Should You Weight Yourself Daily?

If you are struggling with overweight or obesity, or otherwise would like to maintain your weight or prevent obesity, you may be wondering if it would be beneficial to weigh yourself frequently, and, if so, how frequently.  Recent research has finally shed some light on this question.

Benefits of Daily Weights

A recent study has shown that weighing yourself daily—and then plotting your daily weights on a chart every day—can improve your weight-loss progress, particularly if you are making changes in your dietary habits and specifically trying to lose weight.

Researchers tested daily self-weighing and visual feedback (in the form of the daily weight chart) to see how helpful this could be as a weight-loss and weight maintenance tool over the course of two years. The study authors found a significant difference in weight loss, which was greater in the group weighing themselves daily. This was particularly true for male participants.

Another study also found that daily weighers lost significantly more weight than those who weighed themselves less than daily.

And yet another study, which looked at the effects of daily weighing on weight loss over a six-month period of time, found that those participants who weighed themselves daily were able to lose significantly more weight than those who weighed themselves less frequently.

The Right Combination

What these and other studies seem to show is that it is the combination of weighing one’s self daily and keeping track of these daily weights in a visual format--whether by a chart, graph, or other means—that is most beneficial for helping to achieve meaningful weight loss.

Additionally, since a common mistake that leads to weight gain is not weighing yourself with any frequency, it stands to reason that one way to stay on top of your weight and prevent obesity is to step on that scale every day. If you wait until your pants or skirt are too tight, you’ve waited too long to check in on your weight.

Do yourself a favor and let an objective measurement of your weight, such as the scale, and of your waistline, such as your waist circumference, be the information on which you rely to tell you whether or not you are slowly gaining weight. These, along with body mass index (BMI), are objective measures that you can compare with nationally recommended ranges.

Best Way to Weigh Yourself

The best way to weigh yourself is on the same scale, at the same time, every day. I advise my patients to weigh themselves first thing in the morning on their home scales before eating anything, preferably before they step into the shower so they are not wearing any clothing that can contribute to the final total weight.

For menstruating women, weights can fluctuate depending on the time of month and cycle, and for everyone, weight can vary by a few pounds dependent upon salt intake and water retention. Keeping a log of your weights will show you your patterns over a few months and the relationship of your weight to hormonal and dietary factors.

Your weight will fluctuate from one day to the next and that's normal but weighing every day will keep your mind on the goal, it helps to keep you focused. At the end of a week, you want to see that you're moving in the right direction. And if you log weight, exercise, food, and drinks you can see where your mistakes are and you will slip, but that's normal too. The log will help you get back on track.

I write E-books and blogs about fitness and weight loss. I’ll show you the cheapest, inexpensive way to lose weight. Right now and for a limited time, my E-book, "How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight”, is $1.99 on all the major sites. Amazon.com, iBooks, B&N.com, Scribd.com, Kobo.com and many others in several other countries. 

How Healthy Are You?

Surprisingly Simple Longevity Tests

Most of us think that we're in good enough shape. We tend to judge ourselves by other about the same age. Actually, that's probably not good. We tend to judge ourselves by others who aren't in good condition. I don't know anyone who compares himself with the 80 year olds that Golf three times a week. If you don't know anyone like that it might be you don't live in Arizona or Florida.

Your physical condition is a good indicator of "how long you'll live". Most people think they're in better shape than they really are. As a result, they're usually shocked to find out the results. Try it for yourself.

No one can predict exactly how long you'll live, but researchers have devised some surprisingly simple tests that are strongly correlated with a risk of early death - or a longer life - in the years to come.  Here's a look at some basic ways scientists are attempting to assess your physical capability and the associated chances of living longer.

1.   Sitting-Rising Test:  Developed in the late 1990s by Brazilian scientist Claudio Gil Soares de Araujo at Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro, this test simply involves going from a standing position in a small (2 meters by 2 meters) area to a sitting position on the floor, and then rising again.

Subjects are scored according to how many supports they require to perform the cycle: a point lost for using a hand, forearm, or knee, for example, to either sit or stand.  Another half-point is deducted for generally unstable execution.  A total of 10 points can be achieved for each full cycle.

