How to Lose Weight in Small Steps

It's the little lifestyle changes you incorporate in your daily routine that help to shape up and keep off the excess weight. I have listed below a few which I use, painless and easy to follow.

• Make a public announcement about your goals. Anytime I have wanted to make something come to fruition I have made a point of telling people. It creates peer pressure and expectations which help to motivate and stay on track.
• Give your "fat clothes" to charity. Once you have lost weight there is no use holding on to the clothes which you won't wear again. As well, once you have thrown away those clothes, it will cost too much money to gain back your weight.
• Watch less T.V. Based on my experience there seems to be a correlation with many of my clients looking to lose weight and watching more than an hour of TV a night. I am not sure if it is the sedentary factor which means less calories being used, or if it is the constant attack of food ads especially in the evening which prompt snacking when not needed.
• Eat five meals per day. Eating many small meals increases metabolic rate and the energy cost of digestion.
• I drink a big glass of water before I start my meal however I don't drink water during my meal since I believe the rumour to be true that it slows down digestion.
• Eat breakfast. The body's fuel stores are empty after 6-9 hours of sleep. Skipping breakfast encourages overeating at lunch and possibly diner and it also slows down your metabolism because it goes into starvation mode.
• Choose fruit instead of fruit juice. Fruit juice is high in concentrated calories, while fruit is higher in fibre and staves off hunger longer.



• Leave the cheese off your cheeseburger. BBQ season is here and so are the cheeseburgers. Cheese adds 100 calories or more to your meal.
• Do errands by bike or on foot. If it is not winter and there is no snow storm, walking and biking can be pleasant options. You may not be able to buy as much food but you will have increased your fitness quota for the day.
• Buy a pedometer. Accurate pedometers record the number of steps you take each day. Try to increase your steps by 1000 a day for a week and work up from there.
• Run with an exercise GPS. If you are a runner chances are you have a heart rate monitor but you may not have one with a GPS. They are more expensive than the regular ones but they are very accurate and are great motivators for increasing walking or running distance and speed. You can link the GPS unit to Google Earth and you can track your walk or run from space - how cool is that?

By themselves, none of the above mentioned steps will give you the body you may desire. However, combining even a few of these techniques will give you some tools to help lose weight, help reach your goal and help keep the weight off.