The holidays always seem to leave us with a few extra pounds and end with us making the same old tired new years resolutions, that this is the year we are going to get and stay fit. Weight loss diets may be effective in the short term, but a diet is just that, the food that you eat. No one wants to spend the rest of their lives avoiding carbohydrates, or having cut their daily calorie intake in half, and as soon as your done with a weight loss diet and go back to "eating normally" there is nothing to keep the weight from coming back.
The key is to make permanent changes to your lifestyle. This is not as hard as it sounds, it starts off very simply.
1) Keep track of what you eat
You can't gain weight if you don't eat. Of course, you can't live if you don't eat. That being said, if you get in the habit of noticing the foods you put on your plate, then the changes you need to slim down will begin to make themselves. Start with a calorie journal. Spend a week writing down everything that you put in your mouth, and totaling up the calories at the end of the day. Cutting out the carbs, or trying to survive on rice cakes and water may produce faster results, but your not changing anything, unless that's how you want to eat for the rest of your life. Eat what you normally eat, for a week and just keep track of the data, after a few weeks of this you will begin to see things differently. Not having a slice of extra cheese that you used to is worth approx fifteen minutes on the treadmill.
2) Exercise
Despite what they try to sell you on late night television, you can't have serious weight loss without working out. But you don't need to spend every spare minute in the gym. Fifteen hours of cardio will produce faster results, but if you can't keep it up then once again you haven't accomplished anything lasting. Twenty minutes of brisk cardiovascular is a good starting workout if you not in the habit, begin with two of these for the first week and add another one each week. After the first month, increase the duration. Cardiovascular serves to increase the number of calories you burn in two ways, you use approx 150-200 calories in twenty minutes during the routine, but this also helps to stimulate your metabolism making you more active, this helps increase the calories you burn during any activity.
Once you are up to three a four cardio workouts a week, add twenty minutes of strength training to your routine. You have to burn calories to maintain muscle tissue, so the more muscle tissue you have the more calories you burn off without effort.
3) Use the Scale
Too many people don't use the bathroom scale like they should. Fearing the number it gives them will only serve to demoralize their efforts, they limit weighing themselves to once of week or less, and end up one bad day on the scale from giving up.
Used properly the bathroom scale is your greatest tool, it will tell you what your doing that's working, and what you are doing that's not. Use it once a day, at the same time. Your body weight will fluctuate approximately 3-7 pounds in the course of the day, so weighing yourself first thing in the morning works best for most people. Keep a daily log of your weight, and don't be discouraged if you have a heavier then expected day, you have to think long term for your efforts to stay effective, so find your average body weight at the end of each week, and try to alter your diet or exercise so that you are losing 1-2 lbs each week. Not the most dramatic result, but the most permanent.
4) Sleep
Weight loss is a metabolic process, and it works best when the body is given time to rest. Sleep deprivation is going to slow down your efforts, so it becomes important to get enough sleep. Find out how much your body needs by not using an alarm the next time you have a few days off. Most people tend to need between 7-9 hours, so once you find out how much your body needs, make sure it's getting it.
5) Little Changes
Most of the effort is just making sure you get enough exercise and not making a trip to the dive through every night for dinner. If your eating better, and getting enough sleep and cardiovascular, your going to have more energy. Make sure you use it. Little changes add up at the end of the day, parking a few blocks away and walking, taking the stairs and not the elevator, spending your free time with a hobby or activity rather then sitting on the couch. Each time you do something like this just think of it being the equivalent of minutes you don't have to spend on the treadmill.
And keep it up! If your sick of the diet/gain/diet again cycle then remember, the most important part of anything you do to loose weight is that it's something you can keep doing.
Source: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1274095/five_tips_for_more_effe...
