Weight Loss and You, a Recipe for Diet Success: An In-Depth Guide

Everyone who has ever tried to lose weight, from 10 pounds to 100 pounds, knows that it's not easy. It's hard to force the numbers on the scale decrease, and even harder to keep it off in the long term. If it were easy, there wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar diet industry, and slim-fast would have gone off the market years ago. So, how can you make dieting work, and keep working? How can you get rid of the larger clothes in your closet and ensure that you won't ever have to buy more of them when you yo-yo back up? The answer is a two word phrase that may send you running for cover, but I ask you to wait, and read, and see how it's possible first. The answer is 'lifestyle change.'

This is not as hard as it sounds. It doesn't mean that you need to live on lettuce, cabbage, carrots, and vitamin pills. It does not mean that you can never again enjoy a large steak, baked potato drowning in butter, and an ice cream sundae for dessert, or whatever your indulgence of choice might be. And it certainly doesn't mean that you will be miserable for the rest of your life, with all the foods you love best becoming guilty pleasures. What it does mean is that you will need to sit down with yourself, figure out why you need to lose weight, how much it matters to you, and what you are willing to do to accomplish your dieting goal. While this may involve some tough decisions, it's much easier to do than it might seem right now.

The very first thing that you need to do is determine why you want to lose weight. While any reason that helps you get to your goal might seem like a good one, some reasons are more likely than others to help you to persevere and reach your goal weight, not to mention staying at a healthy weight after. Generally, the best reasons are personal ones. If you have weight-related health problems, or are worried about developing them, you have a good reason to lose. Other good reasons are wanting to live longer, look and feel better, or even being able to enjoy going out this summer. I will caution you on one matter, though: don't, please, decide to lose weight because someone else wants you to, unless that someone is a doctor and has medical science backing up his or her opinions. You should never decide to make a change in your life, especially one as dramatic as this might be, solely because someone else thinks you should. It's nice if your partner wants you to lose weight so that you can be happier and healthier, but unless you want it to, deep down, it will only drive a wedge between you and lead to problems down the road. However, if you truly want to lose weight, and keep it off, read on.

Now that you've figured out the why, it's time to work on the how, and the how much. Your goal weight should be somewhere in what is considered a healthy range for people of your height and build. If you aren't sure what that range is, you should ask your doctor. In fact, it's always a very good idea to discuss any dieting plans with your doctor; chances are he or she will approve, but the doctor can review it and make sure you're doing it in a healthy way. Then, once you figure out how many pounds you want to lose, you should figure out a timeline for the loss. Ideally, you should aim to lose no more than 2.5 pounds per week. After all, it took you time to put on the extra weight, and it will take time to get it back off. Keep in mind that if you have a lot of weight to lose, you may find yourself dropping weight quickly in the first few weeks, and slowing down as time goes on. This is normal, and it's not a bad idea to plan a few extra weeks at the end of your timeline so that you can taper down your weight loss. It will be easier to stop after losing two pounds in one week, then one pound, and then two weeks of a half-pound each than it will be to lose two pounds and then try to stop losing completely. You may also want to choose an end weight slightly higher than you think you will want, and adjust your end date as you go, based on how comfortable you are at that weight. Once you have your timeline all planned out, plan rewards for yourself as well. Choose things like a new pair of pants, a new video, going on a shopping trip, or other incentives that appeal to you, but do try to steer away from food-related rewards that might slow your progress.

While you're sitting and planning, it's a good idea to try to pinpoint why it is you're overweight in the first place. Sure, the easy answer is that you're overweight because you take in more calories than you burn. This does nothing to address the actual reason you take in those extra calories, though. Take a few days before you try to lose weight, and watch what you're eating. Without trying to change what you eat or how much, write down everything that goes into your mouth, be it food or drink, as well as what you were doing and how you were feeling at the time. After a good sample period, three to five days, perhaps, take some time to look over your notes. Look at what you're eating; is it mostly healthy food, or what a nutritionist would call junk? Do you fall into the trap of eating while you're doing something else, like watching TV or reading? Maybe you're prone to eating when you're upset or stressed. There's also a chance that it might be none of these, but rather that you're just used to getting extra-large portions of everything, and you've never realized it. Try to figure out what the real reason is for being overweight, and keep it in mind. This will help later on.

