The Best Time To Start An Exercise Program

 The best time to start a weight loss program was last year; the second best time is right now.
When is the perfect time to start your exercise or weight loss program? When you have more time, when you have finished some project at work, when the stars have alined.  There will always be a reason why you should wait to start your exercise program.  My advice is to start with a very small step that will not overwhelm you.  For example, let say you don't exercise at all and you would really like to start .  I would begin with 3 aerobic workouts per week of 5 minutes each.  Yes, I did say 5 minutes each! If 5 minutes is too long, do only 1 minute.  The reaction I usually get when I tell people to do only 5 minutes is, that 5 minutes will not do anything.  Besides, don't all the fitness experts advise that 20 minutes is the minimum aerobics you should do 3 to 5 times per week?  Well, they are actually wrong!  If somebody does not do any aerobics, 1 minute of aerobics is better than no minutes.
So, start today with one minute of aerobics and go from there.  As you getting into the habit of exercise make the aerobics longer but I would never exceed 40 minutes per aerobic workout. 
Of course for a workout to be complete you must do some form of resistance training.  Again start small.  I would personally start with 5 basic exercises.  One for the chest, like push ups, one for the back, like bent over rows, one for the legs, like squats, one for the abs, like ball crunches and one for the lower back, like hyperextensions on the ball.  The whole thing should not take you more than 10 minutes.  Later on you can add more exercises as you getting more comfortable with exercising.
Remember, first you must develop the exercise habit and once you have developed it, push to get results.  This way you have a much smaller chance of burning out. 
 Starting an exercise program is easier than you might think.

Few Things You Should Know About Losing Weight

Most of the weight loss programs I see advertised tell you how fast you can lose weight with their system.  The question I have for those weight loss programs is this:  What is the point of losing weight fast, if you are going to regain all the weight back and in many cases with interest?  I guess it is good for business because their customers will have to come back again and again each year to lose the same weight over again.

Here are some facts you need to know about losing weight and keeping it off.

Fact #1: Your current eating and activity habits are responsible for the shape you are in today.  The only way you can lose weight and get in shape permanently is to change the habits that got you there in the first place.

Fact #2:  In order to lose weight fast, you must change all your bad habits at once.  The problem with changing all your bad habits at once is that you will overwhelm yourself and burnout and regain all the weight back, no matter how great the results are.  I have heard many people claim that once you see results you will be motivated to maintain them.  That’s not true, and don’t even take my word for it.  Just think about it.  How many people do you know who lose weight only to gain it back?  If results alone where enough to motivate them to maintain those results, than how come the vast majority of people who lose weight, gain it back?

The only way to lose weight, if you want to keep the weight off after you lose it, is to lose the weight by making all the necessary changes in your eating and activity habits slowly over time, not all at once.  Yes, it may take you few extra weeks or months to lose weight, but at least you won’t have to lose the same weight again next year.  Again, what is the point of losing the weight fast, only to regain it all back and in many cases with interest?

You can eat whatever you want if you learn to eat only when hungry.

I just learned that today is the National Eat What You Want Day.  Well, if you learn to listen to your body, everyday can be Eat What You Want Day.  As I have said in my book "Eat It All By Eating Right" it's not just about the food you or don't eat, but also about why you eat and how you eat, something that the diet industry is still not getting.  The most important thing we can do for our weight and health is to first learn the difference between true hunger and cravings and second try to eat only when we are hungry at least most of the time.  Following this rule will do you more good than eating any healthy food without being hungry.

My latest book "Eat It All By Eating Right" has been published

Although I have published 3 book before this one, Eat It All By Eating Right is the first book I published that I strongly feel it contains all the information you need to achieve permanent weight loss.  In my past books I always felt that there was something missing and that is what drove me to keep writing.   For information on my new book go to my website www.liveyourwaythin.com and on amazon.com

Your Attitude Will Determine Your Weight Loss Success

The one thing that will have the biggest effect on whether or not you achieve your weight loss goal is your attitude.  You must have a winning attitude.  Many people, although they would like to lose weight and get in shape, deep down don’t truly believe they can do it.  One of the reasons they think that is because they have failed so many times before. They have trained themselves to expect failure.  As the saying goes, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.”

     So, what is a winning attitude?  Whether you realize it or not, we all talk to ourselves.  Sometimes the talk is negative and sometimes it’s positive.  People who don’t have a winning attitude talk to themselves like this:  “I can’t control myself. If I see a piece of chocolate, I must have it. What’s the point of losing weight; I’m only going to gain it all back.  I can’t lose weight, I’m genetically programmed to be overweight. I’m fine compared to everybody else. I don’t have time to exercise. I can’t stop eating. I can’t do this. “

    You see, the focus is on why we can’t do what we need to do and why we shouldn’t even bother.  A person who truly believes any of those statements will never be able to lose weight, and here is why:  Your brain is like a search engine.  You put your question in, it comes up with answers.  The problem is, that it will not reject any questions or statements that are not true, it will simply come up with answers.  If you say to yourself, “I can’t lose weight,” you brain finds reasons to support that statement.

     This does not help you, so what can you do about it?  Ask a better question, or make a better statement.  The best questions to ask are “How” questions.  Instead of saying , “I can’t lose weight” change that to, “How can I lose weight?,” or “What can I do today to move closer to my weight loss goal?” These are much better questions because now your brain will start searching for things you can do today to help you move closer to your goal.

     Having a winning attitude will help tremendously to keep you positive as you go through the process of eliminating bad habits and adopting new ones.  As you might already know, there will be times when you will fall off your weight loss plan, and that’s normal.  Having a winning attitude will help you get back on the plan.  All my successful clients fell off the plan at some point, but they got right back on it.  The difference between people who succeed and people who do not is that, people who succeed learn from any setbacks, shrug it off and move on.  People who are not successful dwell on setbacks, justify their failure, and quit.  Let me tell you ahead of time, you will have setbacks as you are trying to lose weight; they’re part of the learning curve.  Just learn from your setbacks and move on.

Learn to control yourself not your enviroment

When people try to lose weight, many nutritionist advise their clients to eliminate from their house all the foods they are not supposed to eat.  I think that is a big mistake and here is the reason: What happens when you go to work and a coworker bring a food in the office that you are not supposed to eat? 

I believe, if you want to lose weight and keep it off you must learn to control yourself not your environment and there is a way to do that with a little will power.  Your "will" is like a muscle, the more you use it the stronger it get.

There is a price to pay either way

You can pay the price of discipline or you can pay the price of regret, your choice. So you see, either way there is a price to pay. The price of regret is a lot greater than the price of discipline, so why don't you make up your mind right now to pay the price of discipline (with your exercise program and/or better eating habits) so you can enjoy all the benefits in the near future. It well worth the price!