The #1 Thing You MUST DO To Lose Weight and Keep it off

In the 4 + years since I started my weight loss journey I learned quite a bit about what it takes to lose weight and keep it off. Some lessons I recognized quickly while others took me a little bit longer to see. And, even though, I have a lot of knowledge in my weight loss arsenal I am positive there is still much more I can learn.

So far, these are my top weight loss lessons.

• Tracking food. This has been the cornerstone to my weight loss. I use My Fitness Pal to keep track of my daily calories, nutrition, exercise, and weight loss goals. Read here if you are curious why I don’t use Weight Watchers.

• Meal Planning. Taking the time to meal plan provides me with the road map and structure I need to stay on track with my food. However, meal planning is not always easy. So, instead of struggling I use Plan to Eat to streamline the process. Now meal planning is not an issue. The lesson learned here is don’t try to do things alone all the time. There are plenty of affordable services that can help.

• Make ahead meals. Preparing my foods ahead of time makes it easier to eat healthy during the week. Simple yet powerful concept. I am more likely to eat the foods I plan when I take the time to food prep.

• Clean(er) eating. Eating clean(er) foods makes me feel good, especially green smoothies. My body feels nourished and I feel focused.

• Strength training makes all the difference. A flat tummy and defined arms are not going to be the result of running 3-4 miles a day. However, I love to run – it keeps me focused and sane – so I keep it a part of my exercise routine.

• Keeping an exercise schedule that works. Exercising in the morning is the way to go for me. If I don’t exercise in the morning it won’t happen.

Each strategy plays a huge role in my weight loss journey. There are many more but there is one thing that trumps them all. Something that only occurred to me recently. Want to know what it is?

Consistency. Yep, I need to stay consistent. Consistency is the #1 thing you ABSOLUTELY MUST do to lose weight and keep it off.

Simple? Yes. Common sense? Probably. Is it the reason I did not get results years ago? I am going to go with YES. I now know that all of those weight loss strategies work but only when I am consistently using them.

To lose weight and keep it off I can’t meal plan sometimes, track food when I feel like it, eat clean food on occasion, or work out when time allows. No I need to consistently make all those strategies a part of my everyday lifestyle. That is the only way to change habits, lose weight, and keep it off.

Looking back, I can’t tell you the number of times I would start and stop an exercising routine. It seems like I was on a bi-monthly rotation. Some months it was like I was training for an iron man marathon while other months I was training more for a Keeping Up With the Kardashians marathon on E. Ha! Don’t judge we all have our guilty pleasures. It was the same with food. I would throw myself into salads and grilled chicken for a week or so only to binge on pizza and pasta the next. Basically, my lack of consistency is the #1 reason I never experienced weight loss.

I remember having thoughts like “If I only kept exercising I would feel comfortable in my summer clothes” or “If I kept up with running and eating healthy I would be able to wear that dress” or “If I stopped eating so much junk all the time I would feel better going on vacation” and I am sure many other thoughts like this entered my mind.

Now I can say “you know what Tammy, you were right”. If you stayed consistent with healthy eating habits and exercise yes you would be comfortable in summer clothes, be able to wear that dress, and feel better going on vacation. And I can say that now because I have lost the weight and know exactly what it feels like to be confident and happy in my own skin. I lost the weight by staying consistent with my weight loss efforts. I kept going!

Consistency is key!

Staying consistent is important because it provides you with the time you need to build new habits and see the results of your hard work. It takes about 3-4 weeks to implement a new habit. Sometimes this can take even longer when you are trying to replace bad ones. You are not going to change habits or see results overnight. One day of drinking smoothies, tracking food, running, squats, and sit-ups will not get you bikini ready. Not even one week of doing those things every single day will do the trick. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. In most cases, it takes a few weeks to see any physical results. That’s just the way it is and the reason it is so important to stay consistent with your efforts. Don’t get me wrong you will feel better and see some changes but if you are looking to drop 50 pounds and 4 dresses sizes in a week that won’t happen.

Inconsistency can be very frustrating when trying to lose weight. It can feel like you are “giving up” causing you to feel defeated with the entire weight loss process. I often here people say “that didn’t work for me”. Well, first of all that can’t make you lose weight. Only YOU can make you lose weight.

Second, you have to give yourself enough time and stay consistent. Weight loss is a process filled with many hills, valleys, curves, and even ditches. If you keep going despite all of these challenges you will build and sustain new healthier habits and see the results of your hard work.

