Losing weight and keeping it off takes hard work, diligence and implementing lifelong healthy weight management habits to operate at an optimum level for everyone, including the disabled. Disabled individuals face additional hurdles due to functional issues but can still lose weight while improving overall health. Consult with your doctor first since your health condition may warrant special consideration.
Change Mental Outlook
Changing your negative feelings, actions and thinking patterns towards physical activity and eating healthy plays a key role in losing weight, according to the Pennington Nutrition Series. Develop a positive outlook with a “can do” attitude to increase your success. Think of how your diet and exercise helps your long-term health.
Develop An Exercise Plan
Observing and recording your behavior plays a key role in developing lifelong healthy habits, according to the Pennington Nutrition Series. Developing a plan and keeping a journal helps monitor behavior and can be used to correct self-defeating habits. Getting together with your doctor and developing an exercise plan can be a good way to lose weight for the disabled. Exercise plans take into consideration what type and level of exercise your particular disability can best benefit from, according to the NCPAD. Record your exercise plan and keep track of the time of day that you exercise, how long and how you feel to help monitor your progression.
Maintain Food Journal
Recording your food consumption habits plays a key role in developing healthy eating habits for life. Start a food journal to keep track of your food consumption, the time of day that you ate the food, calorie count and your emotions when you eat the food to help monitor your caloric intake and improve your weight loss program, according to the American Heart Association.
Highlight Healthy Foods
Safely losing weight means eating a well-balanced diet consisting of low-calorie whole grains, lean protein including legumes, fruits and vegetables in order to keep nutritional and energy levels intact. Legumes include lentils, split peas and a variety of beans such as soy beans and foods such as tempeh, tofu, soymilk, soy burgers and soy cheeses. In addition to choosing low-fat foods, prepare foods in a low-fat manner to save on calories and fat.
Enjoy Comfort Foods
Instead of depriving yourself of your favorite comfort foods, a good way to lose weight for the disabled involves using moderation. Eat a smaller portion or enjoy certain foods weekly instead of daily. Cut a candy bar into bite-size portions and freeze for later use. Or, use healthy substitutions to lower the calorie content, such as replacing whole milk with nonfat milk while making macaroni and cheese, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Get Cardio
Increase your physical activity to include a variety of cardiovascular, or aerobic, activities. Cardio activities burn more calories by increasing your heart rate for an extended period of time while working your major muscle groups. Choose from a variety of activities to lower your chances of becoming bored and quitting your exercise program. Cardio exercise can also reduce risks of developing health ailments such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Examples of cardio include swimming and water aerobics, brisk walking or manual wheelchair propelling, bicycling either with the hands or feet, wheelchair sports and dancing.
Increase Lifestyle Activities
If scheduled exercise does not appeal to you, increase your level of daily activities in order to burn calories and lose weight, according to the Pennington Nutrition Series. Instead of driving your car short distances, use your manual wheelchair or walk. Rearrange furniture with the aid of another. Walk your seeing eye dog more often, park your car farther away from the building and manually commute to the building or do more landscaping and gardening. If hearing-impaired, have a friend familiar with sign language join you on your walking trip to the city for safety purposes.
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