Weight Loss Rules

Being successful in your journey to a skinnier and healthier body means you have to be strict with yourself every day. You are never too tired to exercise or too stressed to stick to your diet. Refuse these as they will only build up future defeat and regret the more you give in to them. Be a dictator over your body.

Here are a few rules to help you stay on top of diet and exercise:

Eat
 When you diet, cravings are something that that you will struggle with. When you haven't eaten in awhile and start to get hungry, you will probably start thinking about fast food or sugary/salty snacks. STOP. Don't let your cravings control your diet. Nix them immediately by planning out your meals and eating on time. When your stomach is empty and you start craving chips or cookies, just go for the fridge and get one of your dieting foods. Whether it's a meal or a snack like an apple or carrots with Ranch dressing. As soon as you get something in your stomach, you will start feeling satisfied and your craving will go away. Remember: cravings are the enemies and you have to combat them. Keep your fridge full of healthy meals and snacks so that you never have to give in to a bad craving.

Plan Out Your Meals

This needs to be the FIRST thing you do in the morning. As soon as you wake up and before you eat anything. It only takes a few minutes. Go on a calorie counting website such as My Fitness Pal and log how many calories you will taking in and burning before you take them in. This is a GREAT way to feel in control and always a step ahead.

I used to log my calories at the end of the day. I had a lot of nights where I became very frustrated and depressed because I kept finding out that I had eaten food that had a high calorie count even though I didn't over eat and thought I was sticking to my normal calorie intake. Since I started logging in the mornings, I know exactly how many calories are in every meal that I eat and I never have regrets or worries. You will be more likely to stay on track by doing this because you will eliminate the feelings of defeat and frustration when you have a day where your diet didn't go like you thought it would. 

Eat More Protein

Protein is going to be an important art of your weight loss process because eating more protein is going to help you feel less hungry during the day. Eating meals that include chicken or fish are ideal for weight loss. You will feel full, think about food less, and lose the weight.

Protein is also important for exercise. Getting two servings of meat per day are ideal for helping you feel full of energy during the day and getting the most out of your work out.

Staying in Control

A key component in weight loss is staying in control. One of the worst things you can do to damage your weight loss process is not keeping up with your goals and letting yourself slide. Be pro active to force yourself to stick to your diet and exercise no matter what. 

Feeling tired or not having enough time are NOT excuses to skip exercising today. You can make time, even if it means going to bed an hour later. 

Having a busy day and being so hungry that you just have to grab fast food is not an option. Take the extra ten minutes out of your morning routine to make a sandwich. If you absolutely have to get something quick on the go, get a Subway sandwich instead of a cheese burger. 

Staying in control means being prepared and organizing your life. Plan out every day to make sure you are always a step ahead. It's YOUR body, and if you don't take control of it now, you will regret it later. Your mind and willpower are deadly and powerful forces, use them.

 

Maximize Your Efforts

Throughout your weight loss process, knowing what you are doing is working is important to help you stay motivated. Here are some tried-and-true ways to maximize your weight loss efforts:

Drink Ice-Cold Water

You can actually burn an extra 250 to 500 calories per day by drinking 8 to 10 glasses of ice cold water. The reason for this is your body has to burn calories so that it can heat the chilled water back up to your normal body temperature. It is possible to lose up to a pound a week just by doing this.

Ensure a Healthy Digestion Process

The digestion process is extremely important to your weight loss efforts because it determines where the food you consumed will go in your body. Having a healthy digestion process will ensure that you get the most nutrition possible from your food and leave you feeling better and more energized, then you will see the weight coming off. Here are some ways to work towards a healthy digestion process:

Eat one or two raw vegetables after each meal. Eating a raw veggie after a meal does a great amount of good in assisting the digestion process and making it go mores smoothly.

Drink plenty of water. Not drinking enough water will slow down your digestion process, so make sure to keep yourself hydrated.

Eat fiber. Most people know this one, but it is important. Consuming fiber is one of the best ways to keep the digestion process running smoothly.

Buy a Calorie-Counting Watch
 
This is the best way to make sure you are burning the amount of calories you need to be burning. Before I bought one of these, I was using the internet to guess how many calories I was burning and I thought that I was doing well. Then I wondered why I wasn't losing the weight. I decided to buy a watch and realized that I was burning 200 less calories than I thought I was. It is definitely a necessary investment and will give you more control over your weight loss.

Strategize Ways to Stay Motivated

Stay Busy
 
Keep yourself doing things through out the day. If you don't have a hobby, get one. It's great for your mind as well as your body because as you are moving and concentrating on something, you are burning calories. Find something you care about and make a hobby out of it, a sport would be ideal.

Take Progress Photos
 
This is a great way to stay motivated. Take a picture of your body before you start your weight loss journey. Then after you lose your first 5-10 pounds, take another photo. Keeping track of these and seeing how you progress is going to be a big motivational tactic for you. If you can go back and look at those pictures and see how you are changing your body, you will feel validated for your efforts.

Get Addicted
 
Get addicted to losing pounds, feeling good, and looking good. Replace your cravings and laziness with your addiction to the process of getting healthy. If you can push through the first couple of months of diet and exercise, you will see an improvement and that is going to make you feel empowered to continue. You will have the validation to stay on track and never give up. 

