The 4 easy steps to losing weight

September 30th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

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how to lose weight easily A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled ‘How to love the foods you hate’ this week I have a more challenging post for you. It is more challenging in that it is easy to avoid foods you hate but, just now, harder to avoid the foods you love. I will show you a way to do this and how to cut down on the foods that your body doesn’t like; it’s easy when you know how. I was originally going to entitle the post as ‘how to hate the foods you love’ but changed it after doing some more research.

A mental game

You guessed it, it’s mostly psychological, however, it’s the way you set your mind up that we are going to challenge here. I am not going to tell you the foods to cut down on, as you will know which ones your body should cut down on.

Listening to your body

My body has told me that I should cut down on biscuits, especially cookies, as I feel bloated and tired after eating them. My body has also told me to stop eating as much pasta as I feel really tired and heavy after eating it. Pasta is my staple diet so it was a tough one to think about cutting right down on pasta. Chips (French fries) are also another favourite food of mine. My body feels okay after eating chips but I know eating too much will cause weight gain.

Learning to listen to your body when you are eating is essential to setting your mind up for cutting down on the foods you love.

Will power vs habit forming

This guide is not a diet plan and it is not about cutting out foods you like. Although the title suggests hating the foods you love, it’s about hating eating too much of the foods you love.

You might have tried cutting down in the past and lost some weight only to put it back on again a few months later and going back to eating too much. You might have thought you don’t have the will power to stop eating as much of the foods you love. Let me tell you just now, it’s nothing to do with will power; it’s about forming a new habit and reprogramming your mind to listen to your body.

Your mind

Let me ask you this question:

When you look at your body in the mirror what do you think?

Do you say to yourself you’d like to lose more weight? You’d like to get rid of your beer belly? You’d like to get rid of that big bum of yours?

Guess what! You’re focusing on the very thing you want to get rid of. Yep, the good old law of attraction is at work here. You get what you focus on. If you focus on your big bum, your beer belly, your 3 chins your unconscious mind sets you up to keep them; you always get you focus most upon. Now, if you focus on your slim, fit and trim body you mind will work toward ways of getting you there.

You might think this is absolute poppycock (I never thought I would use that word in my writing!), believe me it’s true. I know from personal experience.

The 4 easy steps to losing weight

This is the easy part of it and one you will enjoy.

Step 1 – Write down your goal

Write down what you want from your body.

Be as specific as possible and write it in the present tense. Some examples:

I am now 9 stone (126 pounds)
I now fit into all my size 34 trousers

Step 2 – Visualisation

Every day, imagine yourself as your target size. Imagine yourself in different situations wearing the clothes you want, imagine everyone commenting on how slim you look, imagine yourself weighing yourself and seeing your target weight, imagine your friends asking how you did it. I always use visualisation techniques when I am doing something that does not require me to think for example standing in a shop queue, waiting for traffic lights to change, waiting in a traffic jam, waiting at the doctors or a hospital. Anything that requires you to wait on somebody else or something else use visualisation to imagine yourself at your target size. It has been scientifically shown that visualisation can greatly enhance your efforts when trying to lose weight.

Step 3 – Listen to your body

The problem with diets is that they advise you to stop eating the foods you love. Don’t stop eating the foods you love just eat less. If you follow the first two steps above every single day, your mind will automatically tell you not reach for the cookies, in fact after a few months you will not even feel like reaching for the cookies.

If you start listening to your body, by this I mean recognise which foods make you feel tired, recognise when you are full, recognise which foods make you feel more energetic. Recognise the after effects of food as some foods are sneaky for example, a McDonalds makes me say ‘ah! That was great’ and I feel I have filled up and have some energy but about 15 minutes later I get sluggish. I have recognised this and now have a McDonalds once every few months instead of once per week. I still like the taste but my body doesn’t crave it as much as it used to.

Step 4 – No need for the gym

You don’t need to go to the gym to help you lose weight you just need to do more exercise.

Exercise increases your metabolism, which in turn increases the speed at which you burn the calories to keep your body going. If you don’t do any form of exercise, your metabolic rate will decrease and it will be much harder to get yourself slim. You might have been told that diet alone can help, this is not true, as dieting without exercise will make you fatter, yes you read that correctly. When you diet without exercising your metabolic rate slows down as your body is trying to preserve what it has. To do this it has to work on the fat on your body but it will burn it at a much slower rate than normal which will make you feel tired and will not help you lose weight. The key to being slimmer is to increase your metabolic rate.

Here are five ways to increase your metabolic rate without going to the gym:

Walk for 15 minutes every morning
Skip for 5 minutes
Jump up and down for 5 minutes
Walk up and down your stairs for 10 minutes
Jog for 15 minutes every morning

This is not about burning more calories than you eat. This is about speeding up your metabolic rate, which in turn will help burn the fat.

Conclusion

It’s easy to lose weight; it’s just that you’ve been told in the past that it wasn’t easy. Half an hour per day to use visualisation techniques, listening to your body, and doing more non-gym exercise is all it takes to lose weight.

