How Long Does It Take To Lose Weight?
Is It Possible To Speed Up Weight Loss?
The answer to this question of course is "it depends." However, there are steps one can take to really help determine how long it will take to lose weight and also how permanent the weight loss is. You will most likely lose some weight within the first week of following a new diet regimen.
That diet can be anything - whether it is Weight Watchers, South Beach, Eat
To Live. It often does not matter which one you choose, if you follow the
directions to a T, you will lose weight in the first week. Most diets are in essence some form of strict calorie control. The exception are diets like Eat to Live and the Fat Smash Diet, where you can essentially eat as many approved foods as you want.
However, you will not lose weight unless you are ready to do so. The psychology behind weight loss is very powerful and PEERtrainer has put together a quick quiz that helps you find your "odds" of successful weight loss. This quiz puts you in one of three categories and gives you some tips to work on to develop "readiness."
Eating a diet very high in fruits, vegetables, beans and greens will improve the speed of weight loss. These foods help fill you up and also help clean out the other "less natural" foods that most of us eat daily. By making plant based foods like these part of our permanent diet, we can lose weight more permanently. These are foods that you don't need to eat less of- diets that force us to eat less of things are bound to fail. Very few of us have unlimited willpower to starve ourselves on a sustained basis.
A problem in trying to determine how long a weight loss effort will take is, what happens the next week when you have a "surprise" office birthday
party? Or when your children leave their unfinished macaroni and cheese on
their plate and you devour it because you've been "good" the past few days?
Those slip-ups can happen and will happen, because they're not really slip
ups. They're just part of life.
Instead of asking the question "how long
does it take to lose weight", the question might need to be "how can I lose the
weight I want to lose in a way that keeps me motivated, week after week, to
continue losing weight until I reach my goal?" Once you've changed or adjusted that
question in your mind, and made it one that is manageable and can be achieved, you'll develop
the right answers to get the body you want.
The Role Of Exercise And Weight Loss
Exercise is critically important to one's long term health and vitality. Dr. Mehmet Oz suggests that people get 60 minutes of vigorous exercise each week, and that people need to make sure to exercise for a long period of time for greatest cardiovascular benefit. And exercise will absolutely help you lose weight, especially as you get closer to your goal weight. But a good rule of thumb when you are starting out is to think that 80% of weight loss will come from changes to your diet and 20% will come from exercise.
To read the top ten things you need to know about
getting started in your weight loss path, click here. If you are interested in being part of a (free) group of people on PEERtrainer who will help you each day to be motivated, supported and held accountable, click here. To learn more about PEERtrainer keep reading!!
How does PEERtrainer work and how will it help me lose weight?
If you are like most people, you know how to lose weight and get fit, but simply have a hard time following through. PEERtrainer was built to help you follow through, via daily logging and peer support. It is easy to get started--you log your food, exercise, thoughts each day. This takes about 5 minutes, and is a great habit to develop. You do this in small weight loss groups of 4 and larger "teams". The logging makes you much more aware of your habits. The group members read your logs and keep you motivated and supported. This tight integration of logging with free online weight loss support groups is very effective. It is also a unique and patent-pending process.
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The Importance of Social Support and Self-Monitoring
Group and peer support is a highly proven method for losing weight and getting healthy. It is one thing to learn how to lose weight and eat more healthy, it is another thing to put this into practice on a consistent basis. Friends and family are of limited use because there is only so much burden they can bear. Getting the support of an anonymous group of people each day can make the critical difference. Self-monitoring is the other method, backed by volumes of research, that is highly correlated with weight loss success. You keep a log of your food, exercise, goals and thoughts. When you do this each day it keeps you accountable to yourself, and brings this aspect of your life to the top of your mental agenda. When you are writing each day, you are thinking about the things you write about. This begins to change how you think and facilitates better decision making. When you make better decisions, and have a broad support network, you are very likely to lose weight for the long term. When you do both these things, the odds of success increase dramatically.