Lose Weight Now

 There are many ways that you can motivate yourself to lose weight. One way the I used to motivate myself was having a goal outfit. A goal outfit can be any piece or pieces of clothing that you want to wear when you lose weight. This can include a bathing suit, a dress, a pair of pants, lingerie, a suit or even your wedding dress.

The main point behind a goal outfit is to buy it in a smaller, yet achievable size. If you start out on your weight loss journey wearing a size 16, your goal outfit could be a size 8.

Hang your goal outfit somewhere it is visible to you. Hang it on the outside of your closet or on the back of your bedroom door. This way it will be a constant reminder of what you will accomplish when you lose weight!

While trying to lose weight, your scale can easily become your worst enemy. But, it’s important that you make the scale your friend and not something that you hate. I know that when I was trying to lose weight, I had my times were I would get on the scale 3-4 times a day and get so disappointed when the scale didn’t budge or when I was 1 pound heavier. I was literally driving myself crazy weight myself all the time. It wasn’t until I realized that I controlled my destiny and not my scale that I was able to make the scale my friend.

When trying to lose weight, the most you need to weight yourself is 1-2 times a week. Yes, a week, not 1-2 times a day. It’s good to stay on top of your weight but over obsessing over it can cause damage in your weight loss plan. Your weight fluctuates throughout the day, depending on what you eat, when you eat, what you do physically and just normal fluctuations in your water retention. Weighing yourself several times a day or even everyday will drive you crazy like it did me. Yes, you may weigh 1-2 pounds more after you eat, or if you just drank a glass of water. This is normal, you are not gaining weight.

To make the scale your friend, set up a set schedule of the times that you will weigh in. Make it every Friday and Tuesday or something that is spaced a couple of days apart. Weigh in the same time everyday, preferably before you eat breakfast. Wear the thing every time you weigh in. A good idea is to only wear you undergarments or be completely naked when weighing in. Having consistency will help you to judge the real weight on the scale. Lastly, don’t take the scale so seriously. If your clothes are fitting looser but the scale hasn’t budged in two weeks, it may be because you are gaining muscle which weighs more than fat or your are loosing inches and it just hasn’t showed on the scale yet.

Don’t let the scale determine if you are having a bad day or a good day!

When I hit a plateau in my weight loss, I knew that I had to do something to shake things up and figure out why I was not losing any more weight. I had read in several fitness magazines and books that keeping a food journal was a great way to get out of a plateau or to find out what exactly you are eating. I decided to start keeping a food journal and what I noticed was that a little snack here and there really added up in the calories. Also, on other days, I was barely eating 1,000, which is way too low, even for losing weight.

Keeping a food journal may seem tiresome and difficult at first, but after a couple of days it just comes natural. One thing that I advise is to find a free online calorie counter and bookmark the page because you will be using it often to find out how many calories are in a certain food. If you want, you can even purchase an inexpensive pocket calorie counter guide.

Here is how you can keep your own food journal:

1. Use a clean notebook or journal instead of using paper scraps here and there. This will keep it more organized and easier for you to access your eating habits.

2. Write down everything you eat, what time you eat and how hungry you were on a scale from 1-10. If you wish you can also put a column in for what you were feeling at the time if you suspect that you are an emotional eater.

3. Figure out how many calories you consumed. Do not wait until the end of the day to do this, as you need to know as the day goes along how many calories you are consuming.

4. At the end of the day, examine your food journal. Was today a good day or a bad day? Did you stay within your calorie range? If you find that you had a bad day, go back and look over the food journal and figure out why and vow to correct your bad habits.

While on my weight loss journey, I learned a very important lesson about taking a good look at yourself. Losing weight is not just about exercising and eating healthy. You have to change your whole lifestyle and that includes the way you act and think, especially towards yourself.

You will never lose weight unless you can figure out why you are overweight in the first place. You need to do some soul searching while on your weight loss journey. You can exercise all you want, but if you don’t change your thoughts or your actions in your life, the weight is going to come back on.

One way that you can figure out why you are overweight is to keep a food journal (I will explain how to keep one later in the week). Another way is to just keep a personal journal. Write down what you are thinking that day and what you feel. You may be surprised at what insights you find out about yourself. Once you determine why you are overweight, you can work on plan to change your life and get healthy!

A great way to speed up your weight loss progress is to incorporate weight training into your exercise program. Weight training can help tighten and tone muscles and burn calories and fat at the same time. I know that a lot of people, especially women, are worried that they will bulk up if they work out with weights, but it’s not true. They will actually slim down and tone their muscles.

Start off with light weights when you first begin. Pick weights were you can do 10-12 reps of an exercise before you are totally fatigued. One great tip that I learned when working out with weights is to keep your heart rate up, moving quickly from exercise to exercise with no break in between. This will actually put you in a calorie burning zone at the same time you are weight training.

Muscle may weight more than fat, but it also burns more calories even when you are just resting. Who doesn’t want to burn more calories when sitting on the couch? Incorporate 2-3 half hour sessions of weight training into your week and you will definitely see it in your body.

(Photo by: jeltovski)

Visiting the grocery store is probably on the the hardest things that I had to do when I was on my weight loss journey, especially when I first started. It does become easier as you get father along and start to really change your eating habits. There are so many temptations when you visit the grocery store. From the bakery section to the ice cream aisle, it seems like everything that looks so good is sooooo bad for you. But remember, you are changing your life and yes, you will have your times that you will cheat on your diet. Cheating can actually help you stay on track. If you deprive yourself of food, you are going to quit your weight loss journey, were if you cheat or allow yourself the scoop of ice cream every once in awhile you are going to stay on your goal.

