If you are like me and you have a busy and productive life, you probably lack time for many of your desires, such as weight loss. Nevertheless, it is good that you have not started a weight loss program where you lose 20 pounds and then quit and regain the weight back.
Any short-term weight loss program will fail, and you will gain all the weight you lost and more. To successfully lose weight, you need to change your lifestyle. There is no other way.
Therefore, here I am giving you six behaviors you can start practicing today to successfully lose weight.
1. Exercise every day. Start by finding what type of exercise activity you like, such as walking, running, hiking or swimming. Make sure it is something that you enjoy doing. Do not forget to add your exercise time to your calendar.
2. Make your meals high in vegetables. If you are gaining weight and it is difficult for you to lose weight, it could be because of your eating. By adding lots of veggies to your meals, you will get all the nutrients you need. Plus, you will eat foods low in calories and high in nutrients. This is not a choice if you want to live a healthy life. It must be part of your life.
3. Eat your breakfast. Breakfast is important, because afterward hunger won’t be an issue before lunch. Many people eat anything in front of them, like junk foods and fast foods, when they don’t eat breakfast. They also pick whatever foods are available, eating more than they should. You can only skip breakfast if you are mindful of your eating, but the truth is that many people are not.
4. Say no to added sugar drinks. Stop drinking anything else besides water. Teach your body to drink water when you are thirsty. All added sugar drinks have extra empty calories that your body does not need and which make you fat.
5. Don’t practice behaviors that will get you off your goals. For many, drinking one alcoholic drink is not enough. They need to drink more than one, and before they know it they’ve had 10 drinks. If you are like these people, you are drinking too many empty calories, not to mention all the food that you are consuming as you are drinking. The same applies if you smoke marijuana. Marijuana itself won’t add calories to your body, but the fact that marijuana activates your hunger mechanism, the food that you will end up eating will add extra calories.
6. Think active during the day. Don’t be looking for the closest parking spot in the grocery store or taking the elevator or electric stairs when you can. Think that those extra steps will add to your goal.
7. Sleep well. Your body is healing and recharging when you are sleeping. When you are not sleeping well, your body does not have the opportunity to recharge and heal. Don’t sacrifice your sleep. You will get old faster and make weight loss difficult.
8. Get rid of your medication. Maybe you are taking medications for a complication you have. But you have not read the side effects. All medications, no matter how good they claim to be, have side effects. They do. Often, those side effects include weight gain. Make a legit research and find out your medication’s side effects and see if it is worth taking. Find out if there is another option, so you can take care of your health besides medication. Talk to a reliable doctor before making any move.
Remember that many times relapses are inevitable. So don’t lose faith, and start over again and again if you need to. God never gives up on you. You should never give up on yourself.
Start losing weight and living a higher quality life today.
Sandro Torres is owner of Custom Body Fitness in Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs and author of the books “Lose Weight Permanently” and “Finding Genuine Happiness.” His column appears on the third Wednesday of the month.
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