Most People Forget This Crucial First Step That Makes Dieting More Successful

     "I'll start next Monday!", that is what we often say, when we decide to go on a diet. Meaning there is some time left to prepare, to finish all of our favourite foods that are still hiding in the cupboards and which of course we are not able to throw into the bin. Although preparation is valuable, should we take the time to plan our diet, or should we not delay and just get started before our motivation subsides?

"I'll start next Monday!", that is what we often say, when we decide to go on a diet. Meaning there is some time left to prepare, to finish all of our favourite foods that are still hiding in the cupboards and which of course we are not able to throw into the bin. Although preparation is valuable, should we take the time to plan our diet, or should we not delay and just get started before our motivation subsides?

Well, it depends. I personally would take the time to prepare myself for nutritional changes ahead. There is a proverb saying "He who fails to plan, plans to fail" and there is much truth into that. It is absolutely worth to at least have look into a few options that your have with what kind of diet you may want to go on. The success of your diet is pretty much depending on your ability to stick to that diet, so it makes sense to evaluate the different options beforehand. The "best" diet is not necessarily the one, which promises the most pounds lost within the shortest period of time as it doesn't help if you can't stick to it.

Also, you need to get a honest idea about what goal weight you are targeting and how to get there. What I mean is, the speed of your personal weight loss is determined by the calorie deficit you are creating and of course how well you are executing this. You must be aware, that if you are eating 500 calories less than your maintenance level, you will be losing about one pound per week. And if you are cheating on your diet, weight loss might be even slower. So don't expect wonders when just eating a little bit less.

Sometimes it is necessary to track you calorie intake to really make sure you are sticking to your calorie limit as most of us are simply underestimating how many calories we are consuming per day, forgetting about liquid calories totally for example. In this case an electronic calorie counter comes in quite handy and is a nice gadget, but also manual calorie tracking is not that laborious as it first seems.

All in all, planning your diet is a valuable phase which is often overlooked but can contribute much to the success of your next diet. However, we should be careful not to overdo the planning phase wanting to lay out everything in detail beforehand. That could result in never actually getting started with the diet, so plan for a few days at most and then get going. You still can refine your weight loss strategy later on.

Remember, you will only lose pounds once you are actually doing what you have planed no nicely!

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