Here are some tips when you go food shopping to help you get through the grocery store without breaking down and eating a whole bag of chips in the store.

1. Shop the outside areas of the grocery store. Almost all of the items that are in the inner aisles are not that good for you. There are some exceptions like whole grain bread and canned tuna fish, but if you just avoid the snack food aisles all together you are less likely to throw something in your cart that is unhealthy.

2. Don’t go to the grocery store on an empty stomach. You are only asking for trouble.

3. Make sure that you buy enough food so that you can have healthy snacks on hand and enough meals to get you through the week. This can help prevent you from visiting the drive-through at your local fast food place.

4. When you get home from the grocery store, pre-package your snacks into individual containers so you convienantly have them ready when  you need them. Also, wash your fruits and vegetables so that saves you time when you need them also.

Yes, it is true, you can have dessert and still lose weight. You just have to watch what you eat and how much of it you eat. Here are two easy recipes for low calorie desserts.

Yogurt Trifle

Using a small drinking glass or a parfait glass, layer one slice of angel food cake that is broken up. Then top  the angel food cake with slices berries of your choice. Add 1/2 cup of fat-free or low fat vanilla yogurt on the top. If you choose, you can also add fat-free frozen yogurt instead of regular yogurt.

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Take 5 or 6 large strawberries and dip them into 1-2 tablespoons of fat-free chocolate sauce. This is a guilt-free way to enjoy your chocolate covered strawberries and get your chocolate fix for the day.

If you find that you crave sweets after meals, then an easy go-to dessert is cut up fruit. At the beginning of the week, cut up some fresh fruit for a fruit salad and you can have your sweet treat when you need it. Just make sure that you are not eating 3 servings of the fruit at one sitting.

One of the toughest things that I had to overcome when I started my weight loss journey was the negative thoughts I had about myself. If I had a bad day with eating or if I didn’t lose any weight that week, I always got down on myself and thought I was basically worthless. Until one day that it really hit, that these negative thoughts were holding me down. How could I achieve my weight loss goals if I though I was worthless. I had to change my way of thinking and think positive.

Now, I still had my days were I would get down, but what worked with me was to look at how far I had come already. Even if you haven’t lost that much weight, just the fact that you are doing something to make yourself healthier is definitely a great start. To be able to achieve your weight loss goals you have to think positive. Not everyday is going to be a great day, but look at it in the long term. You are getting healthy, losing weight and doing something goof for yourself.

Instead of dwelling on the negative, get out and do something positive. Try a new exercise or a new food. Hang out with your friends who give you positive feedback. Even just watching a comedy or feel-good movie can help you to get out of your negative thinking and get back to the positive side of things.

I know so many people who say that they don’t like vegetables or to eat vegetables, they have to be covered in a creamy dip or smothered in a butter or cheese sauce. Well, I can tell you that eating vegetables as described above will not help you to lose weight. You need to have a diet that is full of vegetables in order to lose weight, but they have to be eaten in a healthy way also. That means that you don’t add tons of calories onto the vegetables in the form of sauces and dips.

Learning to like vegetables will help you out enormously in your weight loss journey. Vegetables pack a full punch of nutrients and vitamins that your body needs for energy and most of them do not have that many calories. That means you can eat a whole plate of vegetables for how many calories are in about 10 potato chips. If you think that you don’t like vegetables, you may just have to give them another try. Try all kinds of different vegetables, but try to limit the starchy white vegetables such as potatoes.

Here are a couple of ways you can eat your vegetables and lose weight:

Make a large salad with tons of different vegetables such. Use different kinds of lettuces, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, tomatoes, peas, cucumber, and any other vegetables (or fruits ) that you enjoy. Keep the salad low in calories by using a light vinaigrette or a light sprinkle of olive oil and vinegar. Avoid creamy dressings such as ranch and Caesar.

Stock up on the steam fresh bags for your microwave. You can cook any vegetable in a matter of a couple of minutes in your microwave. Season the vegetables with some garlic, Italian seasoning or with just a small amount of butter.

When sauteing vegetables, use a cooking spray instead of butter to lessen the calories. You can also use a little bit extra virgin olive oil and still stay on your diet.

Grill your vegetables. Even in winter you can have grilled vegetables. Get an indoor grilling machine for your counter-top or a grill pan for your stove.

So, you think that you don’t have time in your busy life to exercise. I bet your wrong. It’s amazing how many different opportunities that you will encounter in your busy day to take 10 minutes out and get some exercise. If you can’t fit in a full 30 minutes straight, then why not try 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. Doing the 10 minutes of physical activity will help you to burn those calories to lose weight.

Here are a couple of ways that I have found to fit in exercise into a busy day.

Walking on a lunch break at work.

Doing exercises during commercials while watching television.

Taking your kids for a quick walk or even walking to do an errand.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator wherever you go.

Play and run around with your kids for a couple of minutes.

Pop in a 10 minute workout DVD while dinner is cooking in the oven.

Be creative in your schedule and you will be amazed at how much time you may waste sitting around waiting when you could be sneaking in some exercise. Believe me, those 10 minutes of physical activity will start to add up and the weight will start dropping off.