How to Get Started with Weight Loss and Food

Weight loss is the topic of the moment. However, while we want to lose a little weight, most people don’t know how to go about it.

What is the hardest part of losing weight? I used to think it was exercise, but choosing what foods to eat is even harder. Why? When you start to exercise, the body takes care of itself. The muscles are worked and they in turn start to grow and reshape themselves.

With food, it is a different story. We truly are what we eat. Making poor food choices can set us back with our fitness goals. It can be frustrating when you have to continually worry about what you are eating. Each bite can be distressing.

Well, we are about to do away with all that. If you don’t remember anything else, commit to memory that food is not the enemy. No food in and of itself is bad. As long as we practice portion control, we can eat almost anything in moderation. For most foods, there are substitutions to make it a healthier meal.

As long as we are familiar with the basics of food, we can go about choosing foods that will be healthier for us to eat. Let’s start with carbohydrates. The news would have us believe there are good carbs and bad carbs. In reality, there are carbs that are digested more efficiently by your body and those that are not. A combination of the two will help us throughout the day.

Simple carbohydrates are digested quickly. Things like candy bars and sugary snacks are used up quickly which is why we get bursts of energy after we eat these things but then we crash and burn an hour later. With complex carbohydrates, the body takes longer to break them down so their energy is released throughout the day to keep our blood sugar steady. These include fiber-rich foods, whole grains, bran, and other grains. The one exception is refined white flour products.

Protein is meats, fish, and legumes. Beans are a good substitute for eating animal protein. They are high in protein and low in fat and cholesterol. Instead of adding hamburger to your salsa dip, put some black beans and garbanzo beans with a little cilantro into the mix for a tangy taste. Protein fuels the muscles and other cellular functions in the body.

Last is fat. Not much to say about that. Fat tastes good. That’s why we like it so much. Unfortunately, it also fills those fat stores in our body. Did you know that there is no limit to the amount of fat that can fit into those cells? For that reason alone, we need to learn how food works so we can keep our weight under control.

Use the information here to help you choose foods that will help you to lose weight or maintain that weight loss.

How to Stay Motivated When it comes to Weight Loss

According to magazines, everyone stays with a workout program for the first month or so. It’s fun and the gym is full of stimulating energy. You can’t help but come and be a part of it. Slowly though, the momentum begins to slow and we see the inside of the gym or the track at the high school less often.

What can you do? We all have our off days. Work drives us crazy, the kids are screaming, and on top of that we burned dinner. Okay, so all of these things don’t happen at the same time, but they could. The last thing on your mind will be driving to the gym or throwing a tape in the VCR.

The problem with exercise is that when we miss one day it is easier to miss the second and the third day. Even when we enjoy it, other factors come into play. Family, work, stress, and things outside our control all can derail us at some time.

On the other side of the coin, we workout each day and watch what we eat. When we step on the scale after all that hard work and it hasn’t budged, that is not encouraging. It is a blow to the stomach and can send some people for the ice cream in the fridge to alleviate their heartbreak.

Stay motivated by remembering why you decided it was time to lose weight in the first place. Losing weight can be the difference between living a healthy life and being on medication for conditions that are a result of obesity. Knowing that you may not be alive to see your kids grow up or grow old with your spouse is a major motivation.

It is not the one cupcake or the one time you eat too much pizza. We all have times when we want to eat what we want as a way to kick back. It is falling back into bad habits that are the problem.

Another way to stay motivated is by changing your thinking. When you are stressed, exercise relieves stress. You don’t have to go to the gym. You can work in the garden. Ripping out weeds is a good workout and a way to beat the stress in your life. Imagine each weed is a problem you are gaining control over and pull baby pull.

I actually banned myself from using the scale. I stood on it to find out my starting weight, but then used my clothes as a guide for gauging how well I was doing with my program. This made a huge difference to my self-esteem and will to keep going.

Whatever matters most to you, remind yourself of that fact when you feel like giving up. Post it on the wall in big neon letters if you have to, just don’t throw away the progress you’ve made and remember Rome wasn’t built in a day and you’re weight won’t all come off that fast either.