How to Stay on a Diet to Lose or Maintain Weight

Five tricks for making your diet plan stick

By ANGELA HAUPT

A diet is only as good as your ability to stick to it. Research has found that most plans will help you lose weight, regardless of type—low-fat or low-carb, for example. What counts is whether you can stay on it long-term. And with restaurant meals, dinners with friends, and hot fudge sundaes to tempt you, adherence is an understandable challenge. Here are five tricks for making your diet stick:

1. Gather the troops. You need support, be it from a friend, a group like Overeaters Anonymous, or even an online community. Research suggests those who go it alone are most likely to fall off the wagon. That's why some diet plans have a formal support component—Weight Watchers connects dieters via weekly meetings, while Jenny Craig members are assigned counselors for advice and encouragement. If you're not comfortable talking about your weight face-to-face, log online. By signing up for the free program PeerTrainer, for example, dieters can interact and track each others' weight-loss progress, pose questions, and swap diet and exercise tips. "It's important to have people who will pick you up when times are tough and cheer you on when you have successes," says registered dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner, author ofThe Flexitarian Diet. Plus, she adds: "Healthy habits are contagious."

2. Hold yourself accountable. A couple chips here and a few cookie-nibbles there may seem harmless, but mindless munching adds up. Record everything you eat and drink in a food diary. Most of us don't realize exactly how much we consume, so making conscious notes will put each meal, snack, or splurge into perspective. In a 2008 American Journal of Preventative Medicine study, dieters who kept food diaries for five months lost nearly twice as much weight as their non-journaling peers. Journaling can reveal the problematic cues, triggers, and habits that could be sabotaging your weight-loss efforts. You might notice tendencies to overeat on deadline-heavy days, for example, or discover that your morning frozen coffee packs an extra 400 calories a day.

3. Keep motivation high. Give yourself ample cause to stay the course. Post encouraging notes on your mirror, keep listing why the diet is worth it, or buy a new pair of jeans in the size you're determined to reach.

4. Don't deprive yourself. Diets that eliminate entire food groups or forbid the occasional splurge are likely to fail, research suggests. If you don't indulge every once in a while, you're more likely to give in to cravings and binge. Remember: Moderation is key. It's OK to have a slice of birthday cake; compensate with extra time on the treadmill or by getting back on track the next day. One slipup doesn't mean your diet is doomed. "Don't throw in the towel if things don't go as planned," says Jackson Blatner, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. "Think of it as progress, not perfection."

5. Have many measures of success. "Don't just judge a diet by the pounds on the scale," says Jackson Blatner. "Monitor energy, sleep quality, mood, clothing, and self-esteem. On weeks when the scale  doesn't tell you what you want, you can focus on other motivating results to keep you going."

US News and World Report

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Drop Weight Faster

Drop Weight Faster

Incorporate these five activities into your downtime to increase energy, reduce soreness, and drop weight faster

By Jayme Moye

A Hotter Body No Sweat

As soon as you slip off your sneakers after a workout, your body starts repairing the "damage" you did to your muscles. In fact, it's actually this recovery process—not exercise itself—that makes you stronger and leaner, says Stacy Sims, PhD, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist at the Stanford School of Medicine's Prevention-Research Center in Palo Alto, California. "To speed your results, research shows that what you do when you're not exercising is nearly as important as the workout itself," she says. Get on the fast track with these minimum-effort moves. 

The Move: Log More Z's

The Benefits: We know, we know—if you could lose a pound every time you heard about the advantages of sleep, you'd never have to work out again. But if seven to nine hours of shut-eye still isn't a priority, here's some incentive:

Not only does deep sleep kick up production of tissue-repairing growth hormone, but studies show that lack of it is a weight-gain double whammy: It prompts your body to consume more calories and shuts down its ability to recognize a full stomach. When you're tired, your gut produces more ghrelin, a chemical that triggers sugar cravings. "It causes your body to seek quick energy from food to try to keep you awake," says neurologist Chris Winter, MD, medical director of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Meanwhile, fatigue suppresses leptin, a fat-cell hormone that tells your brain, "OK, stop eating now." For this reason, says Winter, "prioritizing sleep is probably the best thing you can do, recovery-wise, to meet your body-shaping goals." 

The Move: Get Going a Little

The Benefits: You may feel like rewarding yourself with some downtime, but doing a low-key activity the day after a big workout will prolong the muscle-sculpting perks of increased circulation. "Fresh blood flow brings fresh nutrients to your muscles and helps flush waste products like lactic acid," says Sims. What's more, staying active has also been proven to reduce post-exercise muscle soreness and suppress nervous-system activity that can result in poor sleep.

