So many of us belong to the ‘failed diet’ club. How many times have you tried the latest fad diet, determined to lose weight and had the effort end in failure? Too many, is the usual response to this question. So here we come along, telling you that easy weight loss is entirely possible. What’s the secret? You may be surprised to learn that, ahead of counting calories and vigorous exercise regimens, motivation and attitude are the most powerful elements in achieving easy weight loss. With the right motivation and attitude, you can lose weight without undue suffering, guilt and anxiety.
When you reach the point where you don’t like the reflection in the mirror and your clothes become uncooperative in their fit, you know you’re facing the dreaded diet. The problem with most diets is that they seem like a punishment, smacking of that deprived feeling and fraught with guilty episodes, such as the illicit consumption of a dish of ice cream or a cookie. As a rule, people don’t look forward to dieting. The concept of easy weight loss sounds like a joke.
Try this concept on for size: the reason you need to diet is to lose weight that you don’t want! For whatever reason, be it to feel good about your appearance, be more attractive to members of the opposite sex, or for purely practical health reasons, you are the one in the driver’s seat when it comes to motivation. One of the tricks to easy weight loss is to define your motivation to seriously and successfully tackle losing that unwanted weight. When all is said and done, you’re really doing it for yourself. You are the beneficiary of your diet success. Once this conclusion is firmly ingrained in your mind, you’re on the right track to easy weight loss. The bottom line is that this is something you want.
If you want to buy a new tennis racket, save for a vacation or get that beautiful dress you saw in a shop window, if you want it badly enough, you start setting aside money so that you can have that desired item. Here, you have no trouble acknowledging the desire. If you can’t afford the desired item, you’ll feel disappointed that you must suffer squashing that desire. In either case, your attitude makes the difference. The same applies to weight loss. You want it, but feel you can’t have it, at least not without some pain and suffering, in the form of deprivation of food. So, easy weight loss requires an attitude adjustment on your part.
Armed with personal motivation and the right attitude, your dreaded diet is transformed into a desirable goal for which you’re willing to sacrifice the pleasures of your appetite, for just a while. Then you get exactly what you want.
Now, approach your diet with gusto. The prize is attainable and you’re the winner.
Your motivation serves as your inspiration and your attitude fortifies your efforts. You’re primed for easy weight loss. Now, your usual cookie binge becomes an obstacle, a short-lived pleasure depriving you of your ultimate desire. It becomes so much easier to resist.
When not dieting, you most likely sometimes enjoy a salad for lunch or dinner. A plate loaded up with a mix of crispy greens, your favorite – albeit low calorie and highly nutritious – veggies, is then a pleasure. Slices of chicken or a mound of salad shrimp, wedges of tomatoes, sliced olives and a hard boiled egg, along with a few sinfully tasty croutons and yes, dressing becomes a delicious meal. One mistake dieters often make is to deny themselves the dressing in amounts which are satisfying. Two tablespoons of dressing does not a great salad make! Four or five tablespoons of Thousand Island, Creamy French or Ranch makes this a meal you want to eat, nutritious and filling. Loading up that salad from fiber-rich veggies makes the dressing you crave a wash, because you’ll burn up those calories digesting the veggies. If your favorite dressing is oil and vinegar, all the better.
As for meats, a 4-ounce portion of a tasty steak, dressed with sauteed mushrooms and onions is a tasty treat. A leaner meat, such as a chicken breast becomes a gourmet meal when brushed with an orange ginger sauce. Yes, the sauce has calories, but you don’t feel deprived. Feelings of deprivation and a lack of flavor is what causes most people to fail to follow through on a diet.
Eating slowly also provides significant benefits to your easy weight loss success. You know when you’re full and thus tend to eat less. Don’t get so fixated on the small pleasures, such as an extra portion of dressing or a dab of a tasty sauce to keep you going. If you don’t turn your diet into a self-imposed torment, easy weight loss is yours!