In a 2014 paper published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, Araujo and others discovered that older adults had a 5 times greater risk of mortality during the 6.3-year follow-up period, if they scored only 0-3 points on the test, relative to the top-performers scoring between 8-10 points.  A total of 2002 adults between the ages of 51 and 80 years participated in the study.

Araujo's team writes that the Sitting-Rising Test (SRT) is a simple gauge of musculoskeletal fitness, with the capacity to predict mortality among community-dwelling adults in this age range.

Another version is the Chair Rise Speed Test, which calculates how many times you can rise from a chair and sit back down again, within a minute.

 A 2014 paper published in the British Medical Journal compared the fastest sitters with the slowest among 2766 53-year old adults. At baseline, women performed anywhere from 21 stands/minute on the low end to almost 37 stands/minute.  The range among men was just under 22 stands/minute for the low performers, to 39 stands/minute at the high end.

After 13 years, those of either gender who performed poorest at the outset had more than twice the risk of death from any cause when compared with those with a higher chair rise speed at the start of the study.

2.    Grip Strength:   The strength of your hand grip is typically measured using an electronic dynamometer.  In numerous studies, a stronger grip has been linked with lower all-cause mortality, especially among older adults. In the 2014 UK study of adults aged 53, women's grip strength ranged from 21kg (46lb) to almost 34kg (75lb), while the men squeezed from 36kg (79lb) to 54.5kg (120lb).  Averaged across both sexes, and taking other risk factors like body mass index, smoking status and physical activity levels into account, the 53-year olds with the poorest grip strength had anywhere from a 29% to 98% greater risk of death from any cause during the 13 years of follow-up.

3.    Standing Balance Time:  The same 2014 BMJ paper examined how long its subjects could stand on one foot with their eyes closed.

 The resulting times were short, with a maximum average of just 19 seconds for men, and 10 seconds for women.  The good news: achieving simply those brief standing balance times was linked with lower mortality.  Poor performers of the standing balance test -  clocking in at just 3 seconds for both women and men - had a 2.5 greater chance of dying from any cause, during the 13-year study.

4.    Sitting Height:  If you think your overall height is the only tallness measure researchers are interested in, you're wrong.  Sitting height, an anthropometric measurement which compares the relative proportions of the torso and legs, has been linked in Western populations to the incidence of heart disease. Greater leg length (and less relative sitting height) has been viewed as an indicator of better childhood health, which may protect against age-related illnesses like heart disease and diabetes in adulthood.  

Data on other ethnic populations are less clear, however; a 2007 Chinese study found that greater sitting height was linked to more diabetes and abnormal lipid levels (dyslipidemia), whereas a 2011 paper published in the International Journal of Epidemiology found no relationship between height (including sitting height) with mortality among 136,202 adults in the Shanghai Women's and Men's Health Studies.

5.    Gait Speed:  Can how fast you naturally walk say anything about your longevity?  Yes - according to epidemiologists from the University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere, in their 2011 paper published in JAMA. The researchers examined 9 separate studies involving a total of 34,485 participants and found that among both sexes, gait speed was linked with survival at all ages. A natural gait speed of 0.8 metres/second (about 1.8 miles/hour) corresponded with average life expectancy for each age; walking faster than that as a natural pace was linked with better than average longevity.

Since walking requires energy, balance, and engages multiple organ systems to work together, the researchers suggest slower speed may indicate hidden illness or poor overall conditioning.

6.    Waist to Height Ratio:  Some researchers believe that waist to height ratio - calculated by dividing the waist circumference in centimetres by a person's height (also measured in centimetres) is a better predictor of disease than weight or body mass index.  The advice is simple: keep your abdominal fat down, and make sure your waist measurement is not greater than half your height.

Bottom line:  These tests are simple tools to measure the statistical probability of an early death, as indicators of overall health and conditioning.  You can improve your own odds of living a long, healthy life by staying physically active, eating an anti-aging diet, staying active within your social circle, keeping stress at bay, not smoking, and drinking only in moderation.