Going to the gym is great and is a great habit to form but you don’t have to go to the gym to exercise and if you do go it’s not about pain it’s about doing something physical to increase your metabolic rate.

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Comment by Tomaz on 1 October 2007:

I agree. Losing weight starts in the mind without any doubts or hesitations.

Once you DECIDE (yes, with caps! ) that you want to lose weight, running or going to the fitness is easy.

Comment by jen_chan, writer SureFireWealth.com on 2 October 2007:

I think Step # 3 is something a lot of people take for granted. Not all diets work in the same way for the same kind of people. In the same way that not all strategies give out the same results. Every individual is unique, no matter how similar he or she may be. Just because Betty achieved result A doesn’t mean that Veronica will achieve the same result.

Comment by Erich@LifeTrainingOnline on 3 October 2007:

Steven,

You hit the nail on the head with your comments about your mind and what you choose to focus on. Choosing to focus on what you don’t want is the recipe for insanity. Some define insanity as doing the same things over and over again but expecting different results.

Cheers!

Erich

Comment by Abhishek Saggar on 4 October 2007:

Above mentioned steps are good for motivating lazy bums. Best mantra is take One glass luke warm water+one tbs honey+ half tbs lemon juice empty stomach and then go for walk.
Guy if you want to add cherry as a toping then you can strech for 30 min yoga
Beleive me you will loose 10 pounds in 3-4 weeks.

Comment by Truthteller on 5 October 2007:

I’ve written a few articles about fitness and weight-loss, however the biggest obstacle for most people who are sincere in their efforts is….getting started!

My recommendation now is, to just get moving. Seize every opportunity to move. Take the stairs, walk whenever you can. Hide the remote so you have to get up to change channels, whatever it takes but just get moving. Stretch and walk around the house while the commercials are on (just not to the fridge).

The thought of exercising is dauting to some people so why not start small and who knows where it will lead. JUST START MOVING!

Eduardo

Comment by Marvin on 6 October 2007:

Hi Steven,

Thank you for sharing a wonderful article…. here is something interesting, link between sleep and weight loss and gain.

Leptin and ghrelin are the hormones that play a role in weight loss or weight gain. Leptin helps in controlling your appetite while ghrelin helps in stimulating your appetite.

When you don’t get enough sleep, it will be a disaster to your body. When you have lack of sleep, your body responds to it and produces more ghrelin hormone which is appetite inducing. Therefore, not only your sleep affects but your appetite will also be increased.

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Comment by Felix on 22 October 2007:

Very informative article. You have mentioned about the root cause and remedial measures to keep your body metabolism under control which in turn helps to maintain weight control.

Comment by Weight Loss Quick by AG on 29 January 2008:

Hello,

Many battles we face start and end with our mind’s determination and motivation. We must have a goal and keep it uppermost in our thoughts to achieve it. I think it would be helpful to add two thoughts to your blog post. The first one is to stay away from the television. Ads for food create real cravings and detract from your goal. Television watching is a passive activity which contributes to a slower metabolism. The other thought I have is one of meal distribution. One very important thing that has helped me is to separate the day’s calories into 4 meals and I never eat past 7:00PM. Hope these tips help.

AG
Weight Loss Articles

Comment by Kirsty Allen on 12 June 2008:

Very helpful blog post, thanks. Visualisation is very important. I also find that getting into the habit of exercise helps. After a while when you see the results and feel better it becomes easier! Also not having snacks in the house has been a help for me.
Kirsty

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Comment by bootleg movie download on 28 July 2008:

Tips like these really do make a difference, thanks for sharing.

Comment by healthy food on 9 February 2009:

it is really very interesting blog and you way of presenting the things also awesome……….
i am very impressed i read your previous blog it is also good. the 4 easy steps to losing weight are so simple but normally nobody think about it. you are right that it is mind game. psychology has play main roll on this. nice blog keep it up………..

Comment by Travis on 11 February 2009:

Interesting post - we know that exercise and diet and good for people, but the real trouble is getting people to stick with it. In that respect, I think these tips can be very helpful.

One thing I will point out though; a focus on weight almost never helps anyone in the long term. When people exercise they reduce fat, but often gain muscle, resulting in little change in body weight, despite marked health improvements. This often results in disappointment and eventually quitting the exercise altogether because they think it is not working. The other problem of focusing on weight is that to lose weight quickly, you almost always have to adopt behaviors (e.g. exercise or diets that are just too extreme) which you are unable to maintain over the longterm, making weight regain almost certain. But, if people make positive changes to their lifestyle (like incorporating physical activity into their day as you suggest) without focusing on body weight, they are likely to lose more weight over the long term, and be much more likely to keep that weight off.

Comment by Rapid weight loss on 21 March 2009:

Interesting post, you stated in your article - “Chips (French fries) are also another favourite food of mine. My body feels okay after eating chips but I know eating too much will cause weight gain.” Do try using low fat oil or grill your chips in an oven.

By following your 4 easy steps to losing weight, I have experienced a lot of positive changes since I began shedding some pounds off, both physical appearance and self-esteem.