Weight loss is simple, but it is not easy!
Your body needs to break down excesses stored to provide you with energy for your daily living. In practical terms it comes down to teach your body to get to that extra tank of energy that is hidden and not so easy to access. If you can do this, weight loss will be simple for you.
So what prevents you from staying on a weight loss plan? There are five areas that you need to focus on.
a) Sickness/Injury
b) Lack of energy
c) Lack of support
d) Temptations
e) Lack of planning
a) Sickness or injury:
If you could start tomorrow and exercise for two hours every day and keep your eating habits the same you should lose weight provided that your body is forced to look for the energy inside and not outside.
The challenge often is this that you could injure yourself. Starting with your early morning walks, you hurt your ankles, shins or knees. The new exercise routine stops and you start eating (extra) again.
You may not hurt yourself, but you develop a cold or flue suddenly. You stop with your exercise plan and nibble a bit more until “you feel better”. Besides the obstacle of sickness or injury, you also want to make sure that you do not run out of energy.
b) Lack of Energy:
You are enthusiastic and start with your new day and you eat wisely (or so you think). At 11 am you are feeling horrible. There is no energy and you think that you cannot continue. It gets worse in the afternoon. you get headaches and you want it to stop. You get incredibly hungry and at 5 pm you want to eat a horse just to get the energy back.
This way will you will not continue with your new eating plan or discipline. You need the energy to be able to push through. Most importantly you will need support.
c) Lack of support:
You need someone (or more than one person) to keep you going. If you want to run a marathon in a few months starting from scratch, you need to be on a plan with people supporting you. You cannot stop after one day, although you may feel that you want to stop after one day. When you surround yourself with people that will support you and that will keep you accountable, then it is easier to do this. Often you need someone like this in your own household. if you do not have a support team or at least one support person, you will find this almost impossible to achieve in this area.
It is also critical to be clear on your reason for weight loss. If you are clear about this and your support team knows about it, it is easier for them to keep you on route and for you to stay on route! Besides the support that you will require, you would want to plan for meeting the temptations!
d) Temptations:
I love peanut butter. If there is any peanut butter around and some bread, then I have a major challenge, especially as a late evening snack. So the challenge for me is always there. but if the bread is not there and the peanut butter is not around, I will not go to the trouble to go our to buy it.
You need to have someone go through your kitchen or pantry to remove the temptations. You will have enough challenges on its own. With extra temptations it becomes very difficult.
A temptation may of course be the company of another person as well. That person is sipping on his favourite high calorie drink without putting on weight and you are there trying to be social with a glass full of water. That is another type of temptation. You need to have a plan to deal with this as well.
e) Lack of planning:
In many instances it is lack of planning that prevents you from being successful with your plan. Let’s say you are spending a lot of time in your car. At about 12 noon you see a well known brand of chicken advertised and you are “hungry”. You are lucky as you did pack your “emergency food box” for the day. Out comes some almonds and a snack bar and you satisfy your hunger with 300 kcal instead of 1000 kcal. That is a major difference, but it all comes back to proper planning for the day.
Correct planning could assist you to reach your goals.
If you require assistance with your planning and implementation at a fee, please email mailto: hansielouw2@gmail.com
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