Medical science knows little about how long human should live. They can only go by past records. But they do predict that humans will live longer in the future because we are learning more about the body and what we need to do to take care of ourselves. The benefits of living a healthy lifestyle will be to age slower and to stay young longer and if that leads to a longer life, okay, but for me, I want to enjoy my days as long as a can. 

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Follow the 80/20 Rule for Losing Weight

What I want you to know is that living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be complicated. It is not something you are “on or off” like that “diet” word I don’t advocate. To help you meet your fitness goals, I’ve rounded up nine simple tricks I do as a fitness trainer and you can do too. Get ready to live your healthiest life possible.

1. Follow the 80/20 rule. Eat healthy 80 percent, or most of the time. This rule is easy to follow because you can assess your day or week and know if most of the choices you are making are healthy.

Choose to eat clean (real food!) most of the time and use that 20 percent as your wiggle room. I’m probably more like 90/10 but if you can aim for 80/20, that’s great. If you eat fresh produce and lean proteins most of the time and have a dish of ice cream on the weekend, you are following the rule. Plan for indulgences.  I know this can work if you don't overindulge. That's the reason most people can't make the 80/20 rule work for them. Instead of indulging on a bowl of ice cream once a week, they want to indulge every day with something small thinking it won't hurt the diet, but it does hurt and it will cause your diet to fail. When your diet gets you a 1 or 2-pound weight loss every week, it doesn't take much to erase that loss. 

2. Stick to the 2-day rule for exercise

I never go more than two days in a row without exercise, even if I am traveling. If I ever miss two days in a row, I will do whatever it takes to get a workout in on that third day, even if it’s running stairs inside of a building.

Using this rule will help you build routine and rhythm around your workouts. You can skip any guilt-trip you give yourself and just get right back into exercise on day three. Now you have a realistic game plan to keep you exercising for the long haul. Rules that fit the reality of “life happens” are rules you can work into your lifestyle.

3. Strength Training

Strength training builds muscle, improves posture, strengthens bone density, and increases confidence and quality of life. Having muscles is key to performing daily activities (gardening, home repair, picking up the kiddos) and there are a ton of benefits to feeling stronger and more confident as a person.

Strength training can reduce the risk of degenerative diseases and the overall quality of life. As we age, our strength levels and metabolism both decrease. That’s why it’s so important to stress your body through exercise so it can grow stronger. Plus, the more muscle you gain, the more calories you burn at rest!

4. Never skip breakfast

Breakfast sets the tone for your day. When you skip breakfast or don’t eat until several hours after you are awake, you are more likely to overeat at lunch or make less than healthy choices because your hunger is driving the bus. Eat a satisfying protein-based breakfast to start your day off fueled and strong. It doesn't have to be complicated—some of the best breakfasts are no-cook! 

5. Find exercises that you like.

Some people love exercise and can’t live without it and some people claim to hate it... and there’s a whole range of opinions in the middle.

Search for a form of exercise you love. When you love an activity, no one has to convince you to do it. You won’t have to work on your commitment to go to spin class or lift weights at the gym if those are both activities you love to do. Maybe you pick a group sport. Join a new gym. Find adult dance classes. Do aerial yoga at a studio, or resistance band training at home. You could surprise yourself with your love of running, or kettlebells.

I’m a professed group fitness junkie and can’t get enough of spinning, conditioning classes, and boot camps. So what’s your calling? Perhaps it’s nature, hiking the trails. You’ve just got to keep trying different exercises on until you’ve found the right fit for you.

6. Keep a positive attitude

Living with a positive attitude is something I preach and live because nothing productive happens out of negativity. I’ve got science on my side because research shows that when you are happy first, you are more likely to succeed in life. Having that positive attitude and being optimistic gives you the ability to set goals, believe in yourself and look for solutions to challenges.

With the right mindset, you have faith in your abilities and you are more likely to take action steps to reach your goals. Like attracts like, so if you are positive, it’s like opening your arms up for all the positive things coming right back at you. 

