In my post on Thursday, April 30, 2009, I was asked by a reader about the guidelines for food. Well, I guess, it is true everybody has their own way of eating/ living healthily.
I shall list myself as an example. Recently, I went from a UK size 12 to a size 8. How did I do it? Well, I would say pure motivation. Many people have really different ways of losing weight. I didn’t follow any specific guidelines because I believed that I would not follow them because I didn’t have the discipline to do so. Also, many diet/ exercise books are not tailored for each and everybody’s personal lifestyle. However, I did take some of the tips I read from the books and the net and used them to make small but significant changes to my lifestyle. Here are some of the things I did:
Exercise:
Well, this is expected isn’t it? Most good weight losing books tell us to exercise. What kind of exercises? There are many exercises that you can see all over the internet. The general consensus is that doing exercises that work your legs help you lose the most weight. Running, jogging, breeze walking and swimming are common exercise choices. I find personally that jogging to be a favourite. I have heard that swimming helps you work the most parts of your body because you work your arms and legs. But I after struggling in the pool for weeks beside my national swimmer friend, I decided it was not my thing.
When to exercise? You can exercise any time you want. The ideal is to work out in the morning. With your metabolism running in the morning, your heart beat will be faster for the rest of the day, therefore increasing your metabolism for the rest of the day. Some people also say that working out in the morning helps them feel refreshed. However, in my own experience, I feel that doing heavy exercising can make you tired. Perhaps the key, especially if you have work for that day, is to do light exercises.
For me, I had a trampoline at home and decided to start of with them. Ipod in hand, I jumped 15 mins and then went on to 20 mins.
Diet:
Diet, is another commonly known component in big plans to lose weight. You are, really what you eat. Most weight loss plans involve eating clean. Eating clean is basically avoiding fried foods, and the known ‘put on weight foods” Basically, the bottom line is, if you know its bad for you, leave it alone. It is often difficult to keep to diets especially if you have a busy lifestyle, or really bad discipline. The important thing is to have a good nutritional balance in your eating.
There are some that rely solely on dieting. Whether dieting alone helps you lose weight, I really do not know. All I can say is this, prior to making the changes to my lifestyle, I was, for four years 56 kg. (I am now currently 48 kg) My mother, a health nut, made sure our family ate healthily. We always had a vegetable dish, a fish or meat and an egg. We hardly ate pork or beef or any other red meat. Deep Frying was a big no no in my mother’s kitchen. We ate at home most of the time, because my mother considers outside food unhealthy and expensive. On top of this, we always had fruit before dinner. My father and I would often joke sarcastically that we were having rabbit food. We basically lived on rabbit food, but I was not losing weight.
So, eating healthy alone helps you lose weight? I’m not so sure.
Motivation:
The last secret to losing weight is: YOU HAVE TO WANT IT BAD. I once heard someone on tv say “ if you want it bad enough, life will open its doors to you’ The more you want to lose weight the more you will push yourself, the more changes you will make to your life. One of the things I did, though superficial and slightly materialistic, was to flip through magazines and look at celebrities and think , ‘Gosh, I really want to look like that. The truth is, under all this extra weight I’m carrying, I really actually do look like that.” Confidence is key, and knowing that at the end you can achieve weight loss is helpful to your weight loss program.
In the following posts, I intend to look into further details on losing weight, focusing on dieting and eating well. Even if you have no intention to lose weight do keep in mind that exercising and having a proper diet are essential to a healthy lifestyle. Watch this space!
I shall list myself as an example. Recently, I went from a UK size 12 to a size 8. How did I do it? Well, I would say pure motivation. Many people have really different ways of losing weight. I didn’t follow any specific guidelines because I believed that I would not follow them because I didn’t have the discipline to do so. Also, many diet/ exercise books are not tailored for each and everybody’s personal lifestyle. However, I did take some of the tips I read from the books and the net and used them to make small but significant changes to my lifestyle. Here are some of the things I did:
Exercise:
Well, this is expected isn’t it? Most good weight losing books tell us to exercise. What kind of exercises? There are many exercises that you can see all over the internet. The general consensus is that doing exercises that work your legs help you lose the most weight. Running, jogging, breeze walking and swimming are common exercise choices. I find personally that jogging to be a favourite. I have heard that swimming helps you work the most parts of your body because you work your arms and legs. But I after struggling in the pool for weeks beside my national swimmer friend, I decided it was not my thing.
When to exercise? You can exercise any time you want. The ideal is to work out in the morning. With your metabolism running in the morning, your heart beat will be faster for the rest of the day, therefore increasing your metabolism for the rest of the day. Some people also say that working out in the morning helps them feel refreshed. However, in my own experience, I feel that doing heavy exercising can make you tired. Perhaps the key, especially if you have work for that day, is to do light exercises.
For me, I had a trampoline at home and decided to start of with them. Ipod in hand, I jumped 15 mins and then went on to 20 mins.
Diet:
Diet, is another commonly known component in big plans to lose weight. You are, really what you eat. Most weight loss plans involve eating clean. Eating clean is basically avoiding fried foods, and the known ‘put on weight foods” Basically, the bottom line is, if you know its bad for you, leave it alone. It is often difficult to keep to diets especially if you have a busy lifestyle, or really bad discipline. The important thing is to have a good nutritional balance in your eating.
There are some that rely solely on dieting. Whether dieting alone helps you lose weight, I really do not know. All I can say is this, prior to making the changes to my lifestyle, I was, for four years 56 kg. (I am now currently 48 kg) My mother, a health nut, made sure our family ate healthily. We always had a vegetable dish, a fish or meat and an egg. We hardly ate pork or beef or any other red meat. Deep Frying was a big no no in my mother’s kitchen. We ate at home most of the time, because my mother considers outside food unhealthy and expensive. On top of this, we always had fruit before dinner. My father and I would often joke sarcastically that we were having rabbit food. We basically lived on rabbit food, but I was not losing weight.
So, eating healthy alone helps you lose weight? I’m not so sure.
Motivation:
The last secret to losing weight is: YOU HAVE TO WANT IT BAD. I once heard someone on tv say “ if you want it bad enough, life will open its doors to you’ The more you want to lose weight the more you will push yourself, the more changes you will make to your life. One of the things I did, though superficial and slightly materialistic, was to flip through magazines and look at celebrities and think , ‘Gosh, I really want to look like that. The truth is, under all this extra weight I’m carrying, I really actually do look like that.” Confidence is key, and knowing that at the end you can achieve weight loss is helpful to your weight loss program.
In the following posts, I intend to look into further details on losing weight, focusing on dieting and eating well. Even if you have no intention to lose weight do keep in mind that exercising and having a proper diet are essential to a healthy lifestyle. Watch this space!
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