Are you truly ready for weight loss

Your weight-loss success depends in large part on your readiness to take on the challenge. If you jump in before youre ready, your weight-loss plan may buckle under the first challenge. Use these questions to assess your weight-loss readiness.

1. Are you motivated to make long-term lifestyle changes?

Successful weight loss depends on permanent lifestyle changes, such as eating healthy foods and exercising more. That could represent a significant departure from your current lifestyle. Be honest. Knowing that you need to make changes in your life and actually doing it are two different things. You may have to overhaul your diet so that youre eating more whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products, for example. Youll also need to find time to exercise for at least 30 minutes nearly every day of the week. Exercise is especially important to prevent regaining your lost weight.

Your motivation for undertaking these changes may be better health, improved appearance or just feeling better about yourself in general. As long as your motivation is a healthy one, it doesnt really matter what it is. Find your motivation and focus on it.

2. Have you addressed the big distractions in your life?

If youre dealing with major life events, such as marital problems, job stress, illness or financial worries, you may not want to add the challenge of overhauling your eating and exercise habits. Instead, consider giving your life a chance to calm down before you launch your weight-loss program.

3. Do you have a realistic picture of how much weight youll lose and how quickly?

Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is a lifelong process. Over the long term, its best to aim for losing 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a week. To lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day. You can do that through a low-calorie diet and regular physical activity or exercise.

Initially you might lose weight more quickly than that if you make significant changes — just be sure the changes are health supporting. Dont get discouraged if your rate of weight loss slows a bit after bigger initial losses.

4. Have you resolved any emotional issues connected to your weight?

Emotions and food are often intertwined. Anger, stress, grief and boredom can trigger emotional eating. And if you have a history of an eating disorder, weight loss can be even trickier. Start by identifying your emotional issues related to food so that youre prepared for the challenges. Talk to your doctor about what weight-loss options are best for you.

5. Do you have support and accountability?

Any weight-loss program can be difficult. You may face moments of temptation or become disheartened. Having someone in your corner to offer encouragement can help. If you dont have friends or family you can rely on for positive help, consider joining a weight-loss support group.

If you want to keep your weight-loss efforts private, be prepared to be accountable to yourself with regular weigh-ins and a log of your diet and activity. You might also want to consider joining an online program or using a certified health coach.

6. Have you embraced the weight-loss challenge?

If you dont have a positive attitude about losing weight, you may not be ready. If you dread what lies ahead, you may be more likely to find excuses to veer off course. Try to embrace the vision of your new lifestyle and remain positive. Focus on how good youll feel when youre more active or when you weigh less. Picture yourself celebrating every little success along the way, whether its opting for a low-fat cottage cheese snack instead of chips or going for a walk.

Youre ready for weight loss: Now what?

If you answered yes to all or most of these questions, youre probably ready to make the lifestyle changes necessary to work toward permanent weight loss. You may be able to forge ahead on your own, creating your own lifestyle program for healthy eating and exercising. Or you may feel you need help.

Educating yourself about the process of successful weight loss and maintenance is a start. For example, learn more about the dietary changes necessary for losing weight. See a dietitian or enroll in a behavior-based weight program that can help you change the habits that can interfere with weight loss, such as eating when youre stressed or bored. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, you may benefit from medically supervised weight loss with a team of health professionals that may include a dietitian, a therapist or an obesity specialist.

What if youre not ready?

If you answered no to more than one of these questions, you may not be ready to embark on a weight-loss program right now. And thats OK. Explore whats holding you back and face those obstacles. In some cases it may simply be a matter of timing. For instance, you may need to resolve other stressors in your life first. In other cases, you may need to work on related issues, such as your feelings toward weight loss or your willingness to commit to permanent lifestyle changes.

By Mayo Clinic staff

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Does losing weight scares you the most

If losing weight scares you the most, then dont worry, you are not alone! Many people embark on the journey to weight loss and cant ever seem to get any success.
4 mistakes below are what causing you to have a nightmarish experience with getting in shape:

1.) Skipping Breakfast - Skipping breakfast will not only decrease your energy levels for the day and make you feel miserable; it will also decrease your metabolism and cause you to binge later on in the day!
So, what I suggest you to do is to have a hearty breakfast every morning loaded with protein, antioxidants, healthy carbs (fiber), and vitamins/minerals.

2.) Eating More Bad Carbs than Good Carbs - Another surefire way to make it a nightmare for you to get in shape is to eat more bad carbs (foods high in sugar and processed foods) than you do good carbs (fiber, Greens, Vegetables, fruits, salad, Raw Almonds). Bad carbs will be stored in your body as fat and cause a mountain of diseases. Good carbs burn fat and will fight off diseases. It doesnt get any simpler than that!

3.) Not Getting Enough Good Fats in Your Diet - One of the first things people think about when approaching their diet is to go straight to low-fat options. This is a big mistake. The reason why is because there are healthy fats (monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, omega fatty acids) that you MUST get in your diet in order to effectively drop pounds, burn fat, and improve your overall health. Not getting healthy fats can make it very difficult and will also make you susceptible to STORING body fat.
Great food options loaded with healthy fat are fish, nuts, and olive oil to name a few.

4.) Not moving enough – “Move it to lose it”. If you move - not exercise, but just move around a lot during the day - you can lose a lot of weight. Study showed that the heavy people didnt sit around because they were too overweight to be active. Instead, it seems that the tendency to be a couch potato is inborn. You gain weight because you dont move much, not the other way around. The researchers found that the difference in movement between their heavy study participants and the lean ones amounted to 350 calories per day. If the heavy people could move enough to burn that number of calories, they could lose 30 to 40 pounds in a year.
 If you can find ways to build more movement into your life - standing instead of sitting, walking instead of driving - you may find it easier to lose weight. You can also begin learning how to dance, do yoga or just playing games/sports can do the trick too.

Note: Keep food 100% natural and you dont have to worry about starving, cravings, or putting back on weight that youve just lost! Natural food works better than processed food because it naturally raises your metabolism as you are eating REAL FOOD and that’s what your body (especially liver) understands.

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