Losing Weight and Maintaining Weight Post 3
Behavioral Modification:
Self-Awareness
It always amazes me when I ask people if they take time for themselves every day, like take a walk to relax or just sit and be alone to reflect on their lives, so many reply they don’t. I believe one of the most important things in life is to know who you are. What do you want out of life? What do you believe is important for you do in your life? Finding the answer to these questions means spending time with yourself mentally and spiritually to evaluate your belief, thoughts and feelings of self worth. Too many people are searching for answers to life outside themselves, instead of inside themselves.
Consequently, we lose sight of ourselves in the fast pace and stress of our daily lives and feelings of anxiety, frustration and self-doubt build. Quality of life declines in this type of environment and your energy to take care of yourself diminishes. When this happens we need to stop and take a look in the mirror and reevaluate our priorities.
When we take time to be aware of our needs, our desires and our inner-self, we ultimately achieve more peace and happiness. Finally, in being self aware, we strengthen our commitment by understanding the things we need to do to change ourselves for the better in order to become stronger and healthier people.
Time Management
When you wake up, you need to have a schedule for that day. For most of people, there are always things to be done and seemingly less time to get them done. The most successful and productive people keep a daily planner. If a daily planner is too overwhelming, simply make a daily checklist of your schedule, with your exercise time and meals included. Until these activities become part of your usual daily habits, you need to write them down.
Self- Monitoring
Self-monitoring keeps you focused on what you should be doing each day. Monitor daily food intake staying within your calculated recommendations. Keep a log of weekly exercise activities. Start a daily journal of your feelings, attitudes and thoughts. Daily monitoring is the best way to implement your fitness plan and increase long-term success.
Proper Nutrition + Regular Exercise:
It is important to think of proper nutrition and regular exercise as a unit. From a metabolic standpoint, weight loss and weight maintenance is purely a matter of balancing the amount of calories consumed (energy in) and the amount of calories you burn up with exercise (energy out).
Weight loss requires:
Energy Out (calories out) must be greater than Energy In (calories in)
Weight Maintenance requires:
Energy Out (calories out) is equal to Energy In (calories in)
Since calories are the main factor in weight management, lets look at how weight, food and exercise relate to calories.