Before you begin your weight-loss journey, you are going to want some equipment. None of this is absolutely necessary, but it is very helpful and may make the difference between success and failure. The most important thing is a food scale, preferably digital, both for accuracy and readability. It doesn't have to be expensive; you can find perfectly good ones online for about twenty-five dollars. What it should have, though, is a tare function, so that you can zero out the weight of an empty plate or bowl and only have the food register. It's also a very good idea to have it able to switch between displaying weight in grams and ounces. (For reference, sixteen ounces is one pound, which is also four hundred fifty-four grams.) Being able to weigh food in either grams or ounces will save you much trouble in the long run. For example, two of my junk food favorites, potato chips and ice cream, are high in calories, and it's important to me to make sure I'm only eating one serving. But potato chip servings are measured in ounces (a weight measure), and ice cream is measured in cups (a volume measure) or grams (weight). Now, sure, everyone knows that half a cup is four ounces, but, unless you are measuring water, four ounces of volume is NOT four ounces of weight. A half cup of Edy's ice cream, for example, is sixty-five grams, which comes out to two point three ounces of weight. (The discrepancy between ounces of weight and ounces of volume is due to the difference in density between ice cream and water. Ice cream is less dense. Try floating a plastic container of it in water to prove this.)

Another important piece of weight-loss equipment is a reliable scale. The one I chose for myself is digital, and also includes a body-fat percentage calculator. The scale weighs to two-tenths of a pound, and measures up to one-tenth of a percent of body-fat. While I weigh myself daily, this is not recommended for everyone! Your weight can fluctuate by more than three pounds from one day to the next due to various factors, but primarily water retention. If you choose to weigh yourself every day, it's vital to remember this fact and not be discouraged if your weight varies from day to day and is occasionally higher than the day before.

Another thing that may well help you in your weight-loss endeavor is some sort of journal to track your weight and calorie intake. While you can use a pen and paper method, I prefer a computer program, specifically DietPower. The makers have taken care to give you a very comprehensive program which not only tracks weight, but also invites you to record everything you eat. It has in it a tremendous store of nutrition facts on many common foods, and allows you to either add a food yourself by putting in nutrition facts, or putting in a recipe, from which it will calculate the nutrition information for you. When you set up a diet with it, it will tell you how many calories to eat in a day based on its calculated metabolic rate for you, and it will then fine-tune it day by day based on the feedback it gets. This is a very sophisticated program, and is more valuable than following any specific diet because this program will allow you to eat anything you wish... but it will tell you in no uncertain terms just how good or bad it was for you!

So, now that you have a diet plan in mind, and the equipment you will need to begin, what do you do? The best place to start is to take a couple of days to monitor what you're eating. That's right; eat exactly the way you normally would, but be sure now to weigh it and see just how much you're eating. It may seem impossible right now, but a handful of chips or pretzels so often turns out to be three servings, and a 'small' bowl of ice cream may be at least twice what the nutrition label says. You may find after those few days that the only reason you are overweight is that you, like so many people, have only a vague idea of what 'one serving' really looks like. If this is the case, you may not need to change what you eat, just how much.

After those first couple of days, it's time to start working in earnest. Take the number of pounds you wish to lose per week, let's use two for example, and calculate how many calories you need to cut out of your daily diet. Since one pound is thirty-five hundred calories, to lose two pounds a week, you need to cut one thousand calories out of your daily allotment. Please note that this assumes you were maintaining your weight up until now. If you were putting weight on, you will need to cut more calories. You can try to lose as much per week as you like, but the more you restrict your calories, the harder it will be for you to keep with your diet, and the less likely you are of success. Generally, a good rule of thumb is to lose no more than two and a half pounds a week, and for women to eat at least twelve hundred calories a day (fifteen hundred for men.) It's important to remember that when you eat fewer calories in a day, each one counts that much more toward getting proper nutrition. This is where DietPower really comes in handy, because it will not only count your calories for you, but tell you how many you have left and how best to use them.