What does consistency look like?

Consistency means stability, regularity, and dependability. It means you know what to do and expect day after day.

Here are some tasks you can do every week to stay consistent with creating a healthier lifestyle and losing weight.

• Plan your meals. I recommend setting time aside during the week to create a meal plan and grocery list so when you have time to shop you are ready to go. Make sure to plan for all meals and snacks. If you eat 5 times a days you need to know what those meals will be. You can view all my meal plans here.

• Weekend food prep. I have said this a million times but I will say it again. It is so much easier to eat healthy when healthy food is available. You don’t need to spend an entire weekend prepping food but it will be in your best interest to set some time aside. Even a little food prep will make a difference. Here is a beginners guide to food prep I wrote if you are looking for more information.

• Exercise 3 to 4 times a week. You don’t need to exercise every day nor do your routines need to be trainings for the Tough Mudder or marathons. However, to lose weight you will need to incorporate exercise in some fashion. I think it is important to get in the habit of exercising 3-4 times a week. Don’t feel like you need to join a gym. You can easily exercise in the comfort of your own living room. The key is to create a schedule that works for you. There are tons of home exercise routine posted here. If you need some tips on starting a morning exercise routine then check here.

• Track your food every day. Don’t be discouraged or overwhelmed by tracking food. I know it can seem tedious – and sometimes it is – but it will work to hold you accountable. To make it 100 times easier use a website and/or app like My Fitness Pal. I am telling ya that website was a game changer for me. Here is a post to help you get the most out of my fitness pal.

• Get and stay organized. I truly believe that an organized life is a happier life – at least it is for me. Trust me, I am not OCD organized in any way shape or form. However, I will say when I take the time to write a to do list, keep my calendar updated, and my house from looking like a bomb went off I feel better, happier, and much more focused. Staying organized keeps you out of the “hot zones” and frees up time and mental energy to keep you moving forward on all your goals, including weight loss goals. Here is one of my favorite posts I put together on this topic called 7 Things You Can Do to Lose Weight that Don’t Include Food or Exercise.

The best way to stay consistent week after week is to be intentional and plan, plan, and plan. Don’t expect to create and stick with new habits if you are flying by the seat of your pants every day. Take time every day to think about what you want to accomplish. Then write it down and keep it visible. Take time to review it every morning and night. This helps to reflect, make adjustments, and see progress. Personally, one of the most important things I do daily is write out a to do list. Without that list I am lost soul trying to figure out what to do next.

The biggest challenge to staying consistent is life happens. There is always something getting in the way of eating healthy, working out, cleaning, or doing anything we need to do. For this reason, it is important to focus consistently on habits and lifestyle instead of quick fixes and unrealistic diets. When you do this it is easier to get back on track (instead of starting over) with your goals when life gets in the way.

Again, weight loss is a journey and a process. It never ends – even when you reach your goal weight. It is about creating healthier habits, routines, and staying consistent with them. Consistency makes all the difference between results and regret. So keep going!

Source
http://www.organizeyourselfskinny.com/2015/04/16/the-1-thing-you-must-do-to-lose-weight-and-keep-it-off/

Consistency: key to successful Weightloss

Have you ever accomplished anything great with an inconsistent effort? Unless failure is considered a great achievement, you probably haven't. You must exercise consistently to get the results you want! It blows my mind how many people don't even try to be consistent with their diet and exercise programs and complain about not seeing results. Even the best programs are ineffectual if they are not followed on a consistent basis.

Women are sometimes afraid at the idea of adding muscle due to their fear of becoming "bulky." Relax; it's a little harder to add that kind of muscle mass than you think.

Consistent spaced small meals – One of the most important things that you can do with your health in general is to keep a nice even keel with respect to your blood sugar. When you eat a donut and coffee for breakfast and then nothing until lunch then you will get a big blood sugar spike and then a drop soon after and be just dragging your way until lunch. If you eat consistently small but evenly spaced meals every couple of hours during the day then you will not have this blood sugar problem.

 

Consistent meal sizes – If you make sure that you eat 200 – 400 calorie meals then this will go hand in hand with the point above. Having even sized meals will mean that you are not bloated after one meal and then hungry after the next. Of course there may be a problem with dinner being a little bigger and an evening meal being a little smaller but overall this consistent eating will make you feel much better and your weight loss will be more consistent.

