiber, which helps make you feel full before you get to the carbohydrates and fat.

25. Put your fork down between mouthfuls of food. Chew thoroughly and swallow before picking up your fork for the next bite. This allows you to savor your food and it helps you to eat slower, which improves digestion.

People who lose weight and keep it off succeed by adapting a healthy lifestyle, not by dieting. You must enforce healthy eating habits that will continue to be part of your life forever. Weight loss isn’t something you can do for a few weeks or month. It’s a life-long commitment.
Here are twenty-five tips that will help you adapt a slow and steady weight loss plan that you keep help you lose weight and stay healthy.
1. Start with achievable goals
2. Don’t expect to drop excess weight quickly. Research shows that people who lose weight slowly are more successful than others who experience quick weight loss.
3. A realistic weight loss goal is two pounds a week.
4. Don’t look for miraculous weight loss. If you lose weight quickly your will probably gain it back.
5. Slowly change your eating habits and lifestyle.
6. Weigh yourself once a week maximum. Hoping on the scales everyday will drive you to distraction and will become obsessive. It actually takes as much as two weeks for any weight loss to occur.
7. Eat smaller portions and replace three meals a day with five smaller ones. This helps to control blood sugar and it’s easier to burn calories from small, light meals.
8. Mix carbohydrates, protein and fruit for a healthy meal.
9. When enjoying your favorite snack, read the nutrition chart and measure the recommended amount into a bowl. Never eat snacks such as chips, out of a bag. This leads to over-eating.
10. Prepare measured snacks ahead of time. That way you can just go to the cupboard and get a small bag. Never go back for seconds.
11. Drink flavored no-calorie water instead of soda, or add lemon juice or avocado juice to water for a refreshing, thirst quenching drink.
12. Don’t use food for comfort or de-stressing.
13. Leave the table immediately after you’ve finished eating. Avoid desserts or have a cup of low fat yogurt.
14. When you are home and craving an extra rich treat, tie on your walking shoes and go for a walk. By the time you get home the craving most probably will have passed.
15. Walk for at least 30 minutes a day. This can be broken into two, five minute increments, if desired.
16. Park your car at the outside edge of the parking lot, where it’s much easier to get a parking space, and then walk to the store. This will help you get in your minimum daily requirement of walking.
17. Wear a pedometer and walk between 5,000 and 10,000 steps per day. This will help you lose weight more quickly while doing so in a healthy manner.
18. Eat a bowl of broth based soup, such as minestrone or vegetable, before eating your meal. This will take the edge off your hunger and you will eat less. Do not eat cream soups, as they are much higher in calories.
19. Reward yourself once a week with a small treat. This helps you to avoid binging and brings weight loss success.
20. Learn to love yourself as you are. Beauty is in the heart and soul. Remind yourself that you are beautiful.
21. Never eat anything after 8 pm.
22. Write down everything you eat. This helps you keep tabs on your food intake. You’ll be surprised at how quickly it adds up.
23. Keep food off the table. Place single servings on plates and put them at the place settings. You’re more apt to take seconds if the food is within easy reach.
24. Eat vegetables first. Vegetables have lots of fiber, which helps make you feel full before you get to the carbohydrates and fat.
25. Put your fork down between mouthfuls of food. Chew thoroughly and swallow before picking up your fork for the next bite. This allows you to savor your food and it helps you to eat slower, which improves digestion.