Take an easy yoga class or go on a walk with friends at a conversational pace. If you're sitting behind a desk all day, stroll around the office for about 10 minutes every couple of hours to get things moving. Then prepare for a different kind of reward: a less-painful gym session tomorrow. 

The Move: Upgrade Your Post-Workout Snack

The Benefits: Sports scientists have long advocated having a bite after exercising to help promote muscle repair. An even more compelling reason: less belly fat.  Exercise activates cortisol, a stress hormone that gives you that extra surge to push until the end of spin class, says Sims. But lingering in that state for too long can backfire; cortisol not only inhibits the muscle-repair process but also alters your metabolism so that your body stores more calories as fat (typically in the abdominal region) instead of burning them off. Luckily, chowing down on some protein within 30 minutes after your workout will prevent these deleterious effects, says Sims, who suggests eating a hard-boiled egg or substituting low-fat milk for the fruit juice in your smoothie. Even Starbucks fans are in luck: with a nonfat mocha latte, you'll get the cortisol antidote (protein) from the milk, plus a secret weapon—caffeine. One study found that, when ingested with carbs (the chocolate, in this case), caffeine increased muscles' energy production 66 percent more than carbs alone. 

The Move: Massage It Out

The Benefits: A post-workout Swedish massage isn't just an indulgence: Research shows that it boosts strength recovery by 60 percent. "Massage reduces inflammation in the tissue and increases blood flow to the area, which is what speeds up recovery," says Sims, who recommends letting muscles cool down completely for a few hours after exercise before having a light massage. You don't even need to see a therapist—DlY rubdowns provide the same benefits.

Set aside 10 minutes before bed on days when you exercise intensely, says Sims. For the best result, use long, smooth strokes over the muscles worked, and use a foam roller or massage balls on hard-to-reach spots. lf you find a knot, move slowly from the outside in, but keep the pressure light to make sure you don't agitate an already inflamed muscle. For acute soreness, apply a cold compress or ice pack for about 20 minutes to further decrease inflammation. 

The Move: Boost Your Water Intake

The Benefits: Dehydration substantially slows your metabolic rate—so even if you're killing it at the gym, you could be negating the calorie-burning advantages if you aren't drinking enough H20, says Shawn Talbott, PhD, a nutritional biochemist in Salt Lake City. And it's not just the eight-glasses-a-day (or 64 ounces) rule you've heard time and time again. Experts advise downing an additional 16 to 20 ounces of water for every hour you train. If swigging the recommended amount of water feels like a Herculean task in itself, remember that most standard bottles of water contain 16 ounces, so four of them (not eight) equal eight glasses. 

Full article on Fitbie

Plexus Slim

Plexus Slim

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WebMD Food and Fitness Planner

Your Plan Lets You:

• Create a plan just for you. Enter your weight loss goal and WebMD will calculate daily calorie recommendations for how to achieve it.
• Log your foods. Search for more than 30,000 foods and beverages, including all your favorite brand names, all of which you can log to a meal time. Or simply add your own food.
• Log your activity. Choose from hundreds of popular activities, or add your own to create custom workouts.
• Track your progress. See how your food choices and exercise routine work together to help you reach your goal.
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Read Our Story.

7 Key Steps to Losing Weight

You have to believe in yourself to hit your weight-loss goals. Get 7 key strategies to help you stay focused while you're losing weight.