Consistent exercise – Some people will exercise a lot on the weekend but get nearly no exercise during the week. This is really quite dangerous. If your body is not being exercised at least somewhat on a daily basis then these big events on the weekends can be damaging to your muscles and also lead to more injuries because of the stress you are putting the muscles through. Much better to have a quick workout in the morning and evening and then still push it on the weekend, then to takes four or five days off in a stretch and not get any exercise until Saturday. Not just any exercise program will do for weight loss. Just burning calories is not good enough. The program must be planned to draw out specific hormonal responses that are conducive to weight loss. The key is NOT hours and hours of cardio. You must do exercise at an intensity that raises your heart rate and keeps it there for at least twenty minutes at a time and go from there.

Consistent rest – This is important to your well being as well as the healing of your muscles after exercise. Stretch daily, sleep well most nights and if you need it a hot tub, heating pad, or massage can do wonders to get rid of those little aches and pains that may not be going away quickly and holding you back a bit from going all out when you want to.

Remember that consistency is the key. Focus on changing your lifestyle. Do not focus on "dieting". When you focus on dieting, you are looking at this whole weight loss thing as something temporary. Diets work ONLY to get those pounds off, but what are you going to do after the diet is done? "Living a healthy lifestyle is a marathon, not a short sprint down the road."

Learning How to build Consistency

There are a lot of ways you can gradually build momentum. Here are some examples:

Start with something that’s pretty easy to manage and build up from there. Set a goal of one 10-minute exercise session per week. Then increase it to two 10-minute sessions. Gradually add minutes to each workout (and eventually add one or more additional workouts to your week), until you're exercising as long and as frequently as you should in order to reach your goals. The simple act of setting aside some time for exercise every day, no matter how little, and sticking to it is enough to start building the habit.

Find an accountability buddy—someone who knows about your plan and is willing to give you a push when you feel like slacking off.

Join a Team or make a Fitness Friend. It’s always harder to let someone else down than it is to let yourself off the hook.

Employ an excuse buster. Find a friend, family member whose judgment and opinion you respect. Each time you find yourself thinking about skipping an exercise session or blowing your meal plan, write down the reason for your choice. Share this reason with your excuse buster and get her honest opinion about whether the reason for your choice is reasonable or just an excuse. You’ll probably find that this makes it a lot harder for you to believe your own rationalizations.

Take it one day at a time, stay focused, and stay consistent.

Are you consistent with your exercise/workout routine? Do you find it harder to be consistent with diet or exercise? Comment below your thoughts, until next time have a great day x

Source
http://www.womenfitness.net/consistency.htm

3 Simple Ways to Build Consistency

You don’t have to be an expert to figure out that consistency is pretty essential to successfully change your life, your health, and your weight. But it’s also pretty clear that building a consistent routine of regular exercise and healthy eating is not an easy thing to do.

You start off the day with the best intentions—to exercise, track all your food, and make healthy choices. But then life happens. One of the kids is sick, the babysitter is late, the snowplow blocked your driveway, the boss asks you to work overtime, or any one of a hundred other surprises that can really wreck your day. Before you know it, your plan is in trouble and your prospects for "sticking to it" aren’t looking very good. In fact, things are probably going to get worse as the day goes on. By the end of the day, you have no energy left for exercise, and the task of preparing a healthy meal feels like a big burden when what you really want is a break. Something has to give.

More often than not, "what gives" is your plan to exercise and eat right. When it’s hard to do everything, the things most likely to go undone are those that don’t affect or involve anyone but you—especially if those things aren’t exactly your favorite things to do anyway.

So how do you change this pattern? With the three rules for building consistency.

These three simple rules, when followed faithfully, will make it easier for you to be consistent with your healthy lifestyle habits—even on the toughest days.


Rule #1: Never tell yourself “I’m not motivated.” 
That’s not the real problem, unless you really don’t want to lose weight or live a healthy lifestyle. As long as you do want these things, you have all the motivation you need.

It may be true that sometimes you don’t want to exercise, or that you really want to stop and get fast food rather than cooking dinner. That’s understandable, but it doesn’t mean you’re not motivated. It just means that you want two different and opposing things, and you have to make a decision. Telling yourself that you lack motivation is just a way of denying that you really do have a choice. It makes the problem seem mysterious and out of your control, and it makes you feel less powerful than you really are, because you lack something (the motivation) you need. Not true!

