I lost 20 lbs. last year, and you can too. How? I'll lay out a series of topics below that I'll cover in future posts, but there are a few overriding principles that you'll have to get your head around to make this happen:
- No "diets". A diet has a start date and an end date. You have to look at the structure of your overall life, and your nutrition in particular, in order to make lasting, meaningful changes.
- Take the long view. You didn't get to this point overnight, and you won't get out of it overnight either.
- Be realistic. Your initial plan will undoubtedly be overly optimistic in what you can achieve. Make your plan and then scale it back by 25% to make it achievable.
- Make time to exercise. Look at your daily calendar. It's likely filled with lots of meetings, appointments, and other scheduled events; treat exercise just like any other recurring event and put it down in your schedule ahead of time.
- Set goals that are defined, measurable (to assess progress), and have a date attached to them. The last is key to sharpening your focus -- it's been said that "goals are dreams with a deadline".
I lost the weight through diet (going back to basic dietary principles and re-assessing my nutrition from the ground up) and exercise (I got back into triathlon training after a six-year layoff and renewed my love of long-distance running). It's really quite simple, and you'll see that as a theme in the topics we'll cover in future posts:
How to re-assess your nutrition
Getting into endurance sports
How to run
How to recover from long workouts
Tips to make the long workouts more manageable
Hope you find this helpful; it's an ongoing process, but incredibly rewarding!
