The first step

The best way to decide where you want to go is to find out where you are now. You have written your reasons, your goals and potential barriers so the next step is the first step to a new you.
You will need to maintain a food diary for the next seven days.  Do not change a thing, carry on as normal.  You will then be able to see where changes can be made. Your food diary should show;

• The date and time of eating or drinking 
• An accurate record of what is eaten or drunk. For example, 'Roast dinner', is not accurate. Show, 1 chicken leg, 3 boiled potatoes, 3 roast potatoes, dessert spoon of peas and dessert spoon of carrots.
• Mood and/or situation. The type of food eaten is often tied in with your mood. Record what mood you were in when you made your food/drink entry.  Situation is also important. You could be at a buffet, picking at food or sat in front of the TV/computer snacking on biscuits or chocolate!
• You will also need to record your activity/exercise.  This could include gardening, car washing or spring cleaning.  Record how long the activity carried on for. If exercising, record what you carried out in terms of CV or weight workout.

The golden rule for completing your diary is, if it goes in your mouth it goes in your diary. Make your record as near as the time eating etc occurred.  If you leave it to the end of the day you will forget something!

Next time we will look at common outcomes and pitfalls and see how you can move past them.

Getting ready

So this time you will lose weight! To do this you will need to make changes to your lifestyle and this includes activity/exercise as well as the food you eat. How committed are you right now? Score yourself on a scale of one to ten on your readiness for change. If you scored yourself at 5 or below then now is not the time. What will make your score higher?  When you are ready, you can start.
Firstly, write down your reasons for wanting to lose weight. It may be for health, wanting to be able to run around with the kids, or even after seeing that picture! These reasons will be your anchor, they will pull you back on track should you start to falter.
Nest, write down you goals. Goals should be SMART...Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timed. A goal may look like this. I will lose ten pounds over the next six weeks.  I will achieve this by losing one to two pounds each week.  I know will know I am on target by weighing myself every Monday morning. When you reach your goal give yourself a small non-food reward.
Finally, write down any barriers both real or perceived that may stop you from reaching your goals. Now write down how you will overcome them.
You are now almost ready to start your weight loss journey.

Biggest Loser

Caught a bit of the Biggest Loser on TV last night.  What a lot of effort, sweat and concentration the contestants put in.  One woman managed to lose three pounds, not a lot I hear you say for all that effort.  Sometimes weight loss plateaus for a while and then starts again.  It is normally at this point that diets are abandoned because, 'they are not working'. But back to the Biggest Loser...with the amount of exercise these guys are doing you would expect to see a decent weight loss. The un-doing of all that work could be the diet and I don't mean restrictive regimes but the food normally eaten. I didn't see any nutritional planning tips, I may have missed them! I suppose that does not make good telly.
With a combination of sensible eating and an increase in activity you should be able to see a modest weekly weight reduction of between one to two pound. One pound of fat equates to 3500 calories, that's a deficit of 500 calories a day, or less when increasing activity/exercise. Look to have smaller portions of fatty foods and increase the amount of vegetables on your plate.  If portion control is difficult at first just use a smaller plate.  This will automatically deliver a smaller portion.
Until the next time!

Welcome

Hi and welcome to my first post. I will use this forum to share my views on all things surrounding health, fitness and weight loss.  Please feel free to comment and say what you feel but keep it in the realms of sanity and decency.  If you have a spare moment you might like to view my web site, http://www.nutrivive.co.uk/
See you soon.