Article By: Megan Gressor

When trying to lose weight, believing in your goals and having a positive attitude can be as important as improving your diet and being active. If you have a plan to keep yourself motivated while you're losing weight, you stand a better chance of succeeding."People struggling to lose weight often talk about their lack of willpower, as if willpower is something that you are either born with, or not," says Palma Posillico, former VP of training and development for Weight Watchers International. "Losing weight is all about 'wantpower' — about recognizing that you already have all the resources you need to get what you want."
These resources include knowing what you want, knowing how to get it and knowing how to keep yourself motivated along the way. Here are some strategies to help you discover all three and reach your weight-loss goals.
1. Plot out your goals
It helps to have an action plan to keep you on track. "Storyboarding" is a technique used by movie directors to sketch out a plotline, frame by frame, before they start filming. In a similar way, you can make a blueprint for success by breaking your goal down into parts. Say you've given yourself three months to lose 10 pounds. Make a chart of the timeline and build it up, week by week, with details of shopping strategies, exercise tips and so forth—anything that helps make your goal concrete and achievable.
2. Envision your success
Athletes mentally rehearse every step of their winning routine to make it feel attainable. In the same way, you can make your own goals as real as possible by visualizing yourself succeeding in particular scenarios, like making the right choices when dining out. Revisit these scenarios often, and think about how good you'll feel about achieving your goals.
3. Don't sabotage yourself
Many of us unconsciously sabotage ourselves with self-destructive thoughts such as "I'll never lose weight." Whenever you catch yourself thinking this way, try to substitute more constructive statements; for example, "I haven't lost as much weight as I would like, but I can change that. I'm going to start by setting aside time to exercise three times each week."
4. Be your own cheerleader
Some people believe it's modest to put themselves down. But you wouldn't call a friend "fat" or "ugly," would you? You deserve the same respect, so try becoming your own best friend. Celebrate your progress, and try not to obsess about setbacks.
One way to do this is to make a list of your accomplishments in every area of your life (personal, professional and physical). List the talents and skills that enabled you to achieve them, and look at this list often. Adds Posillico, "Begin a daily journal of everything you did 'right' today." You'll be surprised how quickly it adds up!
5. Avoid being a perfectionist
Try not to think in all-or-nothing terms — that you've blown your diet, for example, simply because you've overdone it at one meal. "We need to be kinder to ourselves, and learn to regard setbacks as learning opportunities," says Posillico.
6. Follow through with your goals
Believing you can achieve your weight-loss goals is important, but you have to act too, by changing your eating habits, increasing your physical activity and so on. You can't just think yourself slim, but you can think yourself into the right frame of mind to optimize your prospects.
7. Affirm your self-belief
Feel your confidence wavering? One way to reinforce your self-belief is with positive affirmations: simple, self-validating statements repeated as often as possible, preferably daily. Try coming up with one or two of your own, and remember to keep them positive. You can — and you will — succeed, as long as you believe you can do it!

www.weightwatchers.com 

How to Lose Weight Quickly and Safely

Many people have been facing the problem of losing weight, at some point of their life. You always want get rid of the body fat quickly and easily. Getting rid of weight in short term sounds fabulous, but the results doesn’t last longer. But remember that you should never follow fad diets. There are many other healthier options to lost weight fast.

A healthy diet and daily physical activity will help you shed some pounds off your body. But you need to remember that you should not starve yourself to death.

Usually, losing a considerable amount of pounds in a healthy way is always a long process. Here are some tips which will help you jumpstart your weight loss regime.

How to Lose Weight Fast:

If you want to lose one or two pounds in a week then you have to burn about 500 or more calories every day for a week. The best and the fastest way to get rid of weight are to exercise a lot and eat less.

For example, if you intake about 1000 or 1200 calories per day then you have to do exercise for about an hour each day. Doing this will enable you to lose 3 to 5 pounds in just one week. You should remember that, cutting down more calories a day will be dangerous and may lead to various health issues.

Cut down salt and starches as they tend to lose on more weight as they are mostly fluids, and do not contain fat. Reducing fluids and fluid retention, results in weight loss.

Diets that help in quick Weight Loss:

Eat a diet that contains fewer amounts of salts, added sugars, starches, and animal fat. Minimize the intake of dairy foods and meat that contain the above supplements.

If you are looking for instant weight loss, then include fresh fruits, egg whites, vegetables, lean meat, soy products, fish and dairy foods that contain less fat.

Here is a sample diet plan: 

• Eat fruits and vegetables to make your stomach full
• Drink 8 - 10 full glasses of water everyday  
• Take 5 - 6 small meals spread throughout the day
• Cut down tempting foods such as breads, rice, cereals, potatoes, pasta and fried foods
• Keep yourself busy, so that you don’t feel like eating when bored
• Avoid skipping meals
• Keep track of the meal you take or note down everything you eat by maintaining a food journal

Don’t let your emotions take a huge role in your diet plan. If you find a persistent pattern in your eating, then talk to your health counselor about it.

The best way to put your hunger pangs at bay is by consuming enough calories in your meal early in the day.  Follow a sensible diet plan and an exercise plan to suppress your appetite and boost your metabolism.

Exercises for fast Weight Loss:

If you want turn your quick weight loss plan into a long term success then spare one hour a day and do moderate exercise. Regular physical activity will keep you fit and slim.

Cardio and Strength training

Cardio exercises help you burn most of your calories. It is the ideal weight loss regime for cutting down a lot of pounds quickly. Do cardio followed by strength training for better results. To burn more fat, keep sweating for the full hour, i.e, during workout and warm up.

Increase your calorie burn and turbo charge your weight loss routine with exercise as soon as possible to prevent yourself any health issues.

You can maintain the intensity up during workout session is by doing interval training. High intensity bursts by doing exercise in a smooth pace, and repeating the same pattern during your workout.

Interval training helps you to work harder in less time and at a higher intensity level. This also helps you to burn calories a lot easier and faster without much effort.

By the end of the day, you have to reach your weight loss goal. You have to do it the right way to get long lasting weight loss results.

Health Tips to Keep You Fit & Healthy