Alternative Ways to Lose Weight

Anyone who has followed my journey to lose weight knows how pleased I am to finally be getting back into a healthier body thanks to a combination of diet, exercise and changing my mindset.  I love doing exercise now and can see the benefits of it and that’s why I was interested in this guest post by TheTherapyLounge about alternative ways to lose weight as this is something I have tried to lose weight in the past as I cannot survive on salads and apples alone.

However, an over emphasis on the skinny body, especially for women, is one of the most dispiriting traits of our age.  That aside, being fit, healthy and appropriately sized for our body mass is something we should all aim for.   Many women swing between wanting to emulate undersized models or celebrities and recognising that health, fitness and being the right size for their body mass is a far more appropriate objective.

For women who want to lose weight and have calculated their body mass index (BMI), experts agree that the only successful method for permanent weight loss is through a combination of diet and exercise (see NHS BMI).  Essentially this means a lifestyle change.  Women who believe they are overweight, but whose body mass index tells them otherwise, have in all likelihood succumbed to the seductive whisperings of marketing.  Though women in this category need to be aware of the health benefits of staying fit and healthy, they should not push themselves to achieve weight targets which will in the long term damage their health.

It has to be acknowledged, however, that there is a lot working against women in their efforts to maintain a healthy body weight.  Hidden fats and sugars in foods, tempting snacks between meals, processed food, sedentary lifestyles, pregnancy and so on all contribute to weight gain and sometimes seriously so. This is borne out by the most recent NHS statistical report on obesity, physical activity and diet, “In 2010, just over a quarter of adults (26 per cent of both men and women aged 16 or over) in England were classified as obese (BMI 30kg/m2 or over). For the same period, around three in ten boys and girls (aged 2 to 15) were classed as either overweight or obese (31 per cent and 29 per cent respectively).”

The NHS highlights the fact that in the UK there is a serious need to lose weight but successful weight loss cannot be divorced from a lifestyle change; this involves a commitment to achieving weight loss through a combination of a balanced diet and exercise.  There are numerous diets which can and do lead to weight loss but a further NHS report underlines the truism that to maintain weight loss long-term, new habits have to become part of daily life. “The key to keeping weight off is to make changes to your diet and lifestyle that you can stick to, and that means for life.  This also means accepting a steady rate of weight loss, rather than aiming for overnight success. Ditch the fad diets that promise your ideal weight in a matter of weeks. They don’t work in the long term.”

The task can be a challenging one, especially for women as they carry the main responsibility for family health and it is often tricky to introduce new routines into the hurly burly of family life.  Nevertheless, weight loss will occur by making incremental changes to your diet and to the amount of exercise you take.  Start small on both fronts and gradually increase the changes.  For example, for you and your family, instead of eating snacks between meals, change this habit by eating fruit instead.  This is made easier if you stop buying snacks and buy a variety of fruit so that there are different flavours available from which to choose.  Make it part of your routine to use fresh vegetables and salads in main meals.  On the exercise front, begin by exercising for 10 minutes every day, a brisk walk will suffice, and gradually increase the amount of time spent on your chosen activity until you reach about 30 minutes each day.

The complexities of the human personality are too intricate for most of us to understand and when changing our diet and exercise patterns are beyond our capacity it is perfectly reasonable to enlist the support of hypnotherapy by TheTherapyLounge.com where you will learn to understand how and why you have particular habits.  Help such as this gives you a new awareness about how your life habits have developed and hypnotherapy for weight loss with thetherapylounge.com provide you with the skills needed to foster a new approach to living and to managing weight loss for you and your family.

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