Like many people who get stuck in the yo-yo diet cycle I have tried many different diet programs over the years with varying success. The normal pattern for me is to start a new diet and lose weight quickly then after about a month to 6 weeks I’m feeling slimmer and pretty pleased with myself for losing weight and I start to relax and slip back into my old eating habits. Then very slowly I start to put the weight back on, until after 3 months or so I decide it’s time to start another diet. Sound familiar? So how do you break the cycle?

The first thing to know if you don’t already is that crash diets DO NOT work. A crash diet will help you lose weight in the short term but at the same time your metabolism will slow which eventually leads to weight gain.

So what should you do? The first thing that helped me was keeping a food diary. I used to think that I ate about the same as my partner who has never been overweight, but when I started recording the amount I ate I realized I ate a lot more than I thought. It’s important you don’t cheat with a food diary – you must write everything down that you eat, even the little snacks and what you drink (lots of hidden calories).

The next step is to gradually replace some of you unhealthy calorie dense meals with healthier options, by doing this gradually you won’t feel like you’re starving yourself and will hopefully avoid those cravings. Healthy eating is the key to reducing calorie intake which is the first step towards burning body fat and losing weight. There are plenty of healthy eating diet programs available to help you identify the right foods to eat.

The next step is to start exercising; regular exercise will increase the amount of calories you burn and help to burn body fat. It’s important to find an exercise program that you are comfortable with. If you are very overweight there is no point going out and trying to run 10km straight away, you’ll do yourself more harm than good! Walking, Yoga and swimming are all good exercise to start with or if you lead a busy life and are pushed for time there a some good fat loss workouts that focus on interval training that take up as little as 15 minutes per day.

If you can make one very small change to your diet and exercise regime (for the better!) each day you will lose weight and keep losing weight over a long period of time.

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