Can You Lose Weight?... Is Your Weight Problem Holding You Back

Why are people missing out on the best years of their lives? If trying to lose weight is a problem, you likely know thousands of doctors, health plans, and websites offer solutions. Yes, you can lose weight by these means. But can you have fun and save money?

You need no thousand dollar health package. You might consider a new pair of jogging or walking shoes. You might consider the fact healthier foods are often the same price as unhealthy foods. For example, a can of corn or green beans and a nice home brewed soup cost, on average, about the same as a meal at a fast food chain. Even if you had to pay more for healthier foods, wouldn't it be worth it?

Unfortunately, it is far easier to put on weight than to lose it. If you want to shed some of that unwanted flab forever, you will need to make some lifestyle changes. Fad diets typically do not work because as soon as you stop the diet, you gain the weight back and sometimes gain more than you started with.

Tae Bo Billy Blanks is the undisputed king of kickboxing. Through his workout programs that combine boxing and tae kwon do, hundreds of people have changed their shape and their lives from the comfort of their own homes. The workout routines are upbeat and motivating. If you mess up on a move, you can easily start again with the rewind feature.

Here are three simple changes you can make to your lifestyle that are easy to do and will help you to lose weight, feel healthier and enjoy your life.

1 Downsize to Downsize

Portion size does make a big difference. Over the past few decades, portion sizes have been increasing. Think about the size of muffins for sale. What was a typical muffin size 30 years ago has now tripled or even quadrupled. This means people are eating more calories.

Downsizing your portion size will help you to lose weight. Always go for the smaller serving, rather than the Upsize fast food places offer. Try asking for an entrée size portion instead of a main when eating at a restaurant.

At home, change your regular size plates for smaller ones, or only put food inside the rim, not over the whole plate. Try using smaller bowls and plates. Do not fill your plate completely. You can always go back for more if you really need to, but you will soon find that you are contented with less food.

2 Walk To Weigh Less

People become overweight because their calorie intake is greater than the energy they burn, and our bodies convert the excess into fat. When you increase your exercise level, without eating more food, you should lose weight.

Walking is one of the best exercises you can do, and is the easiest to start when you are overweight. Try parking the car further away from work than usual and walking the rest of the way. This is great because you will have to walk back to the car at the end of the day, giving you two walks in one day.

Ignore the lift or the elevator and take the stairs instead. Even if you can only manage one flight of stairs and then take the lift the rest of the way, this is something. Each day challenge yourself to walk a little bit further, or to go up or down another flight of stairs.

3 - Fill Up On Fruit and Water

Snacking between meals is one of the ways people can easily stack on the excess weight. Instead of going to the vending machine for snacks full of carbohydrates, sugar and fat, try eating a piece of fruit instead. Fruit is an excellent source of fibre and makes you feel full. Try to eat two serves of fruit a day.

There is an old saying that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. It will also help to keep the weight away.

Cut out the sugary soft drinks and drink water instead. Drinking water with your meals also helps you to feel fuller quicker, meaning you will tend to eat less. Water has no calories and is therefore the best drink for everyone who is trying to lose weight.

Make Simple Changes That You Can Keep Sometimes when people are suddenly inspired to lose weight, they will take out a gym membership, work out hard for a week and eat nothing but lettuce. However, you are unlikely to continue this sort of regime in the long term, and this is why fad diets do not often work.

Instead, make small changes to your lifestyle that you will be able to maintain forever. Simple things like swapping a soft drink for a drink of water, eating fruit as a snack instead of potato chips, going for a walk and putting less food on your plate are more likely to make a bigger difference in the long term. Making these sorts of changes will help you to lose weight, and more importantly, keep it off forever.

You're Eating Problem:

Maybe you were born skinny, ate what you wanted through high school and college, and then the weight scales started rising. Or, on the other hand, you just couldn't ever stick to a diet, especially in your younger years. Does any of this sound familiar? As someone who has worked out all my life, it can be tough to realize that my youth is gone, that I must continue to workout to stay in shape.

The focus of this article is differentstaying thin on a low budget, and having fun doing so.

Exercise: The Answer

On the website of WebMD, a doctor called exercise "the magic pill ... Exercises can literally cure diseases like heart disease." WebMD is an excellent information source for health, offering strategies based upon major studies. That statement may seem broad, and only proposes "can." But think in terms of dieting. If you eat a cheeseburger, which is usually with condiments over 500 calories, it would take a long walk to burn that off. But if you make it fun, a social event, walking to the park with a friend, the theory can work. That's why so many successfully work out: they do it day in, day out, doing it even when they don't want to. Working at a major gym, I found some days were better than others. The membership was expensive, but worth it. I took better care of myself, thought more about what I was eating, and had fun watching the gut disappear.

Impulses:

Typically people go into physical problems after living on impulses for much of their life. The best medicine against impulse is knowing you're not alone in this struggle. If you have an alcohol problem, you seek help from others. One strategy used by ShapeUp.Org offers replacing items that feed your impulse. Therefore, change a candy dish to a fruit dish, so when you decide to snack you change what you're eating.

It's an American disease to eat fried foods like French fries, thick burgers, and a little more for dessert. These are the impulses that drive the obese. Get with your doctor, ask for advice on defeating these food cravings. In reality, no article can presume to be-all-end-all of weight loss. It takes plenty of tools, but it can be done for free, without the signature magic pill offered on infomercials.

No Magic Pill:

To fight physical ailments you need no "magic pill" other than good exercise and the ability to fight impulses. Sometimes even therapy is in order. People who go on diets are apt to go back to the same food eventually.

You need no thousand dollar plan. If you sign up for a top-dollar health plan and buy an expensive book you are just putting more pressure on yourself.

The Plan:

To combat all these things, you will need something akin to a business planbut completely on how you can have fun while exercising and eating right. Remind yourself of all the things you would like to continue to do. This is a lifelong journey, not one that will take weeks and make you look good in time for a warm vacation. Once you consider it like that, losing the obsession to eat will be easier, and taking one pound at a time will be more enjoyable. One useful strategy also offered by ShapeUp is to use a food diary to record daily what you're eating. For some people, it's too little of the main food groups. For others, it's the right food groups but far too many servings. It sounds obvious, but simply writing down your eating reminds you of the basic goal. Many online sites offer tools for free, where you can record what you're eating on the go. This includes Google.

Writing down what you eat may surprise you.

You might rebel against the whole idea. Try not to burn any bridges along the way, keeping it simple as you go, so you can succeed on a small scale, one day at a time. Taking in a whole carton of ice cream will not destroy your whole dietjust that one day.

Challenge Yourself:

Set up to challenge yourself from the outset, rethinking the mindsets of failure, working on the impulses, allowing for some failure, and allowing for some fun when attempting to lose weight. Exercise can be a way to meet people; it does as much for you socially as it does for your heart. Food dieting can lead to giving advice to others on what worked for you.

In the end, all of this is an experience you won't want to miss.

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Can You Lose Weight?... Is Your Weight Problem Holding You Back