Four Stages To Healthy Weight Loss – Stage 1 – Preparation
February 21, 2012 Categories: Healthy Diet
Article by Motley Health
Many people know what a healthy weight is, it is often to tell if someone is a healthy weight just by looking at them. One way that it used to determine if you are underweight or overweight, is to use the body mass index. A body mass index (BMI) of between 18.5 and 24.9 means that you are a healthy weight. As the BMI gets higher, this figure can become misleading, as BMI does not take into statement muscle. But for most people, keeping below 25 means that you are not overweight. Falling below 18 means that you are underweight.
So, what steps can we take to attain, and maintain, a healthy weight? At the most basic level, eating less, eating healthily and exercising is all that is required. However, as we all know, it is often hard to follow this advice for one reason or another. So, here are our tips to help you to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight.
Weight Loss Stage 1
As soon as you decide that you want to lose weight, you need to begin adopting some small but simple changes to your lifestyle. This is what we called Weight Loss Stage 1. This is really a preparation stage to losing weight, and there are 8 rules to follow in this stage.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 1: Never Skip Breakfast
The first mistake that many people make when they begin a new weight loss / diet plan, is to skip breakfast. However, this will hinder you in several ways. In fact, research has shown that people who take breakfast are usually slimmer. Eating a healthy breakfast helps to boost metabolism and also reduces the chances of mid-morning snacking. Many people are overweight as a result of snacks inbetween meals, not from intake massive meals.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 2: Find Someone to Exercise With
Many people are not motivated to exercise by themselves. Find someone that is also looking to lose weight, and organise exercise sessions with them, either at home or in a local gym. Alternatively join a fitness class or martial arts club, where you will find plenty of motivation, and make new friends too.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 3: Monitor and Improve Your Physical Activity
Firstly, what do you want to achieve from exercising? Just to lose weight / reduce fat? Build muscle? Improve sport? TO be healthy to cycle, run or swim again with family and friends? For most people reading this it is most likely to reduce fat and lose weight.
One average, to maintain a healthy weight, you need to do 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, five days a week. If your BMI is higher than 23, then you need to increase the intensity of the exercise that you do, or exercise for longer. Finding a fitness class that is one hour long, and attending that twice a week, in addition to the 30 minutes per day, is an excellent way to reach these levels.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 4: Throw Out All Your Junk Food!
This might be hard to do, but once done, it will mean that you only have healthy food in the house. Throw out, or give away, all your sugary and fatty junk food today! If you still have a tub of icebreaker, biscuits, cakes, pork pies or anything else high in saturated fat, refined sugars or processed meats, then get rid of it!
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 5: Eat 5 Portions of Fruit and Veg a Day
This has been the health department’s advice for a while now. Try to take 5 portions of fresh fruit and/or vegetables everyday. This is simple to accomplish. A glass of fruit smoothie, such as Innocent Smoothies, gives 2 portions of fruit, and a healthy meal should give 2 portions of vegetable, leaving you to find one fruit snack to make it up to five. If you are exercising intensively, a banana beforehand is an simple way to make it to five portions, and also wage you with an excellent source of energy.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 6: Join a Weight Loss and Fitness Community
Chatting to others that are also struggling with weight loss can be a positive thing. Knowing that there are others like you, struggling, makes it easier to plough on. Also, you can help others, by passing on your knowledge gained from your successes. Find a community, or join ours, and see what a difference it can make.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 7: Do Different Fitness Activities
Many people get bored of one activity, so rather than just run everyday, try different sports, martial arts, yoga, etc. Do not limit yourself to one thing. Different activities will wage a more all round fitness regime, plus you get to meet a larger group of people.
Healthy Weight Loss Rule 8: Learn To Cook and Prepare Healthy Meals
An essential part of maintaining a healthy weight, is to be healthy to take healthy foods everyday. If you do not know how to cook, then the chance are at some point convenience foods, takeaways and junk food will find their way back into your meals, and these alone can cause you to acquire weight rapidly. Invest in a healthy cooking book, and learn to cook healthy nutrition meals for yourself. The Food Bible is one of the most well organised and complete healthy cooking guides on the market at the moment.
In addition to learning to cook, building a collection of healthy snacks is vital. Some of our favourite healthy snacks include tinned mackeral on wholemeal toast, tuna-mayo sandwich, chicken or vegetable soup, blended bean salads and dried fruits and nuts. Make sure that you ALWAYS have some of your favourite healthy snacks in the home for when you are feeling peckish in the evening.
Read all four stages:
Four Stages To Healthy Weight Loss – Stage 1 – Preparation
Four Stages To Healthy Weight Loss – Stage 2 – Action!
Four Stages To Healthy Weight Loss – Stage 3 – Intensive Diet and Exercise
Four Stages To Healthy Weight Loss – Stage 4 – Maintain Your Weight
About the Author
J.P.Wade runs http://www.MotleyHealth.com, a health and fitness community, and also writes for the World wide web News Channel, http://www.webologist.co.uk/
Four Stages To Healthy Weight Loss – Stage 1 – Preparation
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