Keeping on Track

You will see from my early blogs that keeping on track was very difficult for me. Somehow, I have been able to maintain my "focus" this time for four months. My reward has been a loss of 40 pounds. I got to wondering why I was successful this time, and not in the past. I even asked my WW on-line friends what they attributed to their success. Here's what we came up with:

1. You have to change. You can't try to change, you have to change. You have to stop eating or drinking too much. I know that is certainly easier to say than do. I think if you can change for the first few weeks, you can do it. Take a good look at what you are eating, and change those foods that hinder your success. Listen sister, if you don't change, you ain't gonna lose the weight.

2. Find a program that works for you. Weight Watchers works for me. I could not succeed eating only protein for 2 weeks. Nor could I go without protein and eat mostly fruits and veggies. You need to find out what works for you. Maybe if I ate an pizza only diet I could succeed. Hmmmmm.

3. Track your food. This seems to be the consensus for success. To lose weight you need to take in less calories than you expend. The easiest way to know what you take in is to write it down. Write everything down!!! Dropped food still counts if you eat it. Writer it down!!!!

4. Be accountable to someone. WW has weekly meetings and weigh ins. This is the only time that I weigh myself. So, it is the only day that I can monitor my success or "failure". I look forward to that weigh in each week. If you are accountable to someone, you will think about that during the week and put down that bon bon (does anyone really eat bon bons).

5. Don't try to lose it all at once (or, Manage expectations). Many people try to lose as much weight as they can, as quick as they can. Your change needs to be a change of lifestyle, not a quick fix. With these quick fix diets, you will lose weight, but it probably isn't a diet (eating plan) that you can live with the rest of your life. Guess what happens when you lose weight fast and then go back to the way you were eating.....you get fatter.

6. Get your spouse/significant other on the plan. If you can get your spouse or significant other on the same plan you are on, you will have greater success. I hear many stories each week about how a spouse brings food into the house that is a "trigger food" for the one monitoring their intake. It sabotages your hard work. So, tell that lazy SOB he is not only lazy, but he's fat and he needs to get on the same program as you! (unfortunately, this won't work, your spouse has to *want* to do it).