You did it! You lost ten pounds! Again! How many times have you lost the same ten pounds on a weight loss program only to gain it back plus two more? Losing weight is simply frustrating!
Fad diets are tempting, but the success rate is low. Before you can lose weight, you need to work on your physical and emotional health and restore your hormonal balance. And, once you recognize what is out of balance in your life and health, you must change your lifestyle to help regain control of your body.
Why Do You Want to Lose Weight?
The first thing you must do when deciding a plan to lose weight is to reexamine why you want to lose the weight. Most women want to lose weight because of how it will make them look and feel in their clothing. While this is important and can affect your emotional well being, it won't do you any good if you are not healthy enough to enjoy the benefits of a thin body.
Being overweight substantially raises the risk of developing many diseases such as diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, cardiovascular disease, infertility, hypertension, arthritis, or insulin resistance. If you are overweight more than 20 pounds or your BMI (body mass index) is over 28, you are at a higher risk of developing these conditions. Contact a physician for testing if you feel you show symptoms and have him test your basal metabolic function. This will tell you how efficiently your body converts energy into work.
What are your ideas of a perfect body? How do you want your body to look? After you answer these questions, will the weight loss plan you have in mind really be healthy? Will it make it truly happy?
Why Do You Eat
Are you truly hungry? One of the keys to your success in losing weight and keeping it off is to identify the reasons you eat. For many people, food is a pleasure. For some people, it is a temporary stress reliever. Sadly, looking to food for comfort only adds to your stress about gaining weight. It is a vicious cycle.
One way to identify what kind of eater you are is to keep a daily food journal. Create one that will allow you to identify a pattern of moods, certain times of day you like to eat, or whether it is your menstrual cycle. Not only do you indicate what you eat, but how much, and what you are feeling at this time. Recognizing a pattern will help you to get a handle on whether or not you are an emotional eater. If this is the case, you will need to face your problems. You may need to seek professional help in order to do this. Sometimes food is way to hide your true emotions. Get out of this pattern. Once you can face your fears, you can be a happier person and will likely not turn to food for comfort.
If you eat for pleasure, try something new. Instead of putting the focus on the food, redirect the focus to the movie, or the bowling alley, or the miniature golf, or whatever you like to do. It is okay to eat, just don't make it the center of your plans and try to make healthier food choices.
How Does Metabolism Affect Your Weight?
Your goal for losing weight should be to maintain a lean healthy body weight. Two ways to do this is to burn fat and build muscle, which all ties into your metabolism. If your metabolism is healthy, your body will convert energy from the food you eat into work and heat on the cellular and muscular level, it will eliminate any toxins or unnecessary nutrients through your waste, and it will restore glucose in the form of glycogen and extra energy as fat for future use. All of these work together. One cannot function properly without the other two. Our nutrition is the key to keeping these three working properly.
When your metabolism is working properly, your body will maintain a healthy ratio between energy consumption and output. Therefore, your calories going in should support your calories going out with a little reserve for emergencies.
Good nutrition is the basis for a well functioning metabolism. What, when, and how you eat matter. When people decide to starve or deprive their bodies of nutrition, your metabolism shuts down and will begin hoarding fat and burning glycogen for energy. Once the glycogen is used, your brain will send out hunger signals that you have to fulfill. This is the culprit of so many failed yo-yo diets.
A healthy nutrition and moderate exercise plan will help maintain a healthy weight.
Your hormones can play an important role in whether you can gain or lose weight. There are some medical reasons why people lose or gain weight. Insulin resistance, menopause, and thyroid hormones can affect your weight. Identifying any hormonal imbalances imperative in understanding how you can lose weight and keep it off.
Build Muscle and Lose Fat
It is important to incorporate exercise into your daily routine. You do not have to spend hours a day. The correct amount will depend on your individual circumstances and metabolic profile. Once you have determined how long you should exercise to lose weight, you need to adjust this time to maintain your weight.
Detoxify Your System
It is important to detoxify your system. To detoxify is to cleanse your body of toxic chemicals. There are many ways to detoxify your body. One way is to drink eight glasses of water and exercise regularly. Also, a multivitamin will be helpful. Fiber is effective at detoxification because a high fiber and low fat diet are a good place to start. You must rid you body of digestive, cellular, and emotional debris. Ask your physician of the many different healthy ways to detoxify your system.
Now that you are aware of some of the hidden obstacles in losing weight and keeping it off, take a good look at your life and your habits. Create a daily food journal, learn why you eat, see a doctor to rule out any hormonal or medical conditions, and detoxify your system. Once you have done this, create or look for a weight loss plan and exercise plan to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle.
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