Weight loss for Brides
By: Gavin Walsh | Posted: 15th December 2005
Congratulations, you have met the one for you and have made that solid commitment to one and other...you're getting married!
The worries and anxiety usually start about 6 months or so from the wedding. The bride starts to think of the big day she dreamt so much about as a girl and the fact that it's now going to happen…and happen very soon.
Most brides realise that on the big day they are going to be the centre of attention. Friends and family are all there waiting in anticipation for you to walk through those doors so they can have a look at how beautiful you look in your dress. But this is the problem; everyone will be staring at you expecting you to look fantastic! So it's no wonder with all those eyes on you that you want to look your best.
With most Brides the goal is to lose weight and tone up. I am right? So, where do you start? You need to tackle your weight loss or more in particularly fat loss from all angles. Don't think that just by eating low fat foods you're going to achieve your dream body. You need to focus on sound nutrition and exercise. These are the key components for losing fat without one of these components its going to take a lot longer to achieve success.
First things first, you need to set some solid goals. What weight, dress size, etc do you want to be. If you don't know this, then how will you ever know if you have succeeded?
Once you have decided your ideal shape and size ask yourself is this realistic and most importantly achievable in your time frame. Once you have agreed on your goals make sure you write them down and place them somewhere visible, a great place is on the refrigerator this way every morning you will see your goals and start your day more focused.
Furthermore you need to divide your overall goal up; it's no good reaching for the highest apple in the tree first! You will stay motivated by achieving smaller more manageable goals frequently rather than aiming for the big one with little success.
Also, chart your progress on a graph so that you have something more visual that illustrates that you're on the right track, after all weight loss is a slow and steady process and sometimes it will feel like nothing is happening.
You want to lose weight, but hold on for a second is it your weight that bothers you or your shape? Would you be happy with your weight if you were a smaller size? What I am trying to say is that you need to lose fat, not weight! Too many people focus on weight. Instead of measuring your success on scales alone, which can sometimes be misleading especially if you are becoming more toned, you should have other measures which can signal success.
Another method and possibly the most effective for those at home are to simply measure your hips, waist, thighs and arms. If you are losing fat then you should see these measurements reduce over the coming months.
As mentioned earlier, diet or more importantly your nutrition is a key component of your fat loss program. Diets tend to be short term and very rarely work. Ok, maybe if you have been eating junk food all your life then you need to change your eating habits drastically if you want to lose weight but most people nowadays know what's good and what's bad. You need to take a good look at what you are currently eating on a day to day basis, how much of it you are eating and when you are eating it. There is a fine line when it comes to losing fat. If you eat too much, obviously, you will put weight on. If you have eaten food containing the same amount of calories you have burnt through the day then you will not change weight. However, did you know if you don't eat enough food you can also gain fat? Yes, you can actually gain fat by not eating enough! Your body is a very intelligent piece of equipment and will sense something is not right if you are going hungry for a sustained period of time. Your body will switch to starvation mode and store body fat rather than burn it. Ever time you are hungry or starving your body will slow its metabolism down to a crawl in order to preserve energy and calories. If you were to continue this over a long period of time, which is what happens if you follow a low calorie diet. Your body will burn muscle first rather than fat and because your body can not sustain these low levels of energy you inevitably go back to eating the way you were before starting the diet putting more weight on due to the fact you have less muscle to burning fewer calories! NEVER starve yourself or follow a low calorie diet, it will do more harm than good!
Rather than following a diet a great method is simply listen to your body. You would be surprised how many of us don't listen to what are body tells us, especially when it comes to eating. It's not always been this way though. Back when you were a baby, you listened to your body. For example, when you were hungry you would start to cry. Your mother would feed you, but did you drink the whole bottle? Not always, you listened to your body and when you were satisfied you stopped drinking, no matter how much was left in the bottle. If only we did this now! Far too many of us have gotten out of the habit of listening to when we are full. As we got older society told us to eat everything we were given. How many times as a child did you hear your parents tell you to "finish your food, there are people starving in…!" so you finished your food even though you might not have wanted it.
From now on listen to your body, think of a scale between 0-10. 0 being hungry, 5 being satisfied, 7 being full and 10 needing to loosen your belt! You should try to stay between 0 and 5 for most of the day. One thing you should note though, 0 is for hunger not starving, do not confuse this. If you are starving your body is already in starvation mode and will burn little calories from fat. Eat only when you have hunger pangs and eat only till you are satisfied. Take your time whilst eating, it can take upto 20 minutes for the food you have eaten to register.
At first this method of eating will take sometime to master and occasionally you will pass 5 on the scale but keep at it because if you do you will lose weight, guaranteed!
Ok, so now your diet is in good shape, what now? A comprehensive weight-control program, one which includes exercise, is the only effective treatment for long-term weight reduction and weight-control. Unfortunately for those of you who don't like exercise, if you want results, not just any results, if you want the best results possible you need to start exercising.
The best thing to do when starting an exercise program is to consult a fitness professional. Today's fitness professionals are able to help you in a number of important ways:
-Designing fitness programs that achieve far greater results in much less time than most people think possible.
-Decrease risk of injury while exercising significantly.
-Keeping you motivated and helping you set realistic goals.
-Acting as a role model and support person to help you stay focused on living a healthy lifestyle.
And finally be patient! Losing that excess fat is not easy after all if it was that easy everyone would be thin! There will be ups and downs but come the big day if you have been determined and committed towards your goals you will look more beautiful than ever and your husband-to-be will think he's the luckiest man alive!
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Tags: worries, shape, anticipation, doors, anxiety, brides, time frame, weight loss, friends and family, refrigerator, angles, low fat foods, sound nutrition, dream body, centre of attention, those eyes, dress size