7. Drink Lemon Water

Every single morning, before I eat or drinking anything—and that includes my coffee—I reach for a big glass of lemon water. I squeeze about half a lemon into 12 to 16 ounces of room temperature water and sip. So simple, yet so good for your body! This has always been of my favorite tips to share with people who ask for an easy, start today tip, for better health. Lemon water flushes out toxins, balances your pH levels, and boosts your immunity. 

8. Do HIIT exercises

Okay, I’m partial to HIIT (high intensity,S interval training) because I love intense workouts, but I also love HIIT because you will see results.

HIIT is a type of workout where you give maximum effort through quick intense bursts of exercise followed by short recovery periods. HIIT workouts train and condition both your aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. You get your heart rate up and improve your cardiovascular fitness level while burning more fat and calories in less time.

So what is HIIT? It's nothing more than starting off slow and after you want up speed up for 1 minute, then slow down for 1 or 2 minutes, then speed up for 1 minute, and repeat that routine for 6 times and that interval training. Read up about HIIT and see if it works for you. 

9. Never go out to eat starving

If you are watching calories, you might think skipping meals leading up to a party can help you save up your calories for the party, but that’s asking for trouble. When you go to a party or cookout starving, you are more likely to overeat and eat all the wrong things.

It’s okay to be hungry when you head out the door, but don’t go famished or you will eat too much and regret it later. Have a handful of nuts or something healthy that takes the edge off your hunger before you head out.

I write E-books and blogs about fitness and weight loss. I’ll show you the cheapest, inexpensive way to lose weight. Right now and for a limited time, my E-book, "How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight”, is $1.99 on all the major sites. Amazon.com, iBooks, B&N.com, Scribd.com, Kobo.com, and many other sites around the world.

Exercise and Fat

Author Laurie J. Goodyear, PhD, is a senior investigator at Joslin Diabetes Center

I had to copy this post for my readers because this author has it right. Most dieters are not doing the right exercise to help them burn fat. Most people step on the scale and all they see is the number and they don't bother thinking about what the number means. Most of the time it means you adding more fat, which means you need to lose fat and that's more than just losing weight.

Most people know that exercise burns fat. It’s the reason most people hit the treadmill in the first place.

But fat isn’t just a place we park extra calories. “The tissue has a lot of other properties.

“Exercise really makes fat healthier and helps it burn more energy.”

Specifically, she says, exercise shrinks the size of individual fat cells, and the cells develop more energy-producing parts called mitochondria.

That means that fat tissue is burning more calories, even at rest, Goodyear says.

“What we’ve realized is that fat isn’t simply storage,” she says. “We see about 4,000 genes in fat tissue change with exercise. It’s not just that fat cells get smaller.”

Exercise also affects the lining of blood vessels, a layer of tissue called the endothelium that’s just a single cell thick. When this layer of tissue is damaged, it’s easier for dangerous blood clots to form.

Science has discovered that when the body is inactive, the cells in the endothelium get sluggish and don’t sit in the vessel wall properly. But exercise, which causes blood to flow more swiftly and under greater pressure, realigns the cells.

About 12 hours after a single bout of exercise, the cells have repositioned themselves to be in line with the flow of blood. This helps blood vessels work better, keeping them open and elastic, rather than stiff, narrow, and clogged.

In the brain, recent studies have shown that physical activity makes the brain more connected by bulking up the white matter, the wiring that transmits signals between nerve cells. And older adults who exercise have more gray matter in areas of the brain responsible for self-control, memory, and decision-making.

Exercise also beats medication for some ailments. In head-to-head tests, it works as well or better than pills for depression. In other conditions, like Alzheimer’s and arthritis, it’s been shown to delay disability.

It’s enough to convince anyone to lace up. Or at least it should be.

Yet that message seems to be falling on deaf ears. This year’s survey by the Physical Activity Council found that 28% of Americans say they are totally inactive. It’s the highest level of physical inactivity measured by the survey since 2007.

To keep himself healthy, he tracks his own steps every day.

If you're ready to get going but not sure where to start, Thyfault recommends three levels of fitness.

He says level one is just to walk and keep track of your steps. You can do this with a trendy fitness tracker, but even an inexpensive pedometer or a smartphone app will do the trick. Your goal should be at least 8,000 steps a day.

