Those who are starting out on a journey to lose weight may find it difficult to adhere to a strict regiment of healthy eating and regular exercise. This may especially be true if you have become accustomed to some unhealthy habits and in a way, addicted to fast food, soda, and all the other salty, greasy snacks you may eat on a regular basis.
However if the number one priority number for you is to lose weight and develop a more healthy lifestyle, then changes are definitely needed for you to be successful. It's important to note that just because you will soon be on a path to lose weight that does not mean you can never eat a hamburger again.
Surprised to hear that? Well it's the truth. Think of it like this. A cigarette smoker who is trying to quit will not have much success by strictly going "cold turkey" one morning. Statistics show that those smokers who try to quit this way, 80% return to smoke within thirty days.
Those who want to take a more successful approach will slowly wean themselves off the nicotine addition through the use of patches or gum such as Nicorette, with the goal of ridding the chemical from their life for good.
Same goes for food.
An overweight or obese individual has in essence become addicted to the wrong types of food, and simply cutting out what their body has gotten used to will be a difficult feat to accomplish. But if this individual were to slowly wean themselves off the unhealthy stuff, eventually the bad habits will die off.
Therefore when starting out on your weight loss journey, make it a ritual to treat yourself to your favorite food once a week. Naturally you will want to slowly prolong the time between these treats for it to become once every other week, then once a month, but for those of you just about to start off, for the first month or two reward yourself for staying healthy 6 1/2 days per week.
For instance, maybe your favorite food is pepperoni and sausage pizza. Naturally this is not the ideal food to eat when you are trying to lose weight especially since each slice of pizza has an average calorie count of about 300 calories. But for sake of argument, if each slice of pizza was 300 calories, how many slices do you generally eat when you order pizza, 3, 4, upward of 5 or 6? In other words you will eat between 900-1,800 calories just in pizza alone, that's not including the beverages such as soda or beer that you may also drink during the meal.
You can see how eating pizza is not the ideal type of food to eat when you are trying to lose weight and get into shape. However, for sake of treating yourself to an edible reward once a week, if pizza is the goal you want to establish for yourself, then that's what you can earn on a Sunday afternoon, but only if you stick with healthy eating Monday through Sunday morning.
And when you order pizza, have some self control and keep in the back of your mind your overall health goal. Just because you used to eat 6 pieces of pizza at a single sitting does not mean you should continue with that same trend, even when you are treating yourself to something special. Just have two or three slices and that's it. And instead of drinking soda or alcoholic beverages which will greatly increase the calorie count, follow up your treat with a few glasses of water.
By rewarding yourself this way, you have a direct tangible treat to strive for on a regular basis. This is much better that having a whole year long goal to strive for when you are barely starting off. That timeframe is simply far to grand for an individual who is not accustomed to eating in a healthy manner. This person will usually not make it that long depriving themselves of the food they have become accustomed to eating on a regular basis.
Don't put yourself through that heartache. When you are starting off, treat yourself to something special once a week but just make sure it's a reasonably small treat, not a gluttonous splurge. Those are two very different situations and you still want the overall goal to lose weight to be accomplished in the long run.
Gregory L. Gomez, M. Ed, has been teaching 5th grade in the LAUSD for 12 years and has recently embarked on a journey to lose weight, eat healthier, and finally get in shape! Follow his progress on http://HealthyChoicesInLife.com as he strives to lose 60 pounds through dedicated exercise and eating healthy. From healthy eating guides to a step-by-step manual to help tackle the process of losing weight, readers will find the latest information to combat the rising obesity epidemic and start getting into shape at http://adf.ly/VkAju.
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