11 Tips For Losing Weight With Awesome Success

Losing weight in a sustained and healthy way isn’t hard! It’s a matter of rediscovering how to listen to what your body wants and treating it with respect. Here are 11 tips for losing weight and keeping it off for good.

1. Don’t crash diet. Slow and steady wins the race. If you put sustainable habits into practice you’ll maintain your slimmer figure for good rather than damaging your body through yo-yo dieting. Diets are temporary. Instead think about changing your lifestyle to accommodate the new, slim you that you’re moving towards.

2. Eat a variety of different foods so you don’t get bored, and in fact don’t deny yourself any food -- it’ll just make you crave that food and can lead to a binge. Just eat it in small portions.

3. Cut down on sodas and replace with carbonated water with a slice of lemon. Eat fruit rather than drinking fruit juice (whole fruit fills you up more and contains less sugar). And drink plenty of water to quench your thirst and flush out toxins.

4. Eating (and drinking) less fat will help you to lose weight, guaranteed. Switch to skimmed milk (it won’t take long to get used to) and use spray-on cooking oil rather than oil from bottle. Avoid trans fats altogether.

5. Cut down on sugar. The more refined it is, the worse it is, so the sugar in fruit is fine (in moderation) but the sugar in cakes, chocolate and even baked beans should be avoided.

6. Also reduce your refined carbohydrates, particularly white flour, which has no nutritional value. That means cutting down on cakes, biscuits/cookies, refined pasta and, of course, white bread -- go wholegrain instead.

7. Cut out processed foods as much as possible -- they tend to contain a lot of sugar, carbs and salt. And get rid of fast foods too. You know they have a low nutritional value, and they contain a lot of trans fats and other nasties. If you do have a fast food craving, just eat a little of that food until your stomach feels satisfied and ditch the rest.

8. Eat fibre-rich foods. Dietary fibre fills you up, is low in calories, and is great for digestion (preventing constipation). Fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and pulses are all good sources of fibre.

9. One of the key tips for losing weight is to only eat when you’re physically hungry. Too often we overeat for all sorts of other reasons. And eat slowly -- this gives your brain time to catch up to the fact that you’re satisfied before you overeat.

10. Try to eat healthily and in moderation most of the time but allow for the fact that you will slip up occasionally! When you’ve overeaten, don’t beat yourself up. Take a step back and ask yourself why it happened so that you can catch yourself next time. Don’t let it be a reason to give up your mindful way of eating altogether -- just carry on with better habits the next day.

11. One of the tips for losing weight that people balk at is exercise. But if you’re serious about losing weight, you really should incorporate at least a little into your daily routine. Begin gradually -- just a 10 minute walk once a day is a good start. Then, after a month or so you can build up to a longer walk and maybe try a bit of running. Find exercise you enjoy, so you’ll stick to it. Muscle burns more energy than fat, even at rest, so you’ll be using up more calories when your muscle mass increases.

Remember, you’re in this for the long term! If you can make some small changes in your lifestyle you’ll reap the benefits forever.