Weight Loss with Sohu12

A lot of weight control diet experts start out their books with the following statement:

“The people who are successful at losing weight are the ones with the right attitude - they believe they will be successful.”

I don’t know about you, but I find this just a little confusing. If you’ve already tried 10 diets, and all of them worked (for a while) but you now weigh more than you ever have in your life, how are you going to force yourself into believing that you’ll be successful this time?

And if you don’t believe it, should you even bother trying to another weight loss plan?

Some experts believe you’ll get the “right attitude” if they remind you about all the chronic diseases caused by obesity. Being scared is a great motivator, for sure - and total honesty can really help. But will fear alone help you become one of the tiny fraction of dieters who are able to lose weight and then keep it off for a year or more? Or will it just cause more stress?

Other weight loss experts try to act like cheerleaders, doing a printed version of “rah, rah, rah!” This is supposed to infuse you with their enthusiasm. It actually works, for a while. But the excitement wears off as you’re faced with the real-world challenges of losing weight.

And some diet book authors suggest that you chant affirmations on a regular basis. This can help reduce your stress level if you use it as a meditation technique. However, affirmations by themselves won’t make you lose weight. If you don’t combine the positive thoughts with positive action, you’re just engaging in some wishful thinking.

I think we need to take a good look at the idea that you need the right attitude in order to succeed. It implies that you will be successful only if you can change the way you feel. If you think of the people you admire most and who have become successful in any field, one of the things you’ll notice is that successful people do what is needed at any given time - regardless of whether or not they “feel like it”.

There are days in every person’s life when he or she doesn’t want to get up in the morning. It even happens to successful people. But successful people get up anyway, and do what needs to get done. In fact, it may be the action itself that creates the enthusiasm that is so evident in the people we most admire.

In other words, you don’t need to feel motivated. You need to be willing to take positive action. If you’ve recently purchased a diet book and you’re taking your precious time to read it, that in itself is proof that you’re willing to take action.

Even if you have 40 diet books on your shelf, and you are still overweight, that doesn’t prove that you aren’t willing to take action. Your previous failed attempts just mean that you have not yet discovered the techniques needed to overcome your natural drive to overeat or to eat the wrong food. Successful business people often start many failing businesses before they find the right combination that puts them at the top of their field.

Successful people don’t think of past failures as reasons to quit – they think of past failures as learning experiences, and part of the dues they have to pay before they can be successful.

So if you’re thinking about starting one more weight control diet, don’t worry about whether or not you have the “right” attitude. You can change your diet, your health, and your life. Just keep learning all you can about good nutrition and about how your food choices affect your health; join a support group if you need to; or find a nutritional counselor or behavioral counselor if you think you could use their support. Do what it takes.

Even if you’ve failed with a diet in the past, you have the “right” attitude as long as you’re willing to give it another try.

If you are thinking about losing weight this year, consider a disturbing statistic. For every twenty people who successfully lose the weight they desire, only one will actually keep the weight off over the long term. The problem in maintaining a healthy weight comes before the first trip to the scale is ever made.

The mistake that so many dieters make is in selecting a program for weight loss that will bring the quickest results possible, instead of hunting for a diet for weight control. This is precisely why so many of the fad diets on the market today make astronomical sales figures and then disappear forever. While many of these plans will deliver on a little bit of quick weight loss, few have the substance to follow through in meeting your full weight loss goal, and most will offer little guidance on how to keep the weight off for good.

It is a simple fact of life that the most effective weight loss diet will also be the best weight control eating plan for you. Instead of thinking in terms of a nutritional plan that will greatly restrict and limit your variety of food choices, you must work to develop a program of healthy eating that will become the menu that you adopt for life.

While this may seem like a big bite to chew on, consider the fact that healthy eating brings a multitude of benefits to your body and mind that go well beyond weight loss and maintenance. Every system in your body will thank you for feeding it with a healthy diet by looking and feeling their absolute best.

Weight Control Diets that Work are Slow and Steady

When you make the decision that you are going to lose weight, the best method to choose is one that will bring a slow and steady weight loss that will eventually meet your goals. Diets that promise to knock off the pounds quickly will be impossible to stick with over the long term.

Many will leave you feeling hungry at times, and will force you to give up too many foods that you enjoy. If you select a weight control eating plan that is heavy in the fresh fruits and vegetable and light on the high fat, foods, you will find a plan that will be yours for life. It is not easy at first to learn to trade that muffin in the morning with an egg and whole wheat toast, or to trade that dish of ice cream with a bowl of fresh fruit, but in time it will become much easier to make the healthy choices.

Exercise Is No Exception

Here is another part of the weight loss program that will be most effective if it is done gradually. Instead of deciding that you will spend 90 minutes huffing and puffing at the gym every day, commit yourself to a 20 minute walk outdoors each day. Once you learn how enjoyable those 20 minutes can be, you will be much more inclined to increase the amount of your physical activity. However, if you start out by setting extreme and unrealistic fitness goals for yourself, your plan will fizzle before you take a whole lot of trips to the gym.

Weight control eating plans require a plan that is easy to implement and easier to follow. Relearn your food habits by incorporating more healthy choices into your daily menu, and a reduction of the bad foods will be a natural result. Start out with an exercise program that will be easy for you to stick with, and you will be much more likely to be enjoying the positive results a year or two later.

It is only partly about losing the pounds. The rest of the story is all about keeping that weight off with an effective weight control diet, so that you look and feel good for life. The tortoise knew what he was talking about; slow and steady wins the race.