Still Not Motivated Enough?

Watch this get-off-your-ass-and-do-it motivational video. 

Get angry. How dare your mind tell you that you can't do something? You are the boss! 

4 Weight Loss Myths

Shake Diets

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, then do not go the shake diet route. Fads like SlimFast may work, but as soon as you go off the diet and start eating regularly again you will find yourself putting the pounds back on. Here's why:

When you drink shakes, you are not eating real food. The lack of food your body is getting slows down your metabolism over time. When you finally reach your goal, your metabolism will be much slower and you will gain weight when you start eating again. Shakes are also not digested properly like food. When you eat a meal, your body goes through a whole process of digestion starting while you are chewing and sending signals to your body telling it to prepare to digest. Shakes will go straight to your stomach without giving your body any warning. If your body isn't prepared to begin digesting, the result will be poor nutrient absorption, bloating, and a slower metabolism.

Green Coffee Bean

I'm not saying the Green Coffee Bean is bad, it does have some health benefits. However, there are a lot of people who think that taking this supplement will do a lot of work in their bodies to make them lose weight. There are even claims that the Green Coffee Bean will cause you to lose pounds without diet and exercise. I have personally tried using this supplement and found that it did little to nothing to help my weight loss. It turned out to be more of a sugar pill where I would take it to feel better but it wasn't actually doing anything. In the end, whether you take it or not doesn't make much difference. Diet and exercise is the only strategy proven to take off the pounds.

Exercise in a Heated Room

Working out in a heated room won't actually shed any more pounds than working out in an air-conditioned room. You may notice that you weigh less after working out in a heated area, but in reality you have just lost water weight, not fat. You don't burn any more calories this way and certainly won't burn any more fat. The water weight that you temporarily lost will come right back after you rehydrate. The only way to burn more calories is to increase the intensity of your work out and exercise for a longer amount of time.

Appetite Suppressants

The outcome of appetite suppressants is quite similar to that of shake diets. They will work at first, you won't feel hungry and you will lose weight. But when you go off of them and begin to eat normally again, your metabolism will be significantly slower and you won't be able to burn off the calories you consume as well. Your body will also be in a starvation mode where it will be suffering a lack of nutrition and its reaction will be to cling onto the fat that it gets. What happens next? You gain the weight back.

It's important for everyone to know the myths of weight loss and have real, proven strategies to lose weight like dieting, exercise, limiting carb intake, and increasing protein and vegetables in their diet. There are no quick fixes to weight loss, the only guaranteed route is diet and exercise.

The First Step to Weight Loss

The health of YOUR body determines the overall health of your LIFE. It's time to start taking care of your body and treating it right. I want to show you how.

So, the first step to weight loss is deciding that you are going to do it. Ask yourself why you want to lose weight and get healthy. Write down those reasons and remind yourself of them when you want to quit. Here is my list for some inspiration:

I want to be able to run and play outside with my kids

I want to fit into my old clothes again

I want to feel good and have energy to do things

I want to feel good about myself again

Really think about the reasons you want to get healthy. Realize how happy you will be once you reach your goals. All of the hard work you put in is going to be so worth it one day. Envision yourself reaching  the point where you have lost a significant amount of weight and how invincible and empowered you will feel. That's why you are doing it.

Now that you know why, you need to know how. What I want you to do first is make a plan. Here's a step-by-step, plain and simple strategy that WILL work.

The first thing you need to do is determine how many calories you should consume per day, and how much exercise you will need per day. Make an account with a calorie counter site. They will ask you to enter your stats (age, weight, height, etc.) and will determine how many calories you need to consume and burn per day.

Log your calories consumed/burned religiously. This is vital. Do not try to "guess-timate" how many calories you consumed from that meal, measure exactly how much you are taking in and know the amount of calories that you consumed.

Find a work out that you enjoy. The worst mistake you can make is starting a work out that bores you. Some effective and fun methods I have found are work out videos, specifically Zumba.

Get addicted to the rush you get when you work out. The best motivation to exercise is thinking about the feeling of euphoria you experience after the work out. It really is a full body high.

Get addicted to the number on the scale. The more you fall in love with the feeling of getting healthy and losing inches, the more likely you are to stick with it and keep pushing.

Start buying healthier groceries. Protein and vegetables need to be the biggest part of your diet. Learn a few simple recipes. If you're not a great cook, do not panic. I was clueless in the kitchen when I first started out, and I still am. But it's really so simple to coat a chicken breast with some seasoning and throw it in the oven. Eat as much chicken, steak, and fish as you please and you will FEEL full. Eat fruits and vegetables. Drink tons of water. You will be losing weight and feeling incredible after the first week of your new, healthy diet.


Remember: You are NOT weak! There is a weak and lazy person inside of everyone that doesn't want to get off the couch and exercise. That's not you anymore. You CAN look good, get healthy, and feel better. There is nothing stopping you. Ignore the feeling of helplessness. You are not helpless. You are powerful and STRONG, you just haven't proved it to yourself yet!