In the long run you’ll do better if you acknowledge that the choice is yours to make. You can choose either option, without making excuses or inventing a theory like “lack of motivation” to justify it. Then, pay attention to how you feel about the choice you made, and decide whether that is how you want to feel most of the time.

Being consistent does not mean being perfect. (There are going to be days when you decide to do something other than stick to your exercise and diet routine, and that’s fine.) But becoming consistent does mean giving yourself the power to choose. 


Rule #2: Build momentum one step at a time. It’s never easy to change old habits or start new routines. Studies show that it takes anywhere from 21 to 40 days to really turn a new behavior into a persistent habit. And during that time, you’re going to have to work at it pretty diligently—even when you don’t feel like it.

The key to long term consistency is building momentum. The hardest part is always getting things started. But once you’re moving, staying in motion and picking up speed becomes a lot easier. There are a lot of ways you can gradually build momentum during those first few weeks. Here are some examples:

• Start with something that’s pretty easy to manage and build up from there. Set a goal of one 10-minute exercise session per week. Then increase it to two 10-minute sessions. Gradually add minutes to each workout (and eventually add one or more additional workouts to your week), until you're exercising as long and as frequently as you should in order to reach your goals. The simple act of setting aside some time for exercise every day, no matter how little, and sticking to it is enough to start building the habit.
• Find an accountability buddy—someone who knows about your plan and is willing to give you a push when you feel like slacking off.
• Join a Team or Challenge here at SparkPeople. It’s always harder to let someone else down than it is to let yourself off the hook.
• Employ an excuse buster. Find a friend, family member, or SparkPeople member whose judgment and opinion you respect. Each time you find yourself thinking about skipping an exercise session or blowing your meal plan, write down the reason for your choice. Share this reason with your excuse buster and get her honest opinion about whether the reason for your choice is reasonable or just an excuse. You’ll probably find that this makes it a lot harder for you to believe your own rationalizations.

Rule #3: Always have a plan B. 
Because life is unpredictable and complicated, you need to have plan B ready—even before you actually need it. Plan B is an alternative way to stay consistent with your goals when your regular routine (or something else) doesn’t work out as planned. Obviously, you can’t foresee every single problem that might come up. But most of the time, the things that get in your way are things that happen fairly often—like kids getting sick, extra hours at work, or days when you just don’t feel very energetic. Those surprises won't throw you off track if you plan ahead. For example, have a friend or family member lined up to stay with your kids so you can make it to the gym; stock your freezer with some healthy meals when you're short on time; stash your exercise clothes at the office for a quick workout when you can't get away.

Put a little time into identifying the most common problems that disrupt your healthy routine, and plan (in advance) what you can do to handle these problems without sacrificing your diet and exercise routine. Then all you’ll have to do is put your plan B into action.


Following these three simple rules will help you overcome some common obstacles while building the momentum you need to stay consistent. At the very least, you’ll be able to take all those lemons that life hands you, and make some good (and diet-friendly) lemonade out of them.


Source
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/motivation_articles.asp?id=759

How Important Is Consistency in Fitness?

Time to take an informal poll. Who here fits in two strength training sessions, 1-2 sprint/interval sessions and 3-5 hours of walking or low level cardio on top of ample play time – every single week? I’m betting there’s still a lot of hands raised in this crowd, but I’m going to wager I lost quite a number as the list went on. In an ideal world with a perfect schedule, we’d all consistently reach these goals. The best results come from this general protocol. That said, this level of regularity is probably the exception rather than the rule if you’re talking about the long-term – month after month, year after year. And, yet, plenty of us are in great shape – even if we didn’t always fit in the above full regimen. Hmm… Maybe the concept of consistency is more nuanced than we normally give it credit for.

The fact is, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to skip workouts now and then. You’re sick. Your kids are sick (and it’s the kind where there’s really no getting away). A minor catastrophe at work keeps you (long) after hours. You overdid it during your last workout or are paying for a weekend warrior stint that pushed you far beyond your comfort zone. You spent weeks dedicated to P90X or some other high octane routine, and now you’re totally burned out on it. You joined a gym and became a regular in a couple of classes, but now you’re not feeling it anymore. Maybe you tend to jump from thing to thing, experimenting with equipments and trends here and there. Like most people, you go through periods of consistency, even intense dedication, and then you settle out into phases of rest or even brief recess.