I am a huge believer in having goals. While some people spend too much time setting goals and not enough time achieving them, most people do not put much thought into goal-setting. When it comes to weight loss, it is especially important to set realistic goals.
By realistic, I do not mean “I want to lose 30 pounds in 30 days.” Oh, I’ve seen those claims many times. I’ve seen the claims of marketers that say their products can do that for you. I’ve also seen the claims of people that have said they can accomplish that feat. Can you lose 30 pounds in 30 days? Sure, but it is not healthy at all and will almost certainly return at some point in the near future. A good portion of this extreme weight loss will be in the form of muscle and that will kill your metabolic rate. For more on this, check my article on “Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss”.
So, what is a realistic amount of fat one can lose in 30 days? I would say, stick to the mantra of 1-2 pounds per week. That would mean about 4-8 pounds per month. Now, that may not sound like much, but let’s put it into a bit of perspective. Say you were to only lose one pound of fat each week. After one year, that would be 52 pounds! What if you had started losing one pound per week a year ago? Now imagine yourself this time next year at 52 pounds lighter. You may not even need to lose that much weight.
The key to weight loss goals is patience, realism, and a constant effort toward achieving them. At two pounds of body fat per week, after 13 weeks (3 months), you will have lost 26 pounds of body fat. That is very significant. It requires a lot of effort over the course of three months, but it is definitely attainable. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, this would be a good goal to start with. Close to 30 pounds in three months is much more realistic that 30 pounds in 30 days.
One note that I should make is concerning detoxification diets. I am actually a big proponent of the detoxification process as long as it is done properly. I will deal with this subject in a future article, but for now you should know that it involves eliminating certain foods from your diet (while sometimes adding certain natural supplements) in order to rid your body of toxins that have been stored over time. The detoxification process can lead to a large drop in excess water weight in a short period of time. This would mean that you may lose an additional 5-10 pounds of weight on top of the 1-2 pounds per week of body fat in the first 2-4 weeks. It is not an easy process, but it is definitely healthy and certainly worth the effort.
Other than that, I would recommend sticking to two pounds per week for a short-term aggressive approach and about 1.5 pounds per week for a longer-term goal. Remember that these pounds add up over time. Don’t check the scale every day as you will get discouraged quickly. Rather, stick to checking every two to four weeks. Also, take some measurement of your body and take note of how your clothes are fitting. Often, these are better indications of how your body is changing. Take pride in these accomplishments and don’t stress over the numbers.
Set goals. Make them aggressive but attainable. Set both short and long term goals and then go take action on them. Most importantly, be consistent because your efforts really will add up all the time. That will make you very happy in the end.

If you are like me, you have probably been through all this before, the family wedding is coming up next month and you can’t seem to fit into that suit or dress because you have put on too much weight. So you must lose at least ten or more pounds quickly.

Losing weight quickly is not advisable as most of the loss will be muscle tissue and water; you put on the weight slowly (usually over years) so normally you should take it off slowly and then you will know that the majority of the loss will be body fat.

But you have a problem here and the clock is ticking so you will have to diet pretty hard to meet your target weight loss. Let’s look at that first, you all know that diets don’t work; they send the body into starvation mode, a survival mechanism from long age when humans faced periods of famine.

Going too low in calories causes the body to lower its metabolic rate, which reduces its ability to burn fat. At the same time, hunger signals increase and you quickly start to crave high-energy foods loaded with fats and sugar, the same foods you are trying to do without.

Research shows repeated dieting actually makes it harder to lose weight and easier to put it on because when you dump the diet and return to normal eating habits the drop in metabolic rate caused by the diet means that your old habits actually represent an excess in calories.

Not only do you regain the fat stores just lost, but also you may even gain an extra bit.

Knowing this, you really don’t want to put yourselves through this rigorous process, but for this special occasion you will. First though, you will have to boost the metabolism that has been lowered by the dieting.

To do this you will have to perform a “Strength Training” workout to generate that initial spike in your metabolism. By increasing the lean muscle on your body by using Strength Training, your metabolism will increase, burning fat along the way.

The strength training technique I use requires just twenty to thirty mins per week. Gone are the days of the five-day a week program with 6 to 12 sets per body part that, method has never worked.

One short intense strength-training workout a week will elevate your metabolism more than you ever thought possible.

While the calories expended doing exercise are important, the increase in metabolism especially after strength training continues long after the exercise is finished, burning calories at the same time.

The two main components of this technique are the intensity of the exercise and the recovery after the exercise.

Infrequent, short, high intensity weight training sessions, followed by the required amount of time to recover and become stronger is what is needed to increase functional lean muscle and lose body fat.

Small frequent meals should be consumed during the day each containing a little protein to maintain muscle mass and energy levels. A high quality broad-spectrum vitamin and mineral supplement should also be taken on a daily basis.

As before get the calories from high quality food but if you can’t, utilize a blender to make concoctions from skim milk with whatever additives you want to use, just as long as you keep count of the calories for your daily total.

Now use these blender mixtures and solid food for your daily feedings. Spread it out over many small meals a day instead of the traditional three meals a day. The way to keep track of weight loss is to buy a calorie counter and record your daily calorie intake for a week.

Now average out how many calories you consume a day with the use of a seven-day eating plan and calorie counter, once you have this figure subtract 1000 calories and this will be the target number of calories you will be aiming for.

Remembering that one-pound of fat contains 3500cals, losing 1000 calories a day will total 7000 for the week, which equals two pounds lost by dietary means alone. Another technique for low calorie eating is to watch your fat intake as this has the most calories.

