 |
|
|
|
Men's Health | Women's Health | Children's Health | Elder Health Holistic Health | Healthy Heart | Cancer | Weight Loss Exercise & Fitness | Healthy Resources | HOME PAGE Health Club 101 DIRECT Natural Supplements | HGH Energizer | Eazol Natural Pain Relief | Revitol Cellulite Solution IBS Irritable Bowel Syndrome | Menopause Symptoms Relief | Insomnia Sleeping Aid Articles & Information Medicine | Nutrition | Exercise | Fitness Equipment | Pregnancy Bodybuilding Supplements | Weight Loss | Breast Cancer | Diabetes Category Site Map |
 |
Weight Loss Superfecta
If you are a fan of horse racing, you are familiar with the exotic bet called the Superfecta. It requires that you pick the first four horses to cross the finish line. Depending upon the size of the field and the odds of the winning horses, the pay-off is frequently tremendous. Approaching our weight loss efforts with a bettor's attitude, we're going to pick four sure winners in the dieting game. To improve our chances, we going to "box" our choices, meaning that they can finish in any order as long as our picks run first, second, third, and fourth. 1. Restrict your eating to mealtimes. We often control ourselves relatively well when we sit down at the table. Whether at home or eating out, we have put some thought into the food on our plate and have made a conscious decision about what we will allow ourselves. It is what happens between actual meals that is often our downfall. We act without awareness or forethought, absent-mindedly picking on leftovers or items just "hanging around" - candy, potato chips, last night's unfinished bowl of popcorn, a last lonely cupcake. With little genuine memory of doing it, we have doubled or tripled our daily caloric intake and completely subverted our best intentions. Whether you eat twice a day or "three squares" stick to that, and keep your teeth firmly clenched for the rest of the time. 2. Increase your activity. Most of us who are overweight hate exercise. We always manage not to find time to perform a daily routine or join a gym. It is true that you can increase your energy expenditure during the day by such changes as using the stairs instead of the elevator, parking as far away from the store or market as possible, or walking over to a coworker's desk rather than calling him on the telephone. The problem is that these suggestions, so often voiced by the weight loss specialists, have little effect, especially in the short term. If you honestly believe that a few extra steps a day is going to make you buff, you are in big-time denial my friend. Increasing your activity levels to the range where they will really help your weight goals is going to take genuine and regular effort. If you can't stand the thought of calisthenics in the morning, try these. a. Don't just take the stairs, use them. If you work on the third floor of a six story building, walk up to the roof and then back down to your floor. If you have a two story home or an upstairs apartment, make sure you keep leaving things behind so you are forced to go up and down the stairs at least three or four times before you get in your car and drive off. b. Park your car in the back 40 at the supermarket and then leave your wallet under the seat. When you reach the store, you'll have to walk all the way back to get it. When you've loaded your groceries into your trunk, push the basket all the way back to the store's front door - now you've walked the distance four times instead of just once. c. Use your break or lunch time to walk around the block. Then convince yourself that you might have dropped something and retrace your entire trip. d. Turn on music when you clean house or wash the dishes. Dance constantly while you try to finish your chores without breaking anything. e. When you watch television, only put an ounce or two of water, or coffee, or tea, in your cup or glass. Get up for a refill at every commercial. During the evening, you may get up and down fifty times which will keep you limber as well as burning calories. Some of these ideas may take so much time that you'll throw in the towel and choose an early morning exercise routine instead, knowing that then you don't have to worry about this silliness all day! 3. Think small. We gain weight because of the types of food we eat and the amount we eat. For now, we are going to concentrate on the quantity of our intake - calories DO count. Start thinking small at the market. Yes, the food producers give us a price break if we buy the "economy" size (they have a vested interest in keep our appetites unfettered). We can save even more by buying in bulk. At this stage in our weight loss program, we are less interested in saving money than in saving our diet. Buy the smallest available size of everything. When you start to prepare your meal, estimate how much of each item you need, and then reduce by 25%. Use dessert instead of dinner plates. A portion of food looks much bigger when it's threatening to spill over the edges. As you start to eat, cut your food into small pieces. Not bite-sized pieces, mind you, but more like pet food morsels or large peas. Then eat one at a time, making sure your mouth is totally empty before taking another piece. You will find yourself feeing full (and rather bored with the whole procedure) long before your little plate is empty. The thought of a second helping may even make you nauseous. If you are eating out, try to order a child's plate, a senior menu size, or just an appetizer. Never order a complete meal when a la carte dishes are available - the rest is just "filler" anyway. 