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Weight Loss Exercise

The Biggest Secret of Successful Weight Loss

When it comes to successful weight loss, the biggest hurdle that people face is that of getting started. They just don’t have any idea of where to start from. If you are one of these people then this article is for you. It doesn’t really matter whether you want to lose ten or hundred pounds, the tips I am going to share with you in this article are going to help you anyway.

The first step to successful weight loss is to set some goals. Goals should be used in the same way as milestones are used on highways. Just as without any milestone, you will have no idea of where you are going, without a goal, you will have no idea of how much work you need to do to shed all the extra pounds.

Questions To Ask Yourself for Successful Weight Loss

1. How much weight you want to lose?

2. By when you expect to lose all the weight?

The Biggest Secret of Successful Weight Loss

Successful Weight Loss

These successful weight loss answers must be written on a sheet of paper. Oh yeah, before I forget, let me tell you that writing your goals is one of the surefire ways of making sure that you never forget them. Write your weight loss goals on a piece of paper, make copies of that paper, and stick each paper on every place you can.

Make sure you don’t forget to stick this paper on your refrigerator and kitchen, since it is in these places that the demon called temptation tries to ruin your weight loss efforts.

Setting goals is just not enough; in order to make the goals achievable, you must set REALISTIC goals. If you have a goal of losing sixty pounds within a couple of weeks or a month, that is not going to happen. Setting such unrealistic goals for yourself will nullify the very effect of goal setting.

When you set unrealistic goals and fail to achieve the same, you will be disappointed and frustrated with yourself and your weight loss efforts.

Ideally, no matter what you do, you would be able to lose no more than 1-2 pounds per week. So create your goals accordingly. If you want to lose sixty pounds, it will take you at least six-seven months to achieve the same.

Set small and achievable goals for yourself so that when you achieve them, you will feel more confident to move forward. This is the biggest secret of successful weight loss.

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General Weight Loss Tips

Week Five

I’m in week five of the Insanity Workout and have so much that I want to make note of. So much so that I’m thinking about doing a video post. Here are my random, jumbled thoughts (when I really should be in bed) about exercising everyday…

1) It’s okay to exercise everyday. This hurdle has been huge for me and one that took me awhile to get over. In my mind daily exercise was unnecessary. I even got a comment on twitter from someone saying “watch out or you’ll burn out”. I felt defensive over that, a feeling that I often battle with when unsolicited advice comes my way. I feel like I shouldn’t have to defend exercising everyday.

My perspective is changing. What used to seem like a lot of exercise, 45 minutes, now seems like nothing. In fact I’m thinking in a whole day 45 minutes isn’t much. And then to think that I was barely getting that a week, or even three times a week is sort of astounding to me. But that’s what changing your perspective will do. I can exercise every day and not burn out. I think the reason is that I’m not expecting perfection with every workout. Most days I push myself and give it my all, but there have been some days when I’m barely showing up. I’m just going through the motions to get it over with. But I’m showing up and that’s what matters. I think before, just showing up was never good enough for the perfectionist in me, so I wouldn’t show up at all. I was all or nothing,  now I just do my best.

2) I am not losing a ton of weight. Before I started exercising intensely everyday  I used to think that’s all I needed to do to lose weight. Just one hour or so of intense exercise and I could eat what I wanted. I’m not sure why I thought this or where this idea came into play, but it’s simply not true. It is helpful for not gaining weight and that’s it. I’ve lost a little weight and I can tell that my waist is more defined and I’m much stronger. But, that 10-20 lbs. of weight that I thought would fall off effortlessly? not so.

I’m very very slowly getting my eating habits in check. This will be my next hurdle that I need to deal with. Exercise has been the first one and next will be food. And when I have both, well, I’ll be set. I mentally count calories, but sometimes I just want to eat. I still want to eat for comfort. I am eating better in general, cooking more at home and not eating refined sugar. I know that my next step is getting serious about planning ahead and counting calories. I can do it for about four days before I just get so tired of it.

3) Exercise can be mentally uncomfortable. I used to think that I had a hard time exercising because it was physically uncomfortable, it was too hard, I didn’t have enough time, I was lazy, etc. But, the truth is, exercise makes me face the uncomfortable facts about my body. It brings out emotions that are dormant during inactivity. I notice my size more, I notice the space I take up, I notice the effects of excess weight on my body. Stuff that I’ve tried to ignore or hide- suddenly become clear when I move my body like it’s meant to. When I can’t do yoga poses because of fat getting in the way. When my arms and wrists give out when I try to do push-ups. When I can’t grab my ankle for a quad stretch. Basic, human movements that are hard to do when you’re obese. Exercise is like shining a spotlight on everything I can’t do, and it is uncomfortable for me.

I once heard that the body stores emotions. It holds on to whatever we are dealing with (or not dealing with) and when we exercise these emotions can be released. I’ve experienced this. It makes me want to cry, or hide away. It can be intense when what you aren’t dealing with is released even when you’re not ready. And I think this is one reason why I’ve had a hard time sticking to consistent movement- it can unleash pain. For me, not letting it out in the form of exercise has lead to depression. I still suffer from my one hormonal week a month, but I feel like things are becoming clearer mentally.  Like the things I’ve been holding inside are coming out through energy and movement. I’m okay with being uncomfortable.

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