However erratic this might sound to some people, I’d venture to say our ancestors lived similarly changeable patterns of activity. There were in many regions, after all, seasons of migration for humans and for animals. With those migrations came hunting spurts as well as times of intense work on new shelters or winter preparations. A hundred different factors might have slanted Grok’s activity from one end of the spectrum to the other. Yet, it all evened out at some point.

Whatever the varied reasons behind our missed workouts in the present day, there’s this essential truth. The body requires adequate recovery from physical exertion to maximize its gains. Heavy exertion, after all, creates muscle damage, and the body then needs to repair that damage. Fitness, as it happens, accrues during recovery – not during the workout. Generally speaking, the harder you worked out, the longer you need to recover.

Working out manically – whether it’s spending hours every day on chronic cardio or not observing smart recovery time between lifting or other strength training sessions – won’t give you the results you deserve, and it’s frankly a waste of time and effort.

The fact is, life happens and sometimes the body is just tired. Pushing it isn’t going to help – especially if you’re low on mental or physical reserves.

If you’ve had poor sleep lately, for example, you’ll almost inevitably have a less productive workout. While light to moderate activity may help you modulate your energy and even support better sleep, intensive exercise probably won’t do you any favors. Not only are you more prone to injuries, but the added strain on an already off-kilter system may worsen the stress of sleep deprivation.

Even excessive mental stress can likewise alter your body’s response to exercise. Subjects in one study who were undergoing significant life stress events or perceived emotional stress showed impaired recovery following a heavy resistance training protocol. Their actual recovery of both muscular function as well as their recovery from fatigue and soreness took a hit for 96 hours (nearly 4 days) following their heavy exertion compared to those without measures of significant perceived or life stress events. This likely isn’t news to anyone who’s experience in the gym shifted in the face of personal crisis or even considerable work or family related stress.

Sure, the fitter you are, the more you have before you’re truly out of basic shape, but those working at a high maintenance performance level will see dips in those performance measures pretty quickly. For most people, however, two to four weeks is enough for losses to begin accumulating, and VO2 max (a key measure for cardiovascular fitness) tends to recede first with muscle mass losses on the heels. In one small study, non-exercising but otherwise “healthy” young men reduced activity from roughly 10,500 steps to around 1300. Two weeks later, their VO2 max had declined by 7% as did their insulin sensitivity and lean leg mass.

When we’re talking about consistency, however, we’re not talking about long hiatuses. We’re talking days here and there – with more workouts made than missed. Sometimes, we curtail rather than abandon our efforts as we navigate a gap in motivation or look for a new interest that will renew our dedication. And yet we’re still soundly on the fitness path.

Perhaps the most illuminating point about consistency can be found in looking more closely at the word itself. Consistency doesn’t just suggest a regular frequency per se but a general steadiness, an unfluctuating focus.

Consistency is an aspect – and tool – of discipline, but it’s not the core feature. Some people can stick to a routine like nobody’s business. Others would be rebelling outright if told they had to “do” their fitness in any kind of uniform way – whether it be the schedule or type of exercise they pursue. Nonetheless, over the course of a given time, they end up exercising a lot – as much or maybe even more than someone who makes a formula out of it. One way isn’t necessarily better than another.

In keeping with that, let’s pull back in our wordsmithing for the day and look at the concept of “consistent with.” Synonymous with it are phrases like “compatible with,” “congruent with,” “in tune with.” Here’s where we get to the meat of the matter.

Commitment is the real center here. If we’re committed, we’ll do what’s necessary to maintain if not progress our fitness – however loosely (and sometimes inconsistently) that actually happens. The heart of commitment is a steady focus. Workout inconsistencies aren’t necessarily undermining to that principle – or how strongly it operates in our fitness.

How about leaving some room for recalibration as well as real life? What would happen if we give up the pursuit-withdrawal chase of perfection and settle into the experience of self-trust – a value put into practice with the likes of daily or weekly minimums, self-care, health integrity, etc.?

How many of us then would be raising our hands – and feeling better about our fitness commitment? Maybe the outcomes tell us more than our schedules ever could.

Thanks for reading, everyone. How does “consistency” operate in your fitness. Offer your thoughts, and have a great end to the week.

Source
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-important-is-consistency-in-fitness/#axzz3i5NKIES0