Yo-yo dieting doesn't help you accomplish your weight-loss goal, which is to lose weight and keep it off. And a cycle of weight loss followed by weight gain poses significant health risks, including heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gallstones, diabetes and depression. Decide that you will lose weight and keep it off. Embark on a new, healthy lifestyle that includes daily exercise and a calorie-wise, balanced diet.
Step 1
Set a goal for how much weight you want to lose. First set a total weight-loss goal. Use an online ideal weight calculator to estimate a healthy weight for your height and gender. Then, set a short-term, process-focused goal for how much weight you want to lose each week until you reach your target weight. Many health and fitness experts, such as MayoClinic.com, advise that you lose no more than 1 or 2 lbs. per week. Losing weight more quickly than that necessitates drastic changes that you likely can't sustain. To lose 1 lb. per week, you need to eliminate 500 calories from your diet each day, either by exercising more or eating fewer calories or by doing both.
Step 2
Identify and eliminate empty calories -- food that gives you calories but little nutrition -- from your diet. Find at least 500 calories you can eliminate from your typical daily intake. Cut out sweet, starchy and snack foods. Replace full-calorie soda, juice and alcohol with diet soda, green tea and water or non-calorie flavored water. One by one, replace white rice, white bread and pasta with brown rice and whole-grain bread and pasta.
Step 3
Decrease the fat in your diet. Cut out fatty, fried and fast foods. Minimize cheese, heavy oils, margarine, butter and creamy sauces. Replace fatty meats with lean, skinless chicken and turkey breast, and use non- or low-fat dairy, such as skim milk or low-fat yogurt, instead of whole dairy products.
Step 4
Expand your consumption of vegetables and fruits. Vegetables and fruits should cover at least half your plate, according to the 2010 recommendations of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Vegetables are filled with vitamins and minerals but are low in calories, so you can fill your plate guilt free. Eat salads and incorporate vegetables into main dishes to expand their presence in your diet.
Step 5
Shrink your portions. Many who carry extra weight have portion-distortion. They take larger portions than they need to maintain a healthy weight. Follow the recommended portion sizes on recipes. Use a measuring cup initially while you retrain your brain to expect more reasonable portion sizes. Eat only 3 or 4 oz. of meat, which will be about the size deck of playing cards.
Step 6
Engage in a daily fitness program that includes cardio exercise, such as walking, jogging, running, swimming or biking. Do at least 30 minutes of moderately intense cardio exercise most days of the week, suggests MayoClinic.com. If you are out of shape, start slowly and progress toward increasingly challenging exercise. For example, if you can't walk for 30 minutes, walk for 15 minutes and add a couple of minutes each day until you reach your target duration. Likewise, steadily increase the pace of the exercise until you can sustain 30 to 60 minutes of moderately intense cardio. This would include, for example, walking at 3 mph, running at 6 mph or biking at 12 to 14 mph.
Step 7
Weigh yourself once a week around the same time of day. If you have not lost weight, you need to eliminate more calories from your diet, increase the frequency, duration or intensity of your exercise, or both.
References
- BodyBuilding.com: How Many Calories Are You Burning?
- MayoClinic.com: Weight Loss: 6 Strategies for Success
- National Institutes of Health: Gallstones
- U.S. Department of Agriculture: USDA Dietary Guidelines 2010
- "US News and World Report"; The Ups and Downs of 'Yo-Yo' Dieting; Karen Pallarito; October 2008
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