Day 6 Weight Loss Habits: Protect Your Weight Loss Program

No one will ever care as much about your diet plan as you. So it's your job to prevent people or events from pulling you off the track. Instead of depending on others to help you be successful with your diet, make a commitment that you will protect your program at all cost!

Watch for ways to recognize and avoid situations that might cause you to weaken. Rather than assume you'll be able to resist your mom's apple pie or the potluck casseroles at work, don't put yourself in the situation where you'll have to test your willpower.

Not Just Yet, I am On "Diet" and I happy with it

Here's a great way to protect yourself when you're around other people. Anytime you feel pressured to eat something, you can sidestep the food pusher by hinting that you'll eat it later. Whenever someone offers you food, respond by saying, "Not Just Yet; I'm going to wait a little time"

If you're asked again, simply repeat this phrase or another variation of it such as, "Thanks, but I'll still wait a little bit." Saying "not just yet" gives you a gracious way to handle being pushed to eat when you don't want to. Because this magic phrase convinces people you''ll eat eventually, they'll leave you alone for the moment.

When you're invited to take seconds or eat dessert, make it sounds as if you'll have some later, then quietly slip away from the table. Anytime someone encourages you to eat, such as at baby showers, birthday parties, or other social gatherings, you can use the "not just yet" line again and again. Even if you skip food during the entire event, you'll find that most people never notice you didn't eat.

Don't discuss your "diet"

Often it's best to avoid getting caught up in conversations about dieting and weight loss. When people ask how you're losing weight, simply tell them you're following a healthy eating program. You can even respond to their questions by saying "My weight loss counselor recommends that we don't discuss the program because talking about food makes us want to eat"

Finally protect your weight loss program during long, empty times such as evenings or weekends when it's easy to start looking for food. Stay occupied by planning activities or pulling out some good books. When you're tempted to give in and eat, recite the words, "I must protect my diet program at all costs!"

• Watch for chances to respond to food invitations by using the line, "Not just yet; I'm going to wait a little while"
• Identify at least three high risk times or events such as family gatherings or quiet weekends. In your notebook, write down how you'll protect your diet program during each of these.
• Do at least one thing today that reinforces your determination to protect your program at all costs.

Day 5 Weight Loss Habits: Write A Magic Notebook

Every night before you go to sleep, pulled out a notebook and recorded her thoughts from the day. When you looked back over your progress during the past year, you would concluded "When I journal, I stay on track. It helps me catch the times when I'm slipping into emotional eating or getting discouraged with my efforts. The I can make changes and correct those issues right a way"

Get A Weight Loss "Magic" Notebook

For many people, recording personal thoughts or actions each day provides valuable insight. It also serves as an outlet for emotions and struggles around weight loss efforts. If you enjoy writing, experiment with tracking your thoughts and ideas about food and eating. Feel free to write as little as one sentence or as much as several pages. 

On the other hand, if you don't find it helpful to write things down, don't force yourself to do this. But do keep a notebook handy as quick tool for jotting down ideas about managing your eating patterns.

Weight Loss Tips: Eat It Another Time

Just because you think about a food doesn't mean you have to eat it. Whenever you got a craving for a specific food such as cheesecake, you just write it in your notebook Then you will say "By writing it down, You take it out of your head. You tell yourself that you don't have to think about it anymore because it's recorded and you can always return to it later"

When a food thought crosses your mind, remind yourself that you don't have to act on it. Instead, write down the name or even a description of the food and then anticipate the pleasure of eating it sometime in the future.

Practice the skill of observing food cues, then letting them go. When you walk into a movie theater, notice the smell of popcorn, and then forget about it. If it helps, record these cues in your weight loss "magic" notebook. Tell yoursefl, "Thath popcorn smells good, but I'm not going to eat any right now. I'll simply postpone it until another day"

Your Today "To Do" Weight Loss list

• Whenever you think about a particular food you want, write it down in your notebook
• Plan that you'll eat it at another time. If you wish, add the amount you'll have and how often you'll fit it into your program
• Stretch the times further apart for eating this food. You may discover that after a while, certain foods don't seem as important to you as they once did.

Day 4 Weight Loss Habits: Boundaries, Not Diets

Wrong Approach in Diet

You've probably heard people say that diet plans to lose weight are bad for you and that you should "never diet again!". The problem is not usually with diets themselves, but with the rigid, perfectionist diet meal plans we use them.

If you're like most people, when you're on a diet, you try hard to follow it perfectly. Each day you strive to take in the exact number of calories, fat grams, or carbohydrates allowed by the diet plan.

But if you slip up and eat a delicious (but forbidden) food to lose weight fast, you figure you've blown it so you might as well eat more and more.

Soon you throw the entire diet meal plans out the window. This all or nothing approach never works because when you are off your diet, you cancel out the progress you made while you were on it.

Day 3 Weight Loss Habits: Do It Anyway !

On day 2, you've made commitment to lose weight, that's great ! Now what's next? Does this sound familiar to you: "I don't feel like exercising today!" ? Do you push yourself and exercise in spite of not feeling like it? Or do you give in and hang out on the coach because you don't feel like making the weight loss effort?

Right now, you may be solidly committed to your goals. But what happens when you don't feel like cooking healthy meals or following your diet plan? If you aren't careful, you can easily slide back from being committed to being just interested to lose weight.

Committed To Lose Weight Means Do It Anyway !

You don't usually wait until you feel like going to work. You just go. The same thing is true for visiting your mother or changing dirty diapers.

Because you consider these things to be important, you do them regardless of how you feel at the moment.

In the same way, you don't have to feel like working on your weight loss plan to stick with your program. To improve your commitment, learn to focus on your actions, not just your feelings.

On days you're not in the mood for exercising or eating right, tell yourself to do it anyway.

Day 2 Weight Loss Habits: Interested or Committed To Lose Weight?

Jeanette was discouraged "Whenever I start a new diet, I'm so determined to stay on it until I reach my goal.

But after just a few weeks, something comes up _a party, someone's birthday - and next thing I know, I slip off my plan and give up" Do you feel totally determined to stick with your weight loss efforts, or do you entertain a few nagging thoughts about "having fun" instead of staying on your plan?

If you tend to start and stop every time you diet, you may want to look at the difference between being interested and being committed to lose fat.

Interested To Lose Weight Slips Away Quickly

With interested to lose weight, you tend to stay with your plans only until something better comes along. For example, you may decide that you're interested in losing weight , but when someone brings doughnuts to work, you quickly go off your diet. When you're just interested in dieting, you depend on seeing results to keep you on target. So as long as the scale keeps moving, you stay motivated. But if you hit a plateau or you don't see much progress for a few weeks, you may throw your program out the window.