1.Make the commitment to be your best, most healthy self and write down your goal.
It always helps me to have a goal in mind when I am working towards success. In my political life, the goal is to win the election. In my business life, the goal is to have impact – either change an attitude or behavior. To achieve these goals and be successful, I would always start by writing a campaign plan or a business plan. I would identify the key steps and milestones to track progress and away I would go.
In getting control over your weight, you should follow the same steps as I did:
First, make a commitment that getting control over your weight is a top priority. You have to own it.
Second, establish a weight goal and write it down. Getting to this certain weight will allow you to stay focused.
Third, create a weight control plan for yourself. You need to strategically combine nutrition and fitness to achieve your goal. You want to eat the right types of foods that will allow your body to burn fat rather than store it.
Fourth, you should measure your progress weekly to see how close or far away to your goal. Mid-course corrections are expected and will happen. Optimize as you go to achieve maximum success.
2. Share your goal with someone close to you. Studies show that we are more accountable when we have a friend cheering you on.
Goals should be shared. As many of you know, I work with Facebook. One of the amazing lessons that I have learned by working with them is the power of the social network to inspire, motivate and reward people who share their goals. Sharing your goals makes it more real. You can’t keep re-starting once you share!
Sharing your goals with your friends and family will also make you accountable to them. One of the many surprises over my own weight loss has been just how much support I received along the way. Every pound, every inch my friends and colleagues were with me. And when I had bad days (as we all do), they were the first to get me back in the saddle.
3. Get either a paper journal or use a great food diary app to chart your food and exercise.
I was catching-up with a friend. I was telling him about my great summer. Just a light update on family activities. At the end, he looked at me and said. “Sounds wonderful, so what are you not telling me? What did you leave out?” What a great question and one that stuck with me since he said it. Why do we always seem to leave things out when we are telling stories? Some parts are just not that interesting or maybe we would rather forget.
The same is true when you are trying to get control of your weight – it is not what you tell yourself you are eating – it is what you are leaving out.
The best way to get an understanding of what you are really eating is to keep a record through a journal on your iPhone or food diary app like MyFitnessPal. What you may find is that what you think you eat and what you actually eat are different.
Pay close attention to what you eat, when you eat and the portions of what you eat. From there, you should be able to identify some things you did not know about your eating and would like to change.
4. Clear the cupboards and fridge from all of your holiday treats and get rid of or give away food that might be challenging to have at hand so that it is much easier to grab something healthy.
I always knew that if the bad food was not in the house, I wouldn’t eat it. Eating has always been tricky for me. I didn’t always eat because I was hungry. Sometimes I ate because I was bored. Other times, I ate because when I saw it, I could taste it. The food was there in my fridge and it spoke to me “eat me…”
At home, it is absolutely essential that you thoroughly clean out your fridge and cupboards and get rid of any tempting food. If you leave the bad food in the kitchen, assume you will eat it. Maybe not right away, but eventually it will happen.
We don’t want you to be hungry. You need to have healthy choices for snacks. I love Fage Greek Yogurt as a snack with a high fiber cereal – this always keeps me going. I also like to snack on fresh vegetables or even have a small salad during the middle of the day.
