Whichever slimming plan you have decided to follow, these helpful tips from an international chain of weight loss classes are designed to help you stay on your diet until you reach your desired weight, then maintain your new, slim figure for life. And, for those inclined to have an occasional lapse, there are tips to help you know where you went wrong and how to start again.

Tips for successful dieting

 

• If your motivation for eating is a desire to reward yourself, go out and buy something nice instead of treating yourself to a cream-filled pastry.
• A hobby that keeps your hands busy is a mainstay when you might otherwise wander to the fridge out of boredom.
• Don’t test your willpower. If you had a lot of it, you wouldn’t have to diet in the first place.
• Never weigh yourself alone. This, more than any other thing, causes people to go off their diets, particularly if the scales show they have gained. Have a friend weigh you weekly or attend a weight reduction class.
• Get involved in activities which keep your morale up, it’s easier to diet when you feel good about yourself.
• Keep all junk foods out of the house.
• Limit between-meal snacks to fruit, vegetables, tomato juice, low-calorie drinks, or special low-calorie recipes.
• If you live alone, watch it. You can get accustomed to snacking instead of eating regular meals, and you’ll pay the price nutritionally.
• When you go to a restaurant, take low-calorie salad dressing with you, or ask for vinegar or a wedge of lemon. Otherwise, while you might feel noble eating a tossed salad, you could be ruining your whole meal plan with a couple of tablespoons of high-calorie salad dressing.
• Eat three meals a day and don’t “crash” diet by skipping meals, especially breakfast! Many overweight people get into the bad habit of not eating all day. When evening comes, they go crazy with calories!
• Don’t feel you have to make up excuses to hide the fact that you’re dieting. You have the right to try to be your healthiest, best-looking self.
• Don’t allow guilt to destroy your diet. One lapse doesn’t mean you should go mad and eat everything in sight! Remember, with the next mouthful you are back on the diet.
• Exercise whenever possible. It helps burn off unwanted calories and firm up flabby muscles. Even simple things help. Climb stairs instead of using lifts, leave the car at home and walk more! Try swimming, biking, playing tennis. Do yoga. But whatever you do, do something. Don’t just sit there!
• Keep a diet diary. It’s amazing how much food we eat and then forget! Write down everything you eat every day for at least a week. (Even broken biscuits count!) It will soon become apparent why so many of us are overweight.

 

… for those who’ve gone off a diet

 

Start your diet again, this minute! Don’t try to compensate by over-dieting, skipping meals or otherwise “punishing” yourself. The Simple 14-Day Diet is simple, very effective and will fit easily into your lifestyle.

 

• Review the two days before you went off the diet. Write down the events that triggered the slip.
• Now rewrite your script. What could you have done other than eat?
• Throw out troublesome foods. Don’t try out your willpower at this time. Better not house your problems where they are available.
• Plan some activity for every day in the next two weeks. Give yourself small units of time to anticipate, and be where the food isn’t.
• Draw up a menu plan for the week. Include foods that are diet treats.
• Be sure you are getting your beauty rest. Nothing is more destructive to a diet than fatigue. Your defences are down when you’re tired, and you may not resist the temptation to eat.
• Place artificial sweetener, low-calorie salad dressing, and pocket-sized calorie counter in your bag. They are your emergency kit for eating out.
• Make an appointment with your doctor for a thorough check-up. Review your weight control program with him.
• Keep your diet to yourself. The less you talk diet, the more you will diet.

 

… for maintaining weight loss

 

Throw out all clothes that fit you “when” – except for the most atrocious thing in your wardrobe. Having nothing to return to but bare skin is a sobering consideration.

 

• Make an appointment with a photographer for a glamorous, full-length portrait shot. Distribute it to all friends and family so that the first little bulge will bring you an avalanche of phone calls.
• Join a good exercise or yoga class to firm up your new figure.
• Keep a record of your weight fluctuations so that you know which foods trigger your allergy to fat.
• Be sure to weigh in faithfully. Don’t rely on a snug waistline to tip you off that you are gaining. Your fat may show up on your hips, arms, or head first.
• Don’t desert your old diet friends. Those diet foods that faithfully served you as you lost weight, low-calorie drinks, fruits, skim milk, low-calorie dressings, deserve your abiding loyalty in return for service rendered.
• If you know one food in particular will set you off on an eating binge, never touch a morsel of it. That food is to you what alcohol is to the alcoholic. You may never have it again.
• Don’t be disappointed when others don’t praise you for your accomplishment. Some people are openly hostile to good losers because they cannot stand success in others. Remember always that you have conquered yourself. You can now do anything.
• If you are not working, and don’t wish to, find a voluntary organization that will expand your horizons. Spend some concern on others, not your stomach.
• Regard the first two kilograms regained as the start of a severe attack of obesity. Immediately return to your reducing diet and remain on it until you have passed “goal.” Go one kilogram under your desired weight just to be on the safe side. Remember, you can do it. And keep this in mind: “A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

 

Lily is a diet expert who enjoys sharing tips on cardiac diet to reduce your risk of heart disease