I had been thinking about loosing weight for a while (around 6 months). Then one day I thought I just need to do it and NOW – no excuses. That morning I found some healthy recipes online that contained nutrition and calorie information and started calorie counting for the food. Therefore I suggest you must be mentally committed to the goal prior to starting otherwise it may not be successful. What tipped me over the edge on December 30, 2006 was seeing myself in the mirror and thinking, “I refuse to meet my former high school friends looking like this!”. But the motivational reasons will be different for everyone.
Metrics
Find out your BMI (Body Mass Index) first! This gives you an indication of where you lie on the scale (underweight, normal, overweight or obese are the main categories). Then decide what your short-term and longer-term goals are based on a reality check. Saying you will loose 30 lbs when your are only 15 lbs overweight, is a terrible idea! Also saying you must loose weight too quickly is also, in my limited experience, a bad plan.
Food…
I suggest you make sure you are not JUST restricting yourself of calories, but also making sure you find healthy recipes that contain iron, protein, enough [good] fiber, etc. Bean flatbread/pita wraps are especially good. Good ingredients for such wraps are: red/green/yellow peppers, spinach (you can never eat enough spinach – well almost), black beans, chick peas, and onions if you don’t find them offensive (though I do:). Feel free to add a little salsa or hummus or (light) ricotta to the wraps while keeping in mind the calories in it. This will add some taste to the wraps and allow you to enjoy the food.
Also vegetable soups are especially good. I am not a vegetarian by principle, just hate cooking chicken or even fish (I don’t much like other meats), so I generally use vegetarian recipes.
Try to use whole grain ingredients instead of their unhealthier counterparts, such as whole wheat pita, whole grain breads, and the healthy flatbreads that are low in calories. Whole wheat tortillas are also great for wraps.
Keep lots of fruit around (oranges, apples, etc. even bananas though higher in calories are good) for snacking when needed in the first 1-2 weeks.
Tea and coffee are very good beverages if you have them black and unsugared.
Once you get used to the new healthier foods you will not need to snack as much. At least this was my experience.
Exercise….
Make sure you also have some kind of exercise plan, especially at the beginning. However, I am no expert on this. I did some exercises on my local PBS station that are on early mornings here at least once a week, but should be at least 2-3 times. My problem with those is now our TiVo is dead and I can’t wake up at ungodly hours to watch it. In warmer climates, taking long and brisk walks is excellent cardio exercise and burns more calories than you might think.
Keep a Log…
This might be the most irritating thing to do, but keep a log of EVERYTHING you eat and do for exercise. This is useful especially when you start out a new plan. Also try to estimate as accurately as possible the calories in each meal, snack or treat you have.
Monitor all your statistics once a week (on the same day each week). Mine is Sunday, but you don’t have to make it that day. Generally it will be the day of the week that you actually start the diet. Weight yourself only on this day of the week. Weigh yourself in the morning after visiting the bathroom to be consistent. Track not just your weight, but BMI, waist measurements and, if applicable, height (if you are still growing – i.e. teenager).
Hope this helps. I am planning on putting together some recipes I would recommend and some simple exercises on a subdomain I own in the near future, as soon as I have time to commit to it at:
http://health.tautology.net. There is currently nothing there yet.