Once you’re hitting that goal on a regular basis, level two is to do three to five defined exercise sessions each week, with a goal of 30 to 45 minutes of aerobic activity -- like running or pedaling on an elliptical -- each time.

Level three is to add a couple of days of resistance training each week.

Goodyear agrees and says getting more exercise will make a difference you can feel. “I always feel that if I’m consistently exercising I have more energy. People sleep better when they exercise routinely, and then your body just becomes more efficient,” she says. When your body is working better you feel better, your happier and you have more energy.

I write E-books and blogs about fitness and weight loss. I’ll show you the cheapest, inexpensive way to lose weight. Right now and for a limited time, my E-book, "How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight”, is $1.99 on all the major sites. Amazon.com, iBooks, B&N.com, Scribd.com, Kobo.com and many others in several other countries. 

Avoiding Stress Will Help You Lose Weight

We can have stress and not even know it. A fast paced life is 

stressful. Stress will cause a person to concentrate on those things 

that worry them most. They lose their focus on their everyday life. 

They start to forget about their normal routine and look for a way to cut time from their schedule. They stop working out or just walking with friends and they stop doing the regular chores like cooking at 

home. They spend more time watching TV because it takes your 

mind off the stress that's worrying them. Stress is one of the biggest 

causes of obesity. It will make you less active.

People will stop eating real food and just start filling up on snack food and bottled or canned drinks. All of this is 

caused by stress. Eating too much snack food, not preparing real 

food, not caring about your food and not caring about exercise. All 

of these are signs of a downward cycle that are heading toward 

obesity. And the food manufacturers are happy to help you.

Because of our stressful lifestyles, we are constantly looking for 

convenience and preparing meals is close to the top of the list of 

those conveniences. Supermarkets are great but all the food is not always healthy. Supermarkets have to sell all types 

of food and some of it is processed food. Processed food is 

manufactured and not grown. Convenience foods and even restaurant food will only add more fat to your body. When you're trying to lose weight avoid foods that you aren't making at home. This is a good way to simplify your life by taking some of the hustle out of it. Try to take a lot of the aggravation out of life by organizing everything just a little better. 

You can make quick meals and they can still be healthy. By planning your meals and plan for shopping ahead of time by knowing what's for dinner before you go to the store. Shopping out of habit and just buying the same stuff week after week might be the expensive way to shop. Planning your meals before you shop maybe the easiest and cheapest way to shop. And by organizing just that much of your life can make a big difference in your stress level. The less stress in your life the happier you will be. You're also going to be more organized and be a better decision maker.  

I write E-books and blogs about fitness and weight loss. I’ll show you the cheapest, inexpensive way to lose weight. Right now and for a limited time, my E-book, "How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight”, is $1.99 on all the major sites. Amazon.com, iBooks, B&N.com, Scribd.com, Kobo.com and many others in several other countries. 

Yoga for Weight Loss

The Surprising Weight Loss Benefits Of Yoga

While walking around your city, you’ve probably seen a variety of yoga studios—everything ranging from Bikram to Anusara, Jivamukti, and Vinyasa yoga. Bikram is known for hot rooms and sweat-dripping bodies, while vinyasa is all about the flow of movements.

If your goal is to get lean and lose body fat, you might be wondering whether, or how, yoga fits into your program. There are a multitude of benefits to practicing yoga, but does yoga help with weight loss?

Yoga Only Burns 3-6 Calories Per Minute

In order to lose body fat, you have to create a deficit of calories. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight, and one pound of fat is equivalent to about 3500 calories.

Yoga classes often endure for about 60-90 minutes. According to research done by the American Council on Exercise, the average individual burns about 3-6 calories per minute practicing yoga, which equates to a total of only 180-360 calories burned during that class. In contrast, a kettlebell workout burns about 13-17 calories per minute, which equals about 800+ calories burned in an hour. That’s a significant difference in calorie expenditure.

While it depends on the type and intensity of the class– certain styles of yoga are much more rigorous such as power yoga, hot yoga, and vinyasa, whereas yin yoga, restorative, and hatha yoga are more gentle and slower-paced. Regardless of the intensity of the yoga class, circuit training is still superior in terms of overall metabolic boost and calorie burn.

