Many
times when you are searching for weight loss information online, you come
across a bunch of fad diets. These are the diets which tell you how much weight
you can lose by eating only cabbage soup, or maple syrup and lemonade or some
other noxious kind of food that nobody who really likes themselves would ever
eat.
As
a matter of act these diets are among the most highly searched for topics on
the entire internet. They are very popular for one particular reason – they
bring you almost instant results in dropping a couple of pounds. They do work
to get some weight off right away, within a week for many of them.
But
then, guess what happens? The weight all comes back with a vengeance and
sometimes those pounds you lost bring their friends back to stay with you and
you wind up weighing even more than you did before you started the crash diet.
This
kind of weight loss program does not keep you healthy and does not result in keeping
the weigh off permanently. You wind up bouncing up and down in weight and your
entire metabolism suffers. And when your metabolism suffers it always does so
in the same way – it slows down and stops burning calories.
This
is why you gain the weight back.
Here
are a couple of things you can do to help achieve a more permanent weight loss.
Stop
eating so much – but don’t stop all at once
People
love to punish themselves for dietary transgressions. But punishing does not
help much. If you simply stop feeding your body, it will no know what to do and
simply slows your metabolism to a crawl. Much better if you cut your calorie
intake gradually. Start eating less a little bit at a time, so that your body
gets used to running on the calories it already has stored away.
Gradual
weight loss with a diet change that is not a crash kind of diet is much more
successful for many more people than any of those fad diets. Do you really want
to be eating cabbage soup three times a day for the rest of your life?
Another
important tip is very simple, and works very effectively.
Give
yourself a reward for losing weight.
Now
this does not mean that when you lose a pound that you hop in the car and run
right over to Cheesecake Factory and gorge yourself. A reward is supposed to be
a nice thing you do for yourself, not something that is virtually guaranteed to
make you feel bad all over again. That’s not what you need.
Instead
you can give yourself a nice treat like a spa day, or a trip to the mall
without the kids or anything else you enjoy. And if you like, you can give yourself
a food treat. In a normal sized portion. A square of chocolate – not a 5 pound
box. Split a piece of cheesecake with your friend – don’t order two for
yourself.
Rewards
are excellent things to do for yourself. Just don’t overdo the reward system or
you will wind up punishing yourself all over again.
Losing
weight does not have to be hard or painful. But you do have to make a couple of
adjustments in how you think and act. No more punishing yourself, that didn’t
work before and it won’t work now. Instead cut your calories slowly and give
yourself a small reward when you succeed and you will be well on your way to
lasting weight loss.