4. Always have a pleasant diversion on hand. The less time you spend interacting with food, the less you will eat. Set up your schedule to allow yourself as little time to eat as possible. If you have an important meeting at 1 PM, don't take time for lunch until 12:45. At 1 PM, stop and clear everything away. If you want to watch a special television show at 7 PM, don't start eating dinner until 6:45. At 7 PM, dump any uneaten food into the garbage pail and turn on your show. If you didn't have time to finish your meal, more power to you - you're that many calories ahead. And remember that this tip must be combined with your earlier agreement not to eat between meals. If you're home with nothing special to do, identify some fun non-eating activity and schedule that right after you start to eat so again you are forced to stop earlier than your stomach demands. Schedule yourself to start a new book, surf the Internet, read a favorite catalog, visit a neighbor, or sit down with the kids to discuss their day. Never find yourself at "loose ends" with nothing better to do than eat. Make a list of things you enjoy so there is always something to tempt you away from the table. Mix and match these four suggestions as you move along in your journey to slim. In any order, in any degree, in any rotation, they will help carry you across the finish line to reap your well-earned rewards. Virginia Bola is a licensed psychologist and an admitted diet fanatic. She specializes in therapeutic reframing and the effects of attitudes and motivation on individual goals. The author of The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a free ezine, The Worker's Edge, she recently published a psychologically-based weight control e-workbook, "Diet with an Attitude" which develops mental skills towards the goal of permanent weight control. She can be reached at http://www.DietWithAnAttitude.com. She provides support and guidance in use of the workbook through her regular blog, http://dietwithanattitude.blogspot.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Men's Health
|
Women's
Health |
Children's
Health |
Elder
Health
Medicine - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How to Exercise and Lose Weight on a Busy Schedule In my fitness consulting business, I get the opportunityto talk with people from all walks of life about their health,fitness, and weight loss goals. Whether their goal is tolose weight, gain muscle, stick to a diet plan or program, improve theircardiovascular health, or simply to maintain their current fitnesslevel they all have one common enemy---TIME. Wellness Coach Reveals Celebrity Diet We think we know everything there is to know about them. After all, faithful paparazzi hunt them down just so we can get a picture or a glimpse of their lives. Basic Approaches To Weight Management Being over weight is usually being 20 percent or more over the normal weight for his or her age, sex, build, and height. According to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, a person's weight is healthy if it falls within the acceptable range for his or her height and age; if the pattern of fat distribution does not place the person at increased risk for certain diseases; and if the person has no medical problem for which a physician recommends that he or she lose weight. At The Dinner Table This Article was originally Published in The July 2004 Issue of The ZoneNet NewsletterIt was very hard having an overweight child. Wherever we were, people just stared. Walk Your Way to Weight Loss "The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best." Thomas JeffersonThe problem of obesity is growing (pardon the pun) in America and it doesn't appear that dieting alone is helping people with their weight loss goals. Weight Loss Options -- Infrared Radiant Heat Saunas (IR Saunas) Infrared Radiant Heat (IRRH) is a form of radiation that penetrates the outer surface of objects, including human skin. Heat is generated as the infrared energy interacts with and penetrates the skin surface. Why Isnt My Diet Working? Have you been on a new diet for a couple of weeks and found that you STILL can't lose weight? Have you