But even with the calorie difference, yoga has other benefits that can help the weight-loss individual.

…But Yoga Can Still Be Effective For Weight Loss. Here’s Why

From 2000-2002, medical researcher and yogi Alan Kristal, in association with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, conducted a study on the effects of yoga on weight-loss. The study surveyed 15,500 middle-aged men and women about their physical activity and weight over time, controlled for factors such as diet, health, and other forms of exercise that could cause changes in weight. The study found that both over-weight and normal-weight adults who regularly practiced yoga for at least 4 years were less likely to gain weight than those who did not practice yoga. In fact, those who were overweight and practiced yoga actually lost an average of 5lbs during the four-year period, whereas the overweight non-practitioners gained about 14lbs.

If calorie expenditure didn’t account for weight maintenance or loss, what did? The researchers found a strong association between a regular yoga practice and mindful eating, which they did not find in other activities such as walking or running.

How Can Yoga Help You Lose Weight?

Reasons that yoga might help the weight loss process include:

Effective stress management, reducing the likelihood of stress eating

Increased body awareness, specifically relating to hunger and satiety

Mindfulness and mindful eating

Although practicing yoga doesn’t burn the most calories, it might still have a place in your workout routine. An effective fat loss program that encourages maintenance of lean muscle and maximizes calorie burn should be founded on a combination of resistance training and cardiovascular activity. 

However, yoga could be used as active recovery and flexibility training between more intense workouts. The benefits of stress reduction and mindfulness associated with yoga could lead to improved sleep, better eating habits, and increased self-awareness, which could mean more weight loss and improved maintenance of weight loss will result over time. No matter how bad you want to lose weight you can't work out hard every day. A hard workout is hard on your muscles and those muscles need time to rebuild, so you have to spread out those hard work outs. 

Regardless of the exercise you’re doing, however, good nutrition is essential. If you’re not paying attention to your diet, you won’t see the results you want. Exercise right, eat clean, and you’ll be able to realize your goals.

I write E-books and blogs about fitness and weight loss. I’ll show you the cheapest, inexpensive way to lose weight. Right now and for a limited time, my E-book, "How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight”, is $1.99 on all the major sites. Amazon.com, iBooks, B&N.com, Scribd.com, Kobo.com and many others in several other countries.

Reasons It's Hard to Lose Weight

Exercise

If you listen to the weight loss industry, you've been told over and over how easy it is to lose weight—just take this pill, follow that diet or buy this piece of equipment and everything will melt away in a flash. In fact, we spend over billions of dollars each year on weight loss products and services and yet we're still overweight.

If you struggle with weight loss, as most of us do, you've figured out just how hard it is to lose weight.

  The question is, why is it so hard and is there anything you can do about it? There's no shortcut to weight loss, but you can make the process easier with a few simple changes.

Complex Problems, Simple Solutions

The idea behind weight loss is simple--burn more calories than you eat. This can be accomplished by replacing a couple of sodas with water and adding at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. Sounds simple...and it is. If it's that simple, why can't we seem to do it?

There are a number of factors that contribute to our weight gain that you already know. But it's not just about finding time to exercise or choosing the salad over the burger—it's about genuine commitment to make healthy decisions every day....regardless of what's happening in your life. If you're not ready to make some changes, losing weight will be hard. Below are things you'll need to look at in order to get yourself on a healthy track.

1. Your Attitude.

If you're only on a health kick to lose weight or look a certain way, it will be hard to lose weight permanently. Why? Because what happens if you don't see results quickly enough? You give up.

Weight loss is a great goal, but unless you have something else to motivate you, what's to keep you going if the scale doesn't budge?

It takes time to lose weight—how will you motivate yourself in the meantime? Find more reasons to be healthy—having more energy, dealing with health problems or just feeling stronger and more energetic.  Keep an exercise journal and write down every single success, whether you're losing weight or not.

