The Top Three Keys To Losing Weight

Like almost everyone, I failed on many diets and weight loss plans before I finally found one that stuck. I've lost a lot of weight on medifast and am still going strong. Although I credit the diet for it's effectiveness and convenience, I believe changes in my attitude and life style were huge contributing factors as well.

Here are what I believe to be the top three keys to my success:

1. Making Positive Decisions: This sounds very simplistic, but it is harder than it seems. For starters, to be successful you need to first decide that you and your health are absolutely worth the effort. Once you have decided your well being will take a top priority in your life, you'll be faced with daily decisions that will affect whether you succeed or fail. You'll need to decide what to eat, whether to work out, and how to spend your free time. With each decision, you are bringing yourself closer to your goals. Some people need to ease into this, starting with only one decision per day and adding one more until this is no longer necessary.

2. Taking Positive Action: Good decisions don't mean anything if you do not follow them up with actions. I can intend to exercise all day long, but if I don't finally take my power walk, I've not made any difference in my weight loss efforts. Worse, if I intend to do something and then do not follow through, I am creating a cycle of not making good on my promises. This will set me up for more failure later on. I will subconsciously know that although I intend to lose weight, I am not really going to do it. It is very important to stop this negative cycle. To be successful, you must make good on your intentions by repetitively following them up with action. It's fine to do this gradually, starting with one action per day and building from there.

3. Creating Positive Habits: If I had to choose just one key to weight loss success, it would be creating repetitive actions that eventually become habits. Weight loss is really a time game that builds upon itself. A few pounds per week eventually becomes a huge amount of weight over the course of weeks and months. More, once your decisions and actions become habitual, you no longer have to think about them and they become automatic. Eventually, habits become lifestyle changes, which is where the real, lasting success lies.

In my own experience, I created one change per week. One week I would concentrate on drinking more water. The next, I would turn my attention to adding eighty minutes of walking. Over the course of six months, my lifestyle has changed quite dramatically as a result.

I know these three elements may seem simplistic, but in my experience they are absolutely vital to dramatic, lasting, and long term success. It's perfectly acceptable to focus on only one thing at a time, knowing that each tiny change will contribute to the healthier lifestyle in your future.

Lindsey Price is the author of the ebook "Getting The Most Out Of Medifast" which contains coupons, tips and recipes. To get a free copy (immediate download / no information required), click here You can also visit her diet review website at http://easiest-diet.com/

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