Losing Weight: Five Things that "Count"

1. COUNTenance. It is extremely important to keep a positive attitude when trying to transition to a healthier lifestyle. Try to make exercising and eating healthy pleasurable experiences. Change up fitness routine to keep boredom from setting in. Do the same with meal plans. Also, learn to create healthy versions of your favorite meals. For example, the classic burger and fries can be converted by opting for ground turkey over ground beef and baking fries as opposed to frying them.

2. AcCOUNTing. Don't forget to count. Many times, we are mistaken in believing that we can keep track of grams of fat, calories, carbs, etc, in our heads. This is not a good idea. We tend to forget nutritional values and serving sizes. Keeping a food diary is a great way of tracking calories. Also, a kind of fun way (for me anyway) is a calorie bank. It works just like a financial bank. Start each day with a deposit of your maximum caloric intake. Deposit calories for exercise and deduct calories for everything you eat. At the end of the day if you still have calories in the bank, roll them over to the next day. If you are negative, take calories from the next day, or do extra exercises to add more calories to the bank.

3. AcCOUNTability. Be realistic about your limits, but don't sell yourself short. And just in case, your will wavers at times, tell someone else about your goals. Talk to someone who will hold you accountable for the goals that you have set for yourself, someone who will push you to your limits.

4. ReCOUNTability. Being able to recount the days fitness and nutritional activities. This step will go hand in had with number two, because try as we might, there will be times when we are just unable to write down every single fitness/nutritional event at the time we are doing it. For this matter, at the end of the day, should be able to recount the days events, taking down those things that you were unable to record earlier.

5. COUNTeraction. We have to be able to fight the opponents of weight loss. One such opponent is craving. When changing your lifestyle, your body will crave the foods that once satisfied it. Counteract cravings by making sure you're eating enough and keeping low-calorie food near that you actually like. Another is family gatherings. For instance, my family loves to have these big Sunday dinners with lots of oil and fried food. If you are in a similar boat, ask that your family respect your battle by at least offering lower calorie food. If all else fails, tell them that you will only be attending every other gathering, or one each month. Remember you're in this to win this.

These are five things to get you going. There is a lot more involved. Just take it one day at a time. Good luck!