2. Your Workouts.

If you don't workout consistently enough, it's hard to lose weight. Yes, it's possible to lose weight through diet alone, but you'll likely hit a plateau. You don't need to spend hours in the gym, you only need to set up a reasonable workout schedule that you can follow each week. It's not about killing yourself with workouts—it's about finding something you like and that you'll continue with for the rest of your life. You have to be willing to be more active on a regular basis—not just for a week here and there. My Beginner's Corner can give you some idea of where to start.

3. Your Eating.

Changing the way you eat is another thing you're going to have to do for long-lasting weight loss.

You need to be willing to replace unhealthy foods with healthier choices most of the time.  That means:

• Keeping a food journal
• Spending more time in the grocery store reading food labels
• Spending more time preparing meals
• Understanding proper portion sizes
• Making conscious choices about what you put in your mouth.

For permanent weight loss, you need to pay attention to what you eat and make good choices more often than not. Maybe a structured diet eventually ends, but healthy eating never stops...there will never be a time when you're done eating healthy.

You might feel you're sacrificing the good stuff (pizza, fast food, etc.) and your life won't be fun if you can't have those foods. Guess what? You can still have them...just not whenever you want. Are you ready to make these changes? Are you ready to stop giving your body the most convenient thing available (and often the most fatty) and, instead, spend time planning what and when you'll eat? Because that's what it takes to really lose weight and keep it off.

4. Your Lifestyle.

If you want a healthy life, you have to be willing to change how you live. It doesn't mean changing everything overnight, but simply being open to new ways of doing things. Some things you might need to change for a healthy life are:

• Daily Routines. You may need to get up earlier to prepare your lunch or squeeze in a workout, use your lunch hour for exercise or go for a walk after work instead of watching TV. Exercising on a daily basis changes your entire day, so sitting down with your schedule to see where those changes need to happen is your first step in establishing an exercise habit.
• Limits. You might need to set new rules for yourself limiting how much TV you watch or how long you sit at the computer. You'll need to pay attention to how you spend your time and where you're out of balance so you can add more movement.
• Your Pantry. I'm the kind of person who will eat an entire bag of Doritos if they're in the house. That means I don't keep them in the house and if someone (ahem...husband) brings them home, he must immediately relocate them elsewhere. If you want to be healthy, you may need to get rid of those foods you just can't resist.
• Your Schedule. If you're not willing to sit down and change the way you live each day to include exercise, time to prepare meals and time to nurture yourself with sleep, it's hard to lose weight. People use busy schedules as an excuse not to be healthy...are you one of them? If you're not ready to take responsibility for the schedule you've created, it will be hard to lose weight.

5. Your Surroundings.

Sometimes, you can't control the things around you. At work, you may be surrounded by temptations—donuts, vending machines and the like. That's just one thing you have to deal with, but what about your home?

Surround yourself with things that will support you in your efforts to get healthy. That might mean spending some money on home workout equipment, setting up a corner of the house for your gear or commandeering the TV a few nights a week to do an exercise video.

Set up an environment that encourages those healthy choices and reminds you of them—just walking into my kitchen and seeing that bowl of fresh fruit is often enough to remind me of all the healthy choices I'll need to make that day.

6. Your Support System.

While getting healthy may be something you're doing on your own, it's a big help to have a support system. At the very least, family members who understand what you're doing and are either willing to participate or help. If you have a spouse who wants to continue eating the kinds of foods that tempt you, you need a plan to deal with that so you can still reach your goals and keep your relationship together.

Try to surround yourself with people who support what you're doing and avoid those people (like that co-worker who always offers you a donut even though you refuse on a daily basis) who don't. A workout buddy is also an excellent idea for support.

7.  Your Willingness to Fail.

You will not be perfect every day. As a perfectionist, I have to say that is a frustrating concept for me but, the truth is, everyone (even perfectionists) has good days and bad days. On the good days, you'll eat all your fruits and veggies, say no to that pizza and do your workout even though you're tired.

On the bad days, you'll wake up late, forget to bring your lunch, have an extra piece of cake at your friend's birthday party and skip your workout. The bad days will happen if you're a human being. The trick is to never give up, even when you mess up. Work on overcoming your fear of failure and remember that you're not a loser just because you make some mistakes...you're simply a person trying his or her best to make good decisions.

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