As I write this we are very early into a new year, 2007. Millions of people have made and broken New Year's resolutions, and no doubt a fair proportion of those non-resolute people have made a resolution about losing weight or going on a diet.
If you are serious about losing weight, then making a New Year's resolution is not the best way to get started. Such resolutions are usually made in fun, and have a close association with failure. A small percentage of people may make some progress with whatever it is they have resolved to do, but most do not. That is hardly surprising, as the resolutions are made at the peak of party time, and very possibly in a state of inebriation that has been building since late November and through the party season.
As with many of the common aims in the self improvement and health arenas, those who succeed in their dietary aims have not made a resolution, they have made a decision. Then, having made a decision, they set about implementing that decision in a determined way, using the best tools at their disposal.
What those best diet tools are will vary from person to person, but here are some of those most likely to lead to success:
1. Formulate a diet and exercise plan and stick to it. Discuss the plan with a nutritionist and, if you suspect or know of a health problem, with your doctor too. Make use of expert online help, especially from the official web sites such as the USDA's food pyramid site.
2. Use every method you can to reinforce your diet plan determination. Using visualization, meditation, mantras and other techniques can help with diet as well as many other problems. Over time, the new healthy weight you becomes a reality in your mind, even before you have achieved your target weight.
3. Take pleasure and satisfaction from ignoring or declining those fatty foods you know you do not need, and that will scupper your weight loss plan. As your diet begins to have an effect on the way you look and the way you feel, make the most of it; enjoy feeling good and looking good, and share your pleasure with others.
4. As far as you can, only associate yourself with positive people who have succeeded in achieving a good weight themselves, or who have never had to diet. Spending too much time with weight loss failures, who would like to see you fail too, is not good for your dietary ambitions. Success breeds success in diets too. Apart from those people in your personal life, read about other success stories, and strongly associate yourself, in your own mind, with those people.
5. Get as serious about exercise as you are about the diet itself. Formulate an exercise plan that you can ride in tandem with the diet plan, again using professional and medical input as you deem necessary. Additional exercise of the right type for you will assist you in losing weight, and make you feel better too.
There are, of course, endless permutations of diet plans aimed at helping you to lose weight, as well as all sorts of special formulae and diet foods which can be of dubious value. by all means, check through those, but your ultimate success will depend on you and your mental strength and attitude. The above few tips may help you along the route to diet success, leaving trailing behind you the New Year's revolution failure brigade.
If you are serious about losing weight, then making a New Year's resolution is not the best way to get started. Such resolutions are usually made in fun, and have a close association with failure. A small percentage of people may make some progress with whatever it is they have resolved to do, but most do not. That is hardly surprising, as the resolutions are made at the peak of party time, and very possibly in a state of inebriation that has been building since late November and through the party season.
As with many of the common aims in the self improvement and health arenas, those who succeed in their dietary aims have not made a resolution, they have made a decision. Then, having made a decision, they set about implementing that decision in a determined way, using the best tools at their disposal.
What those best diet tools are will vary from person to person, but here are some of those most likely to lead to success:
1. Formulate a diet and exercise plan and stick to it. Discuss the plan with a nutritionist and, if you suspect or know of a health problem, with your doctor too. Make use of expert online help, especially from the official web sites such as the USDA's food pyramid site.
2. Use every method you can to reinforce your diet plan determination. Using visualization, meditation, mantras and other techniques can help with diet as well as many other problems. Over time, the new healthy weight you becomes a reality in your mind, even before you have achieved your target weight.
3. Take pleasure and satisfaction from ignoring or declining those fatty foods you know you do not need, and that will scupper your weight loss plan. As your diet begins to have an effect on the way you look and the way you feel, make the most of it; enjoy feeling good and looking good, and share your pleasure with others.
4. As far as you can, only associate yourself with positive people who have succeeded in achieving a good weight themselves, or who have never had to diet. Spending too much time with weight loss failures, who would like to see you fail too, is not good for your dietary ambitions. Success breeds success in diets too. Apart from those people in your personal life, read about other success stories, and strongly associate yourself, in your own mind, with those people.
5. Get as serious about exercise as you are about the diet itself. Formulate an exercise plan that you can ride in tandem with the diet plan, again using professional and medical input as you deem necessary. Additional exercise of the right type for you will assist you in losing weight, and make you feel better too.
There are, of course, endless permutations of diet plans aimed at helping you to lose weight, as well as all sorts of special formulae and diet foods which can be of dubious value. by all means, check through those, but your ultimate success will depend on you and your mental strength and attitude. The above few tips may help you along the route to diet success, leaving trailing behind you the New Year's revolution failure brigade.