To lose weight, all you have to do is burn more calories than you take in. It sounds simple enough, but losing weight in ways that are healthy and sustainable is tricky sometimes. After all, you can lose weight immediately by stopping eating or working out five hours a day. The initial results are impressive, but how long can you keep that up? And how fast does that weight come back? Keep reading if you want to get it right and for good.
Do your homework about the methods out there for weight loss. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of diets out there. You can look at some of them immediately and know that they are totally bogus. Others might not be so apparent. Try and find online which ones actually are able to be stuck with over time and have delivered results to users after five years. Your doctor can help you weed out winners and losers from their personal experience with patients.
Once you identify the ones that promise to get you thinner fast, never fall for them. Pretty much any plan that promises you x number of pounds within y weeks should be an option you do not waste your time trying. They do not know you, your body or your lifestyle, so how can they promise specific results without starving you?
Stick with the programs and diets that you know work for others over a time frame of more than 12 weeks. In addition to your doctor, talk to anyone you know who has gotten thin themselves. They know something that worked. Follow in their footsteps. In many cases, what turned things around for them might not have even been a dramatic dietary overhaul. It could be a walking regimen, or only drinking water. No matter how stupid anything they tell you sounds, or how little, if it is healthy, do it!
Once you have done your homework online, in books and through your doctor and those you know who have gotten thin, you should be able to start drawing up some kind of plan. It might just be a list of the top ten ideas you have come up with to change your lifestyle, and it might not represent some kind of cohesive plan. That's fine. You just need enough to turn things around.
Make sure that your exercise routine suits you. You need physical activity to lose weight, but you also need a regimen that you can continue for life. It needs to be a combination of activities that you can do physically and feature times that you enjoy. If your exercise program risks injury or eventual boredom, you will not keep at it. Exercise that only loses you weight before you quit working out just means you will gain it back.
When you can go through the steps outlined in this article, you can get in a weight loss groove. This groove will not be very exciting at first, but after a few weeks, you will find yourself on the opening steps of achieving permanent escape velocity.