Twenty-One Days To A New You

Well, I've heard it said that it only takes twenty-one days to change a habit. Can we really make some changes in twenty-one days that will change our weight loss efforts? Just give some of these simple lifestyle changes a try and see if it doesn't make a difference in your life. After a while they will become second nature to you and you may even wonder how you ever lived without them. Maybe in twenty-one days you will have some new habits that will change your life forever.

Let us go over some pretty simple things we can do for just twenty-one days to make sure we keep to the straight and narrow when it comes to sticking to our weight loss program, or our weight maintenance efforts. And here they are:
When we go to the grocery store we are faced with a cornucopia of food choices. Many of us, in fact most of us really need to be careful about those choices. With the obesity epidemic looming in our minds, if not in our bodies (yet), we want to be sure we are making the food choices that are going to support our efforts to stay out of the "Fat Zone" or to support our efforts to lose weight. What to do? What to do?

First, always have a plan. Before you go to the grocery store, know what the following week menus are going to be. You don't have to know every detail of every little crumb of food your family is going to consume for the week, just have a broad generalized plan, like all snacks are going to be apples, oranges and grapes. Preplan dinner meals and allow for a couple of nights of leftovers. Make homemade meals as much as possible by preparing crock pots of food supplemented with rice or pasta. Throw in a salad or two and voila, you have complete meals. Put together plans that stretch your meals. Make pots of soup over the weekend. Keep the fat content low by using fat free broth and lots of vegetables and lentils which will increase the fiber. Not only will your planning benefit, but so will you wallet and your weight loss program.

Secondly, forget about the coupons. Forget about them? Those things only give discounts on expensive junk foods. They are pretty good for cleaning products if you use that brand, but the food products are usually for high fat, high calorie junk. You are better off without them. If you don't usually eat a product, don't get it just because there is a coupon for it. You are better off preparing your own food for school lunches, work lunches or any of the activities where you may have to have a quick meal.

Third, stick to the outside isles. This is where the fresh foods are kept in most stores. If not, (like at my grocery), stay in the areas where the fresh meats, dairy, deli and produce are kept. Again, stick to the low fat milk products for yourself and your family.

Fourth, learn to read labels. If you have to buy prepackaged foods, learn to read the labels. Just because a food is screaming "LOW FAT" doesn't mean it is low in fat. Take a simple package of low fat hot dogs. Now from the surface it seems like the product would be okay because it is low fat. Looking more closely you can find that that product is anything but low in fat. The calorie content of one hotdog is 120 calories and the fat calories are 90 calories. That hotdog is almost 100% fat. So look a little closer and calculate just how many of the calories of the entire product the fat calories actually make up. You will be surprised to find that many low fat products will actually have 50% or more of the calories of that product coming from fat. Avoid them like the plague. They are a killer for your weight loss plan or program.

Fifth, be careful of warehouse stores. If you like to shop in those warehouse stores like Costco. They can definitely mean savings, but they can be tempting for large purchases of junk food. They are so cheap and you get so much. These kinds of food in these large amounts only encourage gluttony which causes weight gain. Keep your purchases to toilet paper and other essentials, not frozen pizzas.

Sixth, eliminate sugary drinks. There is no need to quench your or your families thirst with apple juice, regular soda or sugar Kool Aid. Water is a perfectly fine drink as are the sugar free drinks, sugar free iced tea and sugar free Kool Aid. These are acquired tastes, but anyone, including children and spoiled adults can learn to drink these free drinks. No one can afford to down an extra 200 calories just because they are thirsty.

Seventh, purchase the tools and use them. And of course the last and the first thing everyone can do to help their weight management or weight loss plan is to invest in a set of measuring cups, a set of measuring spoons and a small food scale. Read and learn more about what is the actual serving size for the food you want to eat. Most Americans eat about 2 cups of cereal when having cereal for breakfast. The actual serving size for cereal is ½ cup. It may seem a little small, but this is why Americans are so overweight. Gluttony is at the root of our problems. Everyone seems to think that they can just eat as much as they want, (like when they were kids) or as much as they feel like eating. Not so.

Stand up for yourself. When you go to a restaurant, have the server bring you the takeout box at the beginning of your meal and immediately put half of your meal in the box before you even touch your food. It may look funny, but with the huge serving sizes the restaurants serve us, it is the only way to avoid eating it all.

In the end, it is all up to you. Take the challenge and implement these simple changes for twenty-one days and see if you don't notice a difference in yourself and your ability to manage your weight loss program or our weight management plan or just plain everyday relationship with food and your family. I am betting you will be glad you did.

1. Prev:Is Losing Belly Fat Really That Necessary?
2. Next:Burn Fat, Build Muscle - 3 Dos And Donts To A Thinner, Healthier You