By now you recognize that controlling calorie intake and increasing calorie expenditure are essential to losing weight. Hopefully you have adopted daily routines that will eventually lead to the weight loss you desire. Perhaps you’re walking every morning for thirty minutes or playing tennis every Monday and Thursday. Maybe you’ve joined the local gym and committed yourself to working out three days a week. In short: you are on your way to achieving the body you’ve always dreamed of. Congratulations! Whether you accomplish this in three weeks or nine months is not relevant. In fact, it has been said the slower the weight loss, the longer it will stay off.

Now you must apply step three: Permanent Lifestyle changes

The recent changes you’ve made must become permanent if you wish for your weight loss to become permanent. By very definition, “diet� is short-term. You are not on a diet! You are permanently altering your lifestyle. This is critical for you to comprehend; so don’t focus solely on calorie reduction and calorie burning. If you do, you will ultimately fail because your old habits will return and you will quickly regain your unwanted weight.

It is important the activities you chose for calorie-burning are fun activities. If you hate tennis, don’t play it! If you hate running, don’t run! You must find activities that you actually enjoy. This is critical for your lifestyle changes to become permanent. Not everyone is suited to become a gym rat and spend three to four hours a day pumping iron. If going to the gym is not your thing, don’t go! How about riding a bike? Flying a kite? Burning-calories should not be associated with something you dislike. It is important that you find activities you enjoy that have the added benefit of burning calories. Failure to find those activities will result in the slow erosion of your willpower to perform activities you hate and that will eventually lead to gaining the weight back.

Remember: the goal is not weight loss. The goal is a healthier lifestyle. Natural weight loss – plus maintaining your ideal weight, is an added benefit of a healthy lifestyle.

Copyright 2007, Christian Blake. This article may be freely republished as long as the author's byline and hyperlinks are retained.

Christian helps promote the following websites: Orange County Weight Loss Clinic and Orange County Writer