Getting
Started
To start, keep a food diary based on what you usually eat and simply record
every single mouthful that passes your lips for a week. It might sound tedious,
but it will make you realise just how much you’re eating and help to identify
any areas where you can make little changes to shift those pounds.
You may also find it helpful to keep a note of how you felt
before eating. Was it because you were hungry? Was it to satisfy boredom,
tiredness, unhappiness or another emotion? Or did you simply eat out of habit?
Identifying those times when you eat when you’re not really
hungry will give you the opportunity to find other ways to deal with these
situations rather than reaching for food. For example, if your food diary helps
you realise that you eat when you’re bored, you can work towards beating
boredom without using food, such as having a bath, going for a walk or phoning
a friend for a gossip. Similarly, if your food diary reveals that you often eat
out of habit, for example, by going straight to the fridge when you get home
from work, you can look at ways to break or change those habits, for example, by
heading straight for the fruit bowl!
Keeping on track
The key to continuing to lose weight is to keep your slimming
and exercise programme fresh. If you eat the same foods day in and day out and
only ever do the same activities, boredom will quickly set in with the result
that you’ll be tempted to give up. When it comes to food, this might mean
investing in a recipe book to try some new dishes or experimenting with
different foods. For example, you could make it your weekly mission to buy a
fruit or vegetable you’ve never tried before, or cook vegetables in different
ways, such as roasting carrots with a little spray oil rather than steaming
them, or adding fresh coriander, chopped peppers and spring onions to your
usual salad of lettuce, tomato and cucumber! There are lots of different ways
to keep meals interesting – it’s simply a case of experimenting.
The same goes for exercise. It’s natural that you’ll get bored
if you only ever do the same activities – and on top of this, you’re unlikely
to get the most out of your workout. Your body needs to be continuously pushed
in order to burn fat and tone muscle so it’s important that you keep pushing
yourself. This might mean trying some different cardiovascular machines if you
go to the gym, or increasing the intensity of your workout, such as walking for
a longer distance in the same amount of time. Keep an eye out for new
activities too, such as dance classes at your local community centre or a new
aqua aerobics class at the swimming pool.
It’s also essential to keep yourself motivated. In the early
stages of your plan, friends and family will probably keep telling you how well
you’re doing and how great you look, but compliments may gradually start to
slow down, especially as people get used to seeing a slimmer you. That’s why
it’s essential for you to keep reminding yourself of your slimming successes to
date – that might mean trying on an old item of clothing that’s now too big for
you, comparing pictures of yourself when you were bigger with ones of yourself
now or simply totting up how many pounds and inches you’ve lost in total. You
may also find it helpful to give yourself non-food treats such as a new
haircut, a nail varnish or a massage, every time you reach a new goal.
Reaching a plateau
It’s also
important to avoid getting disheartened if you reach a plateau where your
weight seems to stick for a couple of weeks at a time, despite all your best
efforts. This is common, but the good news is it’s usually only a temporary
problem. In the meantime, there are several things you can do to help get those
pounds shifting again. Start by checking your portion sizes. After weeks of
following a slimming programme, many of us feel confident enough to ditch the
kitchen scales and start putting cereal into a bowl rather than weighing it, or pouring dressing onto salad straight from the bottle rather than measuring out 1tbsp. Simply
going back to weighing out servings of foods like cereals, rice, pasta, meat,
poultry and fish may be all that it takes to get those pounds shifting again.
You may also find it helpful to keep a notebook with you for a
week detailing every single mouthful you eat each day. In the same way that
portions can increase over time, you might find you’ve allowed more treats to
creep into your programme which you’ve been forgetting to add to your food
diary, such as having the odd cake in the office, treating yourself to a bar of
chocolate once a week, nibbling on sweets while you’re driving or pouring
yourself a larger drink than normal.
So now you’re armed with all the information you need, what are
you waiting for? All you have to lose is those extra pounds – for the very last
time!