Incidental activity is also very important if you want to lose this amount of weight in this short period of time, by increasing incidental activity you can burn at least another pound a week The best exercise for the purpose of fat-loss is fast walking either indoors on the treadmill or outdoors.

Walk until you are mildly puffing and hold that rate until the allotted time. If your aerobic activities leave you panting or breathless, your going too hard, your energy is coming from your carbohydrate reserves and not from your fat stores. Try fast walking for one hour a day every day of the week.

Well there you have it, as an experienced trainer I wouldn’t recommend this type of program to my clients. The weight loss is just too quick and the program would be very hard to maintain owing to the very low caloric intake.

I advise my clients to decrease their calories by just 500 per day (and no more) below their maintenance levels and they will be losing 1 – 2 pounds of body fat every week, safely, without craving and without too much disruption to their lifestyle.

In conclusion remember, think long term here and that’s between 30 and 50 pounds of fat lost in six months. Any faster and all you will be losing is water and precious muscle tissue.

We all want a quick weight fix, especially when it comes to losing weight. The initial stages of our diet we can lose a lot of excess wait. People do miraculously well in the first couple of weeks. The reason being our body is not used to of the new healthy low fat foods and it reacts amazingly. The body becomes a weight busting machine and people sometimes lose 10 pounds in a week or more.But during the second week the weight loss stops reason being your body adjusts to your new diet plan. Therefore it is important to change your diet plan every week. Either you add five minutes to your workout routine or eat a different fat burning food. Overall the safest weight loss requirement for every week is a Kg. A weight loss greater than that might be normal in the first couple of weeks, but later it might just be water weight. Remember water weight comes back, a weight loss which consists of more fat is which you should be looking at.When you follow your diet you lose a lot of muscle weight, but when you work out you lose fat. It is better to lose fat, since fat is dangerous and makes you look heavier. Muscle weight is good, but losing both the weights simultaneously is expected in the first weeks. Getting rid of fat more than muscle will be seen if you keep a track of your lost inches. It is important when you start your weight loss process you monitor your weight loss in inches and on the scale. Sometimes you might not have lost weight on the scale, but your inches would have gone down a lot.So a combination of both proper exercise and the right diet will help you achieve your goal faster. But do not rush your weight loss process since this is a life long adjustment you need to make. Not something which is done for a week and then stopped. Maintaining a healthy weight is a great achievement.

