Lose Weight Forever

I'm going to give you the biggest secret of all if you want to lose weight forever:

Eat less, move more.
There is no better way to lose weight than to follow this principle. Pages and pages and books and books of information have been written about losing weight, getting rid of fat and getting in shape, but what they all boil down to is consuming fewer calories than you burn off by exercise. The secret to this method of losing weight forever is to do it without starving yourself and suffering all the discomfort and mood swings that being constantly hungry will bring you.

The second secret to losing weight forever is to sustain your efforts over a long period of time. It is all too easy to lose weight fast, become excited that you have done so and then slip back into your old eating and exercise habits and gain the weight again. This is classic weight yo-yo that so many people suffer from and causes you to jump from fad diet to fad diet, hoping that this time it will keep the weight off. Nothing will make you yo-yo your weight and destroy your self esteem like this.

Discipline and goal setting are the most important factors here. You need short, medium and long term goals, and you need to have discipline to stick with the plan. It takes at least 6 months for new behavior to become "burned in" and be a habit. Until you reach the point where your new eating and exercise plan is habit, you have to remind yourself constantly to stick with it and not give up. This can be very difficult, especially when the novelty of your new weight loss program has worn off, and you are into your third and forth month. The other problem is that very often, losing the initial few pounds is much easier than the last few. Don't get despondent if you seem to be losing weight slower as you get further into your program. The key is to stick with it, look ahead to your goals and don't be afraid to look back and see how far you have come.

To keep yourself motivated, keep a scrapbook. Take a picture of yourself every week and paste them into your scrapbook so you can see how much weight you've managed to lose and how great you look compared to your old self. You can record your weight and mood in the scrapbook as well as an added incentive.

Remember, stay disciplined, eat less, move more and you will lose weight forever.

Tessa is a mother, housewife and works part time in a charity shop. If you want to lose weight forever, visit my weight loss web page!