With the new year, one of your resolutions is probably to lose weight. Well, diets are never an easy task to keep motivated at, believe me I know. Although many people think diets are just about eating healthy, there is a lot more to them than that. Here I will write some useful tips and tricks that will help you with your diet plans and hopefully keep you motivated!
Step 1: Introduce Yourself to Green Tea
Meet your new best friend, green tea. Many people do not know that green tea actually is a metabolism booster. Start drinking at least a glass of green tea a day. If you are anything like me, then you dislike the hot water with a tea bag, yuck. Thankfully there are other alternatives. You can find different green tea drinks at the grocery store that are made with REAL green tea, but a cold version. These ones obviously have sugar and other ingredients added, but nonetheless are made with real green tea. I use these as an alternative, and they taste delicious. As Abdul G. Dulloo, a researcher at the University of Geneva, Switzerland says, “Green tea has thermogenic properties and promotes fat oxidation beyond that explained by its caffeine content.” AKA it boosts your metabolism!
Step 2: Smoothies
Smoothies are a great alternative to introduce yourself to. Smoothies are completely healthy and taste great too. Start making smoothies a part of your everyday life. Have a smoothie every morning for breakfast. If you are feeling really risky, have one for lunch as well. I can support this by saying I lost ten pounds by living off of smoothies for three weeks, without changing my exercise habits. Here is the smoothie recipe I used, it is very simple to do.
Grab your blender and put in:
- 1 cup of juice. This is not just any ordinary sugary juice. I used the oasis juice brand, which has a variety of great flavours.
- 1/4 cup of Yogurt. You can use any flavour you want for this, but I personally think vanilla is best because you create the flavour you want with the fruit you put in.
- 1 cup of fruit. This can be fruit you have in your fridge or from a bag of frozen berries.
- 1/2 of a banana. The banana helps to make your smoothie actually smooth.
There you have it! A simple smoothie recipe that is yummy.
Step 3: Activities That You Actually Enjoy
Many people begin diets by getting themselves a membership to a gym and forcing themselves to go work out. Although this may work great for a couple weeks, often at times people slowly stop attending the gym. It is nothing to be ashamed of, the gym just is not the best place for everyone. This does not mean that you quit though! There are many other physical activities that you can partake in to get that desired exercise.
Maybe you did not like the gym because you would rather get your activity done privately. A great solution is to just look up some exercises that you can do straight from your own home. Every morning when you wake up, or before you go to bed (although morning is best), try to fit in time to do your daily exercises. Start small by limiting yourself to a small number of exercises until you feel that you can take on more. For instance, wake up and do ten pushups, ten sit-ups, etc. Oh, and don’t forget to stretch.
If you want to go out and get exercise but still dislike the gym, then there are many great opportunities everywhere for a variety of different physical activity you are bound to love. Try swimming, aquatics, yoga, hot yoga, take pole dancing classes, hoop classes, dance classes, spinning classes, join a community sports team, the possibilities are endless for fun ways to get some physical activity!
Step 4: Motivate Yourself
Motivation is the thing that most people lack when it comes to beginning a new diet plan. It is a significant struggle to keep yourself on track with your plan and get yourself out the door to do your exercise. You may start out strong with as much willpower as you may carry, but eventually, as the weeks go on most people begin to slowly forget their plans for dieting.
The solution to this problem is simple. You have to find a way to keep yourself motivated. There are so many different ways that you can do this. Maybe you like shopping; keep yourself motivated by allowing yourself to buy something nice for yourself every 5-10 pounds you lose! Treat yourself in different ways by setting a goal. Once you have achieved your goal, you can treat yourself with whatever motivation technique you use.
Another way to keep motivated is by making a calendar specifically for your diet. Mark down the different days you have a physical activity planned, write down what you are going to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on different days, write down a day you plan to have your goal achieved, etc. By doing this, you are allowing yourself to get set in a routine and motivate yourself to work towards your goal on the calendar.
Step 5: Grab a Buddy
One thing that causes people to give up on their exercise routines is the idea of going through the process alone. Having a friend there to work out with is great because it keeps both of you motivated to keep up and stick to it and it helps make the experience more enjoyable. Find something you both would enjoy doing (different classes or sports teams) and sign yourselves up for it. It is a great time to hang out, meet other people, and get your daily physical activity in. If your friend is really interested, the both of you can do your exercise and create a meal plan together. The both of you will help each other throughout your diet.
Step 6: Begin to Cut
Start to cut the foods out of your life that you really do not need to be having. I don’t mean give up snacking entirely, but there are healthier ways to snack that are just as delicious. Try to snack on pita bread and hummus instead of those salt and vinegar chips. Add more fruit and vegetables to your life. Give yourself smaller servings of the foods with a lot of carbs such as pasta. Give yourself smaller portions of those fatty foods and larger portions of fruit and veggies.
Step 7: Hide Your Scale
Weighing yourself is one of the most depressing things you can do. To keep track of your weight loss you will have to, but try to remain from doing it daily. You are not going to drop pounds every single day, so why weigh yourself? Weighing yourself every day and noticing you are not losing as fast as you would like just makes you upset and causes you to lack motivation. Stay away from that scale and keep your motivation because you are perfectly capable of getting to your desired weight!
Step 8: Get to It
You know many tips and tricks now for helping you along the way throughout your diet and goal. Now the last thing to do and to get yourself up and get to it! You are perfectly capable of achieving your goal with or without these tips, but hopefully they have been helpful for you.
Overall, getting started on your diet is not an easy task. It takes hard work, dedication, and motivation. It can be difficult to get our butts in gear when it comes to starting our diets, so hopefully these eight steps help you get the start you need for a healthier version of you in the new year!
Originally published on Hubpages.
Feature image via Pexels