Weight loss success for many people is a constant struggle while others seem to get it on the first try. So why do some people struggle and others breeze through this difficult challenge?
There are certain factors that seem to work against some people, like age, a lower metabolism and even genetics play a part. But these are all things that can be overcome with the right motivation, commitment, knowledge and support.
In fact, these are the secret ingredients that successful losers have, and by losers I mean those who have lost the weight and kept it off. You can find just about every weight loss tip like drink plenty of water, eat healthier foods and exercise more. All of these are great tips and will help towards losing weight. But if you struggle to lose weight then you need to dig deeper and try new ways to stay committed to your weight loss goal, gain all the right information for you, find ways to get motivated and build the proper support system.Weight Loss Success through Commitment
My guess is if you didn’t want to lose weight you would not be reading this article. But saying you want to lose weight is just a small step to really committing to weight loss.
Increase your commitment by creating a personalized weight loss plan. Set a realistic goal, one that is something you can achieve and would be happy with. The goal can be in terms pounds, inches or body fat loss. Or it can even be by clothing size or the way you look in the mirror.
Make smaller goals that you can measure your progress by the week or month. Making smaller goals helps you stay focused and committed towards your long term goal. Plan for the week and go shopping for the foods you need and clear your schedule to allow time for your planned exercise routines.
Keep in mind that even the best made plans can change as life will give you the unexpected. Don’t let a missed day of exercising or eating right throw you off track. Shrug it off and keep on going with your plan and make adjustments if needed.Weight Loss Success through Knowledge
Knowledge is power and with the right knowledge on your weight loss needs you can accomplish amazing results. Many weight loss programs are designed to adjust to the individual needs. Each person’s calorie intake needs and exercise needs will be different.
Your daily calorie intake for weight loss is dependent on your weight and height, age and gender and activity level. Do the proper research to first determine what your basal metabolic rate is. Then adjust your calorie intake needs for your level of activity. Once you have armed yourself with this information, then create a calorie deficit, where you consume fewer calories than you burn.
If you are able, add exercise to your weekly routine. Studies show that people who exercise and diet lose weight quicker and are more likely to keep the weight off versus those who only diet. Start out slow if you have not exercised in awhile. You should try to create a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories a day for weight loss by eating fewer calories and adding exercise. Be sure you don’t reduce calories too low or you will cause your metabolism to slow down and you run the risk of actually gaining weight.Weight Loss Success through Motivation
If only we could buy motivation in a can we would be all set to lose the weight. Unfortunately motivation cannot be bought and is at times very difficult to find. Try looking for that certain something or someone that inspires you to stay with your weight loss and keep you motivated.
Try motivating yourself using a reward system. You can reward yourself with whatever you want but try to stay away from food as a reward. Use a calendar and place stickers or stars when you reach a goal or had a good week. Although this may seem like you are back in school, it is a visual reminder of how well you are doing. When you hit a significant goal treat yourself to a night out with your friends and family.
If you hit a weight loss plateau and feel like giving up, motivate yourself by looking back at your progress to see how far you have come. Remind yourself that plateaus are just part of the journey and to stick with it. Eventually you will come off the plateau and be on the losing end of things again. Try mixing up your exercise routine or change and add different foods to push past the weight loss plateau.
Another weight loss motivation tactic is to create your own personalized motivational saying. Even if you don’t think you are a creative person, write something down that you can relate to and get motivated by. Post it where you can read it everyday. You know yourself best and therefore can create a personalized weight loss motivation tip that will inspire you.Weight Loss Success through Support
Support groups can be found for just about everything life can throw at you, including weight loss support groups. Weight loss can be very challenging and frustrating. Adding support to your weight loss ingredients can be the difference between getting through the challenge and giving up.
You can look for organized support groups through weight loss programs, on-line forums or chat rooms. You can also build your own group. Include your friends, family, neighbors and coworkers. Let them know you are trying to lose weight and want their support. Perhaps you and your neighbor can go walking a couple of times a week. At work, you and your coworkers can plan a “bring your own healthy meal” day at work, instead of going out for lunch.
With the right support, motivation, knowledge and commitment, you can be successful at your weight loss goals.

Your baby helped you gain your pregnancy weight. Now, it is time for your baby helps you to lose it! The average woman gains between 25-35 pounds during a healthy pregnancy. She can expect to lose 12-14 pounds during delivery. That can leave as much as 20 pounds left to lose after the baby is born.

The good news is that there’s a completely natural way to get rid of that extra weight — breastfeeding! Breastfeeding isn’t just healthy for your baby; it’s healthy for you, too, and can help you get rid of those extra pounds. It will go faster and easier than if you bottle feed.

Moms who breast feed either exclusively or just partially have slimmer hips or weigh less in the first six postpartum months than moms who feed their babies by bottle.

Producing milk to feed your baby takes a lot of work. A mother who is feeding her child exclusively with breast milk can expect to use more than 500 extra calories a day just to support her milk supply. It means that you burn 3500 calories a week. Breastfeeding, coupled with a regular exercise routine and healthy diet, can help a nursing mom lose all of her postpartum weight within 9 to11 months.

While breast feeding may help to kick start your weight loss after child birth, there are a few things to consider:

* The need to eat more. It’s true that some nursing mothers do find it necessary to eat a bit more in order to keep up their milk supply. But, most find that if they avoid indulging in fatty and sugary foods and sweets, they continue to lose weight even with the added caloric intake.

* The need to exercise. Nothing will help you get back into those pre-pregnancy jeans faster than exercise. While many breastfeeding mothers worry that exercise will hinder their milk production, or change the taste of the milk, most experts agree that a reasonable amount of exercise will help you look and feel better than doing without any exercise at all.

* Remember to eat a well-balanced diet. The best way to give yourself and your baby the vitamins and minerals you both need, as well as lose those unwanted pounds, is to fill your plate with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and protein rich foods.

* Take Your Time. It’s hard to be patient to get back to your old size once the baby is born. After all, you probably haven’t felt much like your old self in months, and just want to feel like you again. But remember, it took nine months for your body to grow into the size it is now, and it won’t shrink back to what you consider normal overnight. Give yourself the time to carefully lose those unwanted pounds. Most health experts agree that a 1-2 pounds a week weight loss is the most any mom should struggle for.

Losing weight after having a baby isn’t easy, but you can do it. Using a professional and well-working weight loss method may help you.

