Monday, June 16, 2008

Lose Weight and Stay Well

How to carry out My Free Weight Loss Program the Healthy Way

When you embark on a Weight Loss Program, you have a slimming goal. At first that goal may be simply to lose weight fast, perhaps to look good in a bikini or to fit into your summer clothes.

If you stick with any dieting plan and combine it with exercises to burn calories and tone your body, you will lose weight. When you have that slim, toned figure you will feel good about yourself. If you eat sensibly and make sure you get regular exercise, you will be able to stay slim and fit for life.

But sometimes, with all that enthusiasm over losing weight and getting fit, you can get carried away.

I want everyone who follows My Free Weight Loss Program to do well and lose weight and keep that weight off. But I also want you to be strong and healthy.

Which is why I am posting a few 'things to watch out for', so that you recognize any signs of taking a diet and exercise plan too far.

Questions To Ask Yourself When On A Weight Loss Program:

  • How much weight do I need to lose? Is this realistic?
  • Look at your body shape. If you have large bones and broad shoulders, you will never be able to slim your body down to the same shape as Kate Moss. You will be slim and fit, but all the dieting and calorie counting in the world will not change your body's bone structure. So don't get carried away with your dieting.
  • What type of slimming diet am I following?
  • You may want to lose weight fast, but you still want to eat sufficient vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates and even fats to maintain your health. Don't cut out any of these completely to lose weight fast. If you do, you will be doing your body no favours.
  • Am I getting obsessed with exercising?
  • There are many different exercises you can use to keep fit and tone up your body. Most of them work if done correctly (although some, as I mentioned in my post on exercise to get rid of the tummy flab safely, must be done with great care if you are a woman). But exercising hard every day is not good for your body. It needs time to rest and recuperate. Even keep fit instructors and athletes take one or even two days off each week. This is important, our muscles need time to rest and for all that toning to take full effect.
  • Over exercising will be counter-productive. Always remember that it takes more than a couple of days for muscles to lose their tone and those newly strengthened muscles will be burning up extra calories for us than before, and helping us to stay slim and fit, even when they are having a rest. So don't get carried away with over exercising.
Ok, you have reached your ideal weight loss goal. The diet has worked well and your sensible exercise plan has given you a new, slimmer, toned body. And you feel great! You can fit into those summer clothes and you can flaunt your flat tummy on the beach for all to see. You know you have reached your ideal weight. The slimming scales will tell you so.

  • Look in the mirror and see a new, slim you. If you still see a fat person looking back at you, that is an illusion; a hangover from the days before you lost all your excess weight. Ignore it.
  • Don't carry on dieting to lose more weight. There is nothing to fear about putting weight on again if you eat sensibly from now on. And don't carry on with a gruelling exercise plan. Good, healthy moderate exercise is what you need now.
  • Don't carry on dieting and exercising to try to change your body's structural shape. It won't work. It could just make you ill.
  • Love the shape you have been given and the one all that dieting and exercise has revealed. You are slim and fit now. Don't get carried away.

In other words, it is great to lose weight. It is fantastic to be slim, toned and full of energy. But don't take your new slim figure to extremes and go on dieting and exercising when you know, deep down, you have already achieved your weight loss goals.

Lose weight and tone up the healthy way. That is what My Free Weight Loss Program is about.