Losing Weight the Old-Fashioned Way

You don't have to turn to diet pills or bariatric surgery to lose weight, though such methods are being increasingly normalised. Many people become convinced that they have so much weight to lose that it is impossible for them to ever reach a healthy size. However, it is generally a negative mindset, lack of willpower and impatience that prevent such individuals from achieving their weight loss goal. You can lose weight the good old-fashioned way, but you have to learn to be patient and to embrace habits that facilitate long-term weight management.

Basically, this means learning to control your calorie intake, so that you have a rough idea of how many calories your body is expending, and you are able to adapt your diet accordingly. If you are particularly active, you can obviously get away with consuming a greater number of calories, whereas if you do very little exercise you have to be more cautious about the number of calories you take on board. Losing weight the old-fashioned way means getting used to calorie counting and making time for regular exercise, since weight loss is only achieved by building up a calorie deficit.

By getting into the habit of choosing lower calorie foods over higher calorie, less nutritious foods and reducing your portion sizes at meal times, it should be easier for you to keep off the weight you lose. Many people are able to lose significant amounts of weight, but find that because they lost weight whilst on a crash diet, they regain the weight once they go back to eating their normal poor diet. This can be extremely frustrating, especially if you get used to alternating between starving yourself and eating whatever you feel like, with your weight yo-yoing up and down in the process.

You may not lose weight as quickly as you'd like by embracing sensible changes to your diet and increasing your activity levels gradually, but at least you have a better chance of making healthy eating and regular exercise part of your lifestyle. At the end of the day, you're only going to be able to maintain a healthy weight if you're prepared to work on getting the balance right between the number of calories you consume and the number you expend. Once you have reached your goal weight, you will only have to make a few tweaks to your diet to be able to stay at that weight.

The alternative is to take drastic measures such as surgery and pills, which may help initially with weight loss, but will not prepare you for a life-time of weight management, which also goes for extreme diets. To lose weight the good old-fashioned way requires you to get used to the idea that you have to exercise restraint at meal times, avoid eating too many snacks and increase your activity levels, so that you are in a better position to control your weight.