What if you want to lose weight?

Answer 1

The best possible way to lose weight, and the only permanent, healthy way to do it, is to eat less and move more.

The worst way to try losing weight is to believe you can do it quickly and easily by following a popular diet or paying money for special foods or training.

Just be sure to eat foods that are low in fat and sugar. There's no reason you can't snack through the day, provided what you eat over the day is balanced. Three big meals a day are not as good for you as several small ones, whether or not you want or need to lose weight. Eat slowly, but don't make a chore of it. Try to eat foods you really enjoy, and try new foods, to expand the range of things you enjoy. Don't stress about exact calorie (kilojoule) content: if you're smart enough to know you need to lose weight, you're smart enough to know what kind of foods will help.

Don't fall for wishful thinking. If the label says it's natural, or low-fat, or sugar-free, read the ingredients to see what's really in the food. It's too tempting to kid yourself that if the advertising says it's good for you then it must be! You're smarter than that.

Get twenty to thirty minutes a day exercise; more if you feel like it. This doesn't mean you need to dress in special exercise clothes and run around, or join a gym; you can just walk for ten or fifteen minutes, turn around and walk back. Take your walk, if possible, just as you start to feel hungry, then wait a short while before you eat. You'll enjoy the food more.

If you think you can't be bothered taking a walk, just ask yourself, 'What do I plan to do for the next twenty minutes?' Watch TV? Read a magazine? Talk on the phone? Check messages? You can record the TV show, and the rest will wait twenty minutes. Or, you can text or talk and walk at the same time. It's better for you to just take in your surroundings - you'll notice more every day and wonder how you missed seeing some things - but you have to start somewhere. Getting healthy shouldn't involve suddenly not doing all the things you like to do; if it does, it isn't healthy!

At home get in the habit of walking more, too. If you need to get a few things from another room, go and get them one at a time. If you're watering plants, use a small glass filled from the tap, water one plant and go back, fill the glass, water the next plant, and so on.

There are many little ways to get more movement into your life. Find ways that suit you, and keep doing them.

Above all, be patient. You're setting up a slightly different way of life so that you'll be healthier for all your life. Hold that thought, and realise investing in a healthy life, one where you feel and look good a lot of the time, takes a while to show results, just like any other investment.

You can do it!