The first plan of action is taking a look at your eating behaviors. Figure out how the weight gain happened in the first place. Do you eat emotionally, mindlessly or have binge type behavior? Are your food choices or portions causing you a problem? Are you having trouble because of a lack of preplanning or having healthy foods available to you?

The more you understand why you do what you do, the better position you’re in to change what doesn’t work. Once you’ve identified where the problem is, the next step is to make one simple gradual change. Anything drastic is always temporary so it’s best to start small. One change headed in the right direction will  make a much greater impact than a complete overhaul which lasts only a short period of time. For example, if portion control is a problem, making the decision to leave over three bites every time you eat dinner may not seem so difficult. Believe it or not, those three bites each night over time add up and you will slowly replace your larger portion with a portion that’s more moderate. This type of change is likely to last because it’s a minor change that doesn’t require too much effort and is easy to incorporate into your eating plan.

Once you’ve gotten used to eating a smaller portion for dinner, you are more likely to attempt a new change such as replacing an unhealthy snack with a healthier one. You see that you were able to gain control over your portions at dinner, you feel good about the change and your ability to achieve a mini goal and the confidence you’ve gained encourages you to continue making another tweak in you eating habits. Also, the first habit is easily reinforced while the new habit is implemented.

This type of behavior leads to true, lasting weight loss because you’re slowly replacing old destructive habits with new healthy habits. No change is so drastic that it becomes too difficult to continue so there’s no reason to revert back to your old ways. Before you know it, you have a series of new healthy habits in place which have firmly replaced the old ones.

This New Year, the only resolution you need to make is to stop making the same frustrating resolutions that you’ve made in the past. This year, commit to making new healthy habits slowly and steadily.

Debi “The Mojo Coach”
www.TheMojoCoach.com
www.AskTheMojoCoach.com