The key to successful - healthy weight loss

In our eat-and-run, massive-portion-sized culture, maintaining a healthy weight can be tough—and losing weight, even tougher. If you've tried and failed to lose weight fast before, you may believe that diets don’t work for you. You’re probably right: traditional diets don’t work—at least not in the long term. However, there are plenty of small but powerful ways to avoid common dieting pitfalls, achieve lasting weight loss success, and develop a healthier relationship with food. 

The key to successful, healthy weight loss 

Your weight is a balancing act, but the equation is simple: If you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight. And if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you help me lose weight. All too often, we make weight loss much more difficult than it needs to be with extreme diets that leave us cranky and starving, unhealthy lifestyle choices that undermine our dieting efforts, and emotional eating habits that stop us before we get started. But there’s a better way! You can lose weight without feeling miserable. By making smart choices every day, you can develop new eating habits and preferences that will leave you feeling satisfied—and winning the battle of the bulge.

Not all body fat is the same 

Where you carry your fat matters. The health risks are greater if you tend to carry your weight around your abdomen, as opposed to your hips and thighs. A lot of belly fat is stored deep below the skin surrounding the abdominal organs and liver, and is closely linked to insulin resistance and diabetes. 

Think lifestyle change, not short-term diet. Permanent weight loss is not something that a “quick-fix” diet can achieve. Instead, think about weight loss as a permanent lifestyle change—a commitment to your health for life. Various popular diets can help jump start your weight loss, but permanent changes in your lifestyle and food choices are what will work in the long run.

Find a cheering section. Social support means a lot. Programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers use group support to impact weight loss and lifelong healthy eating. Seek out support—whether in the form of family, friends, or a support group—so that you can get the encouragement you need. 

Slow and steady wins the race. Aim to lose one to two pounds a week to ensure healthy weight loss. Losing weight too fast can take a toll on your mind and body, making you feel sluggish, drained, and sick. When you drop a lot of weight quickly, you’re actually losing mostly water and muscle, rather than fat. 

Set goals to keep you motivated. Short-term goals, like wanting to fit into a bikini for the summer, usually don’t work as well as wanting to feel more confident or become healthier for your children’s sakes. When frustration and temptation strike, concentrate on the many benefits you will reap from being healthier and leaner. 

Reducing calorie intake promotes weight loss—the type of diet isn’t important Yoga can be one of the most effective ways to lose weight and tone the body…or it can be one of the least. It all depends on which style you choose. 

Of course, some of the yogis among us might react negatively to yoga being promoted as a way to do something as supposedly mundane as torch calories and drop a few pounds. I've heard this more than a few times: Yoga is not about the superficial body. Of course, I beg to differ. I would say that no, yoga is not only about the physical, yet we walk around in this body and we have the responsibility to take care of it. If we really believe that yoga, a practice of coming into alignment with our best selves ever, works holistically on every level, then a focus on transforming the body can’t help but shift us in other aspects too.