actually GAINED a pound or two since you've been on it? Are you just about ready to throw this diet out the window and try something else? Well, hold on a minute. There might be something else going on that's preventing your diet from working. How to Lose Belly Fat: Latest Secrets from the Research Labs, Part 2 Abdominal fat is now seen as a growing health hazard, an indicator and contributor to "Syndrome X," or metabolic syndrome. The risks of metabolic syndrome go far beyond a bulge at your waistline, and include heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. Forget All About That Calorie Counting Crap And Learn How To Lose Some Weight! That's a pretty "in your face" statement, but really it's frustrating for me to see and hear all the different admonitions coming at me from sources I am not absolutely convinced have this whole thing nailed down tight.For example, when I'm in the dressing room at the pool, I'll hear discussed all kinds of complicated systems involving a myriad of vitamins and health foods. Farewell To The Atkins Low Carb Diet Atkins Nutritionals recently announced that they are filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It seems that the "low carb craze" was nothing more than just a passing fad. Living with Your Diet Recently, I was reading about a diet plan where you throw everything out of your pantry. Although this sounds like great news for the supermarkets, over the short-term, this leaves very few choices for you to actually eat. 98 Percent of Dieters Fail: A Sensible Lifestyle is the Answer What the Diet Industry Does Not Want You To Know: 98 Percent of Dieters Fail. 98 Percent of dieters either quit the diet or are not able to keep the weight off permanently. EFT for Weight Loss - How to Stop Eating from Fear of Not Getting Your Share Do You Sometimes Eat Because You're Afraid You'll "Miss Out" on Something Wonderful Otherwise?Have you ever finished a huge meal, Thanksgiving dinner for instance, and being so stuffed you couldn't possibly eat another bite, when suddenly someone showed up with another dessert? Did you suddenly find just a bit of space to eat a little more? That's eating out of fear; the fear of missing out, the fear of not being part of the group (everyone else is having some and you want your share too) and it has nothing to do with hunger.This same thing can happen with any feeling -- you may feel exhausted. After WLS: Goodbye Self-Loathing! Hello Self-Loving! You won't believe what happened to me today!I was getting ready for work and saw myself naked in the full-length mirror and I didn't hate what I saw! I actually gave myself an unrehearsed slightly passive self-compliment "You don't look bad today."The reason this is monumental is because most of the time when I look in the mirror I do not like what I see and I give myself harsh criticism. Have You Tried These Weight Loss Tips? The following are weight loss tips that you can start applying today.. Weight Loss Advice - What Makes a GREAT Personal Trainer? If you are trying to lose weight you may find from time to time you need some encouragement, guidance and accountability. You can find this in friends, but on occasion you will need some extra help by seeking the advice of a personal trainer. Law of Attraction for Weight Loss: Your Secret to Dropping Unwanted Weight Once and for All! Ever notice how your best friend can lose weight on the same diet that you don't? Or how you often reach "plateaus"? The yo-yo dieting trend among frustrated women in this country is practically an epidemic!Want to know the secret of why this happens? And how you can lose unwanted weight once and for all? Of course you do - we all do!Sounds too good to be true, I know. But once you understand this concept, you'll never again wonder why you're not getting results on the latest diet or with your new gym membership. Saboteurs to Your Weight Loss Plans Saboteurs are people and thoughts that are going to sabotage you when you are at all weak in your bid to better yourself. I can identify many internal and external forces that will try to stop me from what I want on an almost daily basis. Tell Me - Do You Really Like Being Fat? Once upon a time, I fretted about going to a family wedding because I was - gasp - 142 pounds. I am five foot three. Is Low-Carb Weight Loss Really Just Water Loss? Any weight loss or diet plan, including low-carb plans like the induction phase of the Atkins Diet will result in water loss during the first week or two.However, one of the real beauties of following a low carbohydrate eating plan is that most of the weight loss than extends beyond the initial induction phase of the diet is really from a drop in fat pounds.
|
|
home | site map Men's Health | Women's Health | Children's Health | Elder Health Holistic Health | Healthy Heart | Cancer | Weight Loss Exercise & Fitness | Healthy Resources |
|
|
