Losing weight is a primal requirement for the modern urban population who generally suffer from the risk of obesity. However, there are some fundamental steps to avoiding obesity and losing extra weight.
- Make sleep a priority ─ The quantity of sleep we get is very important since it helps in our downtime and recovery. If we do not follow a regular sleep pattern then our body’s usual cues of eating get disturbed making us fatigued and hungry all the time.
- Think fit and healthy ─ In order to stay fit and healthy a dieter needs to visualize it too. Once the dieter is able to visualize the necessary results, he or she will continue with the diet plans made in order to achieve the amount of weight-loss aimed at.
- Front loads your calories ─ If we overeat at dinner time we feel hungry by the next morning and again starving in the evening. A dieter needs to rebalance the entire day to avoid an evening splurge. The meals should be planned such that they have very few calories.
- Make a realistic eating plan ─ A dieter should prepare a realistic eating plan with particular goals aiming to keep their body weight healthy and based on the profile of their bodies. The goals set should be realistic and the dieter should keep track of them.
- Schedule appointments for exercise ─ Exercise appointments should be scheduled at the start of every week with enough time for eating, exercising, and sleeping. A dieter should be completely committed to the appointments set. They should at least exercise for a minimum of 1 hour daily slowly increasing the time limits.
- Eat slowly ─ Eating slowly helps a dieter to lose weight because right from when we start to eat our brain takes an extra 20 minutes to signal a feeling of fullness in us. Thus people who eat fast often pass their actual level of fullness since the 20-minute warning signal by the brain is not allowed to set in.
- Avoid temptation ─ In order to avoid tempting food, a dieter should keep them away from it and if possible not even but them. They should also try to keep a lot of low-calorie and healthy snacks near them to avoid foods that are not part of their diet plan. In accordance to Nancy Clark (2008), it is “out of sight, out of mind, out of the mouth.” (Clark, 2008)
- Keep a list of non-food activities ─ Dieters should always make a lot of non-food activities, like walking, shopping, standing, socializing without eating, chatting, car rides, or excursions, a part of their daily plans. This helps to keep their mind off eating.
- Eat your favorite foods ─ Dieters should not completely stop eating their favorite foods but eat as little a possible. They should not overstuff themselves but eat as much as required. Also if they completely deprive themselves of their favorite foods they feel more urged to eat them.
- Write it down ─ Dieters should always maintain a food diary where they can enter their everyday food records. By writing down what they are eating and will eat, dieters encourage themselves to stick to the plan and thus eat accordingly.
According to my the best step for one to lose weight is by scheduling an appointment for exercising and sticking to it. For a person seeking to lose weight, exercising is the best way since this keeps them not only physically fit but also mentally. They feel healthy and not fatigued all the time and keep their extra eating habits to a minimum.
References
Clark, N. (2008). Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook. Ed. 4. NY: Human Kinetics.