Lets dive right in and see how many of these instant diet and exercise killers you have commited!

1. Too Much, Too Soon- Many people will go all out in their workouts and diets right away. This will lead them to burning themselves out, becoming to sore to continue, injury, and to crash on their diets. Take baby steps instead. Make little changes so that over time they add up to big lifestyle changes.2. Setting Unrealistic Goals- Today’s society will have you believe that with 10 minutes of exercise, some crazy ab tool, and a crash diet, you can lose 30 pounds a have Hollywood abs in 30 days. Not true! Healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week, through good dieting practices, and intense 30-60 minute workouts, 3-4 times per week. Weight Loss is hard work, having realistic goals too accomplish will help you stay motivated along the way!3. Eating Too Little- Most people will go on a fad diet (low carb, high carb, Atkins, etc.) to lose weight. They may see initial results but before long they will bottom out and actually gain even more weight back once they scrap that fad diet. Follow a healthy diet, eating 4-6 times per day, from all catagories of the main food groups. You will have more energy to workout and feel more inclined to stick to your diet if you are satisfied from meal to meal.4. Fixating on the scale- Using the scale as a guide is good, but do not put all your success on seeing the number lower. Our goal is to lose body fat, which can be achieved while we gain lean muscle. This is a process which will help your metabolism rise and sustain the new body your are after. With out gaining lean muscle you will gain back any weight you will lose once you stop your diet.5. Doing whatever you wish on the weekends- Some people believe if they diet and exercise all week, they can do eat whatever they want on the weekend. If you do this you can back all the weight you lost in the week, over the weekend. You have to be conscious of the fact that, if you do not exercise on the weekends you are not burning as many calories as the weekdays. Now, if you eat unhealthy foods all weekend also, you are taking in extra calories. No exercise and extra calories equals weight gain. Keep up a healthy diet on the weekend and try to get a little cardio exercise in; make if something fun!By avoiding these 5 common, but deadlymistakes you will increase your chances of success. Take baby steps though, maybe all these changes at once is too much, so break it down and try to accomplish one step each week. Before you know it, you will be on your way to the body you deserve.

In this article I will cover how to modify your diet to achieve a 1 lb a week weight loss by setting your weight loss goal and following a method of gradual change to achieve it.
There are 3 basic steps you need to follow in order to succeed:
1. Set Your Weight Loss Goal
To be effective your goals must be written down. If you don’t write them down; don’t proceed further and waste your time because you won’t succeed. You must then have a detailed plan of how you will achieve your goal. Your plan needs to be time bound and measurable. A simple example might be: “I will lose 2 lb a week for the next 10 weeks by … exercise plan … diet plan. I will weigh myself on the bathroom scales first thing every Sunday morning to track my progress.”
A good starting point in your plan is to ascertain your ideal weight for your height. The difference between where you are now and your ideal weight becomes your weight loss goal. You can then divide your goal by the time over which you want to meet your target.
The last important goal setting factor for success is to review your goal at least daily and create a vivid mental image of your sexy slender self as you will be! Positive self-talk and affirmations have also proven to be powerful psychological tools in persuading your subconscious to believe your goal and act accordingly.
2. You need to know what you are eating.
You do this by keeping a diary or small notebook and recording everything you eat and drink for the day. This will be your starting point for improvement. You will later incorporate this process into step 1.
3. You will replace high calorie fatty low nutrition food from the previous day with nutritious low calorie alternatives in a gradual but incremental process by reviewing the information from step 2. By using the 80/20 rule you will focus on the 20% of your food that generates 80% of your calories. Eg. Fast food, high fat, high sugar products.
To start with these foods should be pretty obvious to you so you shouldn’t need to get into counting calories unless you want to be more precise. There is plenty of data available online to find out the calories for each food.
You need to incorporate your plan into your food shopping. There’s no point buying food that’s going to hinder your success or not having healthy food readily available. So forget about the high fat products. Look for alternative low calorie substitutes. You can never go wrong with plenty of fruits and vegetables. Apply the same logic to your drink selections and exclude soda type sugar drinks.
Your plan is your guide but always be on the lookout for easy ways to boost your progress with healthy choices for meals. Remember that once you’ve made a change, it’s a permanent change. The idea is not to starve your body but to actually make incremental improvements to your nutrition.
By retraining your body with healthy nutritious food you will soon be experiencing the benefits of improved health, improved appearance and higher energy.