This is where so many crash diets come in. They'll tell you that the only real way to lose weight is to cut out carbohydrates, or to steer clear of all fat, or even to eat nothing but cabbage soup for months on end! The problem with all of these diets is that they're heavily restrictive. I don't know about you, but I like my rice and pasta, my olive oil and butter, and I'm certainly not about to turn into a gassy rabbit! The truth is, while some foods are undoubtedly better for you than others, the real key to success is to eat fewer calories than you burn and thereby force your metabolism to get rid of the fat it's storing up all over your body. Now, some people will say here that they've tried everything and no diet works. If you feel this is the case, you should really consult with your doctor, because there might be a medical reason keeping you from losing. While not extremely common, it is possible to have a hormonal condition that causes your body to be highly resistive to weight loss. Once that's been ruled out, then it's time to work on dieting and exercising, and stick with it.

While you are dieting, keep vigilant! If you have found that you tend to binge in certain emotional states, find a different way of coping. Take yourself away from food when you find yourself needing it. If you are one of the people who can empty an entire bag of chips or a quart of ice cream in front of the television or a favorite book, try taking one serving (measure it!) and don't go back for seconds. Do your best to try to eat small amounts all through the day rather than three big meals, and don't wait until you're ravenous, light-headed, or aching for food. Any of those states mean extreme hunger, and it's not only bad for your metabolism, it can cause you to overeat. It's okay to fall off the wagon every once in a while, provided that it's not too often and you get right back on the next day. If you give in to temptation one day, remember that you have to be so much more careful the next day. Whenever possible, try to temper your indulgences with exercise. It's amazing how much less tempting that slice of cake looks when you realize just how far you have to jog to burn it off, but if you make the effort and jog it off beforehand, then you've truly earned it; enjoy it! Do allow yourself small treats, but be sure to keep them small. If you're a soda or juice drinker, be sure to remember that liquids contain calories, too. This also goes for coffee; if it's got whipped cream, chocolate, caramel, or anything else of that nature, it isn't a beverage, it's a dessert.

After a month or two, you should be starting to see some real results. Keep in mind those rewards you promised yourself, and when you reach your individual milestones, make good on them! You should also be enjoying a feeling of increased well-being and, hopefully, a happier disposition. If you're miserable, it's time to re-evaluate your diet. If you're trying to lose a great deal of weight, I would encourage you to break up your total diet into several sessions, with breaks in between. Every forty or so pounds, pause in your weight-loss program for four to six weeks. Let your weight loss taper off in the first week or two, and spend the rest of the time trying to maintain your weight. This does several important things. First, it gives your body a chance to relax and recover; losing weight is hard for it, and the toll may show. This break lets your skin tighten up, lets your muscles get used to only carrying around the weight you're carrying now, and helps you stabilize. This doesn't mean that you should start eating considerably more all at once, but rather that you should try to get a feel for how much you should be eating now to keep yourself at your current weight. (DietPower will again come in handy since it lets you keep track of your diet and change it from losing to maintaining.)

When you get close to the end of your diet, it's time to take a good look at yourself and decide whether you're happy with your progress or not. You may decide that you still need to lose a bit more weight to be happy, or you might realize that your initial goal number is too low, and that you're better off a little heavier. These are highly personal decisions, and it might be something you want to discuss with your doctor, especially if part of why you were dieting is to avoid or aid health-related issues. Once you're satisfied with your weight, take four weeks to get used to maintaining your weight, again in part to let your skin tighten up, and then it's time to go through your closet. Get rid of the clothes that no longer fit, and keep them out of your house. What you do with them is up to you, but don't keep them! You will find it much harder to put those pounds back on if you find that you have no larger clothes to slip back into. Then, once that's done, go out and get yourself a new wardrobe to show off your slimmer self. You've earned it!