Here you are, you have binged all weekend on delicious foods and now you want to lose weight. You know that with the holiday season rapidly closing in, you had best be working on your diet soon. Or once again you will be needing new and larger clothes come the first of the year.

Of course it would be better if those new clothes you will have to purchase were of a smaller size instead, right?

But now the question is – do you know how to successfully lose weight and then to keep it off?

If you are like 95% of other dieters, you do not know how to successfully lose weight. You are also likely to not only regain your lost weight – you will probably gain back more than you lost!

IT DOESN”T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!

How to Lose Weight

First off, what you need to know is that in order to lose weight, you have to do the exact opposite of what you did to gain it in the first place. There is no way around it, your nutritional lifestyle is going to have to change. You can no longer live the life you have been living that made you overweight or obese. This is going to require an all in commitment to yourself, you cannot go into this only half way. Successful weight loss does not work that way.

Unlike David’s Way to Health and Fitness where all of our advice and articles are free, there are numerous diet sites you can find that make huge promises. Yet, you are really nothing more than a perpetual income stream to most of them. They will promise that you can lose weight and still eat as you have before – but they know this will only lead to failure and struggles on your part. I am not going to sugar coat anything here, you must make a permanent change to your dietary habits, or you will remain overweight for the rest of your life in all likelihood.

If you do not like what I advise, maybe you should think about what you dislike worse – my straight forward advice or the thought of continued obesity. The choice is yours to make.

1. Make the decision to be all in on your weight loss. To lose weight and keep it off successfully, you have to be fully committed to yourself. If you are not 100% committed, you are doomed to fail at some point. When you do not commit for life, the first time you find yourself straying from healthy nutrition, the easier it is going to be to entirely  derail your progress. It would be better to remain at one weight than to continue with yoyo dieting as you might have in the past.
2. Stay away from all fad diets and gimmicks that promise quick and easy weight loss. Quick and easy weight loss is never permanent, and can be more harmful to your health than remaining too heavy. There are many products and weight loss scams available to you everywhere that you turn – but like all of them that you may have tried in the past, none of them work. Do not be gullible! You want to lose weight and to remain healthy!
3. Refrain from diets that tell you that you can still eat everything you want as long as you track it. There are a lot of commercially available weight loss plans that will tell you that you can eat anything that you desire so long as you track it. It is intellectually dishonest to tell you this. If you had no control over certain foods in the past, you cannot with any reason believe you will have control over them going forward. Of course, the foods we are talking about here are loaded with added sugars, simple carbs and unhealthy fats. Sugar and simple carbs are addictive in nature, just the same as alcohol. As with alcohol, some people can control their intake while others will binge every time they indulge. If you cannot eat only one cookie, or a small slice of cake without going on to a binge, or suffering cravings for more later on, you have to quit eating those foods! You may not like this advice, but I am not charging you a fee to worry about losing you as a reader or subscriber. My readers and followers are not a perpetual income stream for David’s Way to Health and Fitness.
4. Track your caloric intake. You are not a special snowflake who can’t lose weight – and you are not immune from the laws of thermodynamics. With the exception of a very small percentage of people with diagnosed health issues, if you cannot lose weight, it is because you consume too many calories. Begin weighing and measuring your foods for accurate tracking of your calories eaten. You cannot try to just estimate your servings simply because like everyone else, you are going to under estimate the calories you consume.
5. Know how many calories you need for your goal. In order to lose weight, you must know how many calories a day you require. You need to know how many calories per day you need to maintain your weight, and then to reduce that number by 500 in order to lose 1 pound of body fat per week. If you have figured your caloric needs, and are still not losing weight, you figured them too high and will need to adjust downward. Additionally, you will need to periodically reduce your total caloric needs because what it requires to lose weight at 250 pounds is going to eventually be what is required to maintain at a lower weight. This is why we plateau in weight loss. Your caloric needs change as you lose weight.
6. Eat only whole, and healthy foods. If you want to lose weight, you are going to have to give up your junk foods. You are going to need to ensure that you are eating enough macronutrients – protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. You will find that it can actually be difficult to eat all of your calories when only eating healthy foods.
7. Quit eating out unless you have no other choice. It is difficult to know how many calories you are consuming in restaurants. If you eat from fast food restaurants on a regular basis, you are eating too many calories to ever think of losing weight. You and I both know this to be true. Not only are you eating too many calories, you are also eating too many simple carbs and fats that make those foods highly palatable in order to keep you coming back for more. The food industry has food scientists that have done tons of research in how to get you hooked on their foods.
8. Quit having cheat meals. Cheat meals, lead to cheat days which lead to cheat weekends, until you are derailed entirely from your weight loss agenda. If you are going to keep dipping into the foods that got you overweight, don’t be mad at anyone but yourself when you fail at your weight loss journey. These are choices that you make.
9. Don’t get caught up believing that you can out exercise a bad diet. You might lose for a little bit, but not permanently. You cannot out exercise a bad diet unless you are an elite level athlete. If you are a little overweight, the odds are that you are not much of an athlete at all.
10. Eat a high protein breakfast. Eating a high protein breakfast could help reduce cravings and calorie intake throughout the day. I like to have eggs with my morning bowl of oatmeal.
11. Avoid sugary drinks and fruit juice. Empty calories from sugar aren’t useful to your body and can hinder weight loss. Fruit juices are really no healthier than most soda pops.
12. Drink water before meals. Drinking water before meals can reduce calorie intake and may be effective in weight management.
13. Choose weight-loss-friendly foods. Some foods are better for weight loss than others. Think low calorie, nutrient dense foods.
14. Eat soluble fiber. Studies show that soluble fibers may promote weight loss. Oatmeal is an excellent source of soluble fiber.
15. Drink coffee or tea. Caffeine consumption can boost your metabolism.
16. Base your diet on whole foods. They’re healthier, more filling, and much less likely to cause overeating than processed foods.
17. Eat slowly. Eating quickly can lead to weight gain over time, while eating slowly makes you feel more full and boosts weight-reducing hormones.
18. Get good quality sleep. Sleep is important for many reasons, and poor sleep is one of the biggest risk factors for weight gain.

Cheat Meals and Weight Loss

For more of David’s Way follow us on Facebook at Fit and Healthy Living with David’s Way.