Action Plan to Lose Weight for BMI 28+ Part 2

Action 2 – Get started by changing your eating habits and your exercise routine. Don’t rush into these changes, take your time to adjust your lifestyle gradually, in order to maintain a steady weight loss regime for the long-term, slowly but surely.

Take on a calorie goal

Set yourself a target to lose 1lb-2lbs (0.5-1kg) a week, regardless of to what you weigh now. To lose 1lb a week you will need to reduce 500 calories of your daily intake and to lose 2lbs a weeks you need to cut 1000 calories from your daily intake. Women normally lose weight on 1,500 calories intake a day and men on 1,800.

continued below ....

Start a food diary

It helps you to acknowledge what you eat and how much you eat every day. This gives you the opportunity to make the changes you need in your diet and re-educate yourself about eating habits – helping you to change your life style.

Start to exercise

Start to exercise gradually and slowly build up your stamina and body condition. Don’t try to over-exercise at the beginning, especially if you haven’t exercised for while, so you don’t strain yourself. Walking or cycling are good exercises to start with. To begin with you can exercise for 10 minutes each day and 5 minutes each week. Gradually you can get to a 30 minutes session 5 times a week.

Choose the right exercise for you

Keep active and enjoy yourself at the same time by doing some type of exercise that you like, such as swimming or cycling. You are more likely to keep exercising when you do something that you enjoy.

The scale rule

Use a imaginary scale from 1 to 5 to access your hunger, one means you are not hungry at all – 5 means you are starving. Be strong and only eat if you get to number 4, as the feeling of being hungry can pass quickly. Distract your mind by keeping busy and drink some water, the hunger feeling will pass.

Trick your cravings

You need to have a strong willpower to keep the cravings away. Use distraction to stop yourself from snacking and bingeing. Whenever you start craving occupy yourself with something that will take your mind out of it. Music is something that can lift your spirit up – so listen to your favourite songs and dance around the house and forget about food.

Keep motivated

Reward yourself to a non-food-based treat each time you reach a new goal as a way to keep yourself motivated – buy a magazine, CD or make-up for instance.

Read the food labels

Understanding the food label can help you to choose a healthier diet. The traffic-light food labelling system is easy to use – red, yellow and green means high, medium and low levels of fat, salt and sugar retrospectively. Aim to eat more food with the green labels and less of the red labels.

Tweet This Tweet Me!