Weight Loss Made Easy

I don’t know about you, but if I go shopping without a shopping list I’ll end up buying everything that looks good, whether it’s good for me or not. I can’t possibly eat that much in one week, but my eyes think I can.

To stop this from happening, create a meal plan. Plan out your meals, decide what you really need to buy. Then create a shopping list. Everything should be included, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, even desserts.

If an item is not on your shopping list, don’t buy it. That’s final. This will not only help you stick to a diet better, it’ll also help you save money. A lot of people buy too much, then they end eating too much. They also end up throwing a lot out, wasting money.

With the help of the people at 43 Things you can find the dieting support that you need. 43 Things is a social networking site that lets you choose 43 things you want to work on in your life. Then you join up with other people on 43 Things who want to accomplish the same goals.

Start by signing up with 43 Things. Then look up terms like “lose weight” or “get in shape”. Once you’ve added something you want to do, go into the page for your new goal. You can read posts from other people who are trying to accomplish the same goal you are. If you have something to add, you can post too.

Read other people’s profiles to see what they’ve been up to and how they’re coming along with their goals. Make some friends, maybe even find a diet buddy or two to help you along.

Every time you lose 5 pounds, go out and buy yourself something. Not something expensive, you don’t want to ruin the bank, just something cute or nice. If you’ve lost a lot of weight and your clothes is getting loose, you may want to reward yourself with a new pair of pants or a cute top.

Generally the reward should be something small though, and not food. You could go to the dollar section of your store and buy some small trinkets. Maybe some happy face stickers for your food journal. Or a magnet for your refrigerator.

Anyone else have ideas for weight loss rewards?

Writing down everything you eat in a food diary can really help you know what you’re eating. Once you become aware of everything you eat, you’ll start eating less, and eventually lose weight. You may be thinking that you already know what you eat. Do you really? Did you forget about the half a cookie you snagged after dinner? Or the icing you liked off the beaters?

Everything you eat has calories, even crumbs. I’ve seen the joke about crumbs not having calories, but they do. Write down everything that goes into your mouth in your food diary.

Also write about how you feel. If you can, write how you feel before and after you eat a meal in your food diary. If you had a headache one day, write that down too. Feeling fatigued one day, write it down.

Eventually you’ll start to see a pattern. Some foods give you more energy and others make you tired, or have a headache, or feel bloated. The more you write in your food diary, the more you’ll learn about your eating habits.

Don’t cut calories too fast or you’re setting yourself up for failure. When you cut a lot of calories out of your diet all at once your body goes crazy. First of all, you’ll be hungry all the time, and no one wants that. Secondly, your body will go into shut down mode because it’ll think you’re starving and don’t have enough food to eat. Then your calorie burning power will be cut, drastically.

Cut your calories slowly. First you need to find out how many calories you eat. Keep track of everything you eat for 2 weeks. Then start cutting certain things from your diet, slowly. The first week cut 100 calories from your diet. Then 100 more.

You can cut your diet by foods instead of calories if that’s easier. Cut out the cupcake you have after lunch each day for the first week. Next week cut out the bag of chips you eat with dinner. One item at a time you’ll start to eat less and less calories.

One pound of fat, or 2.2 kg, is approximately equal to 3500 calories. Think about that for a moment. That means that you need to cut 3500 calories from your diet just to lose one pound of fat. No wonder it’s so hard to lose weight.

This may sound like an impossible goal, but it’s not, it’s just a slow goal. It means you can’t possibly lose a pound a day of fat. You need to lose weight over time. Weeks, months, years, not days.

Let’s say you normally eat 2500 calories a day. You cut your calorie intake to 2000 calories a day. That’s a deficit of 500 calories a day. At this rate it would take you one week, seven days, to lose one pound. That’s a worthy and healthy goal.

You may want to lose five pounds a week, but that’s just not possible. A more realistic goal is 1-2 pounds a week. Losing weight too fast isn’t healthy anyway. Your body starts to take calories from other places besides fat when you try to lose too fast. Be happy with your 1-2 pounds a week.