10 Steps To Drop Your Pounds

Believing that you're ready take off those extra pounds may not be enough to ensure weight loss success. You also need to be willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to actually lose the weight.

Here are the 10 steps to drop your pounds in easy way.

Step 1: Learn from your mistakes. --- Studies show that most people who lose weight and successfully keep it off are hardly diet novices--they've lost 10,20 or more pounds many times before. What finally turned things around? They learned from their mistakes. You need to look at past attempts as a learning experience, not a failure. Say to yourself, "I've done this three or four times--what's the pattern here?" If you can see it, then you don't have to repeat it.
If particular weight loss approach doesn't work for you, there's nothing wrong with starting from scratch.

Steps 2: Do it for yourself. --- Trying to lose weight to gain something else's approval rarely leads to success. But doing it because you want to feel in control of your life often does. Each time you turn down a piece of chocolate cake or step on the treadmill, you are taking control of your life, and that continual stream of positive reinforcement will help you stay motivated over time. And the feeling of regaining control of their lives through exercise and learning new skills such as portion control gave the women who were successful a sense of empowerment that helped them stay the course to long-term weight loss.

Steps 3: Identify your overeating triggers. --- Cleaning out your kitchen does reduce temptation. But the chips in your cup-board and the Haagen-Dazs in your freezer aren't the only things that can trip you up. A much better way to prepare is to go about life as usual and document it for a week or so: Keep a food diary, chart the events and emotions that lead you to eat, and log your workouts--even wear a pedometer to see how much incidental activity you get each day. You'll learn what riggers you to overeat and the shortcuts you're taking to cheat yourself on physical activity. "Reach the phone instead of ice cream."

Steps 4: Develop strategies for coping with triggers. --- When you're angry, what else could you do besides eat? Or when you're bored, fearful, or tense? It's good idea to make a list of options. It could be journaling, calling a friend, reading a book, taking a walk, pounding a pillow, or nurturing yourself in other, nonfood ways.

Steps 5: Change your thinking. --- Most people will need to eat less and exercise more. But it's more important to be willing to change the behaviors and thought patterns that set you up for failure. If you think you're going to fail, then you will be more likely to do so -- it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You need to say, "That's not me" and consistently practice that. For instance, tell yourself, "I'm the kind of person who can turn down food in social situations and who enjoys the feeling I get from exercising."

Steps 6: Figure out how to fit in exercise. --- Your success may depend on it. In an 18-month University of Pittsburgh study that tracked 104 women, ages 25-45, they found that those who combined diet with physical activity last more weight than the women who tried to drop pounds using either alone. What's more, exercising seemed to help the women in the study stick to their diets--as their activity level went up, their calorie intake went down.

Steps 7: Cut down on eating out. --- Limiting your dining out to restaurants that serve low-calorie meals or ordering food "your way" can still be risky. There are so many hidden calories in restaurant food. Veggies are usually tossed with butter (50 calories in 1/2 tablespoon); tomato sauces can be loaded with olive oil (120 calories in 1 tablespoon); and grilled fish maybe brushed with fat before cooking. And when you go to a restaurant, you may be tempted with "just try a bite" or "what about some wine or dessert?"
In this research it has found that the more people eat out during the week, the harder it is for them to shed pounds. Your best strategy: Limit restaurant meals to no more than once a week.

Steps 8: Get your spouse's support. --- In 2001 the university of Washington and a Weight Watchers, surveyed 25,000 married women to see hot their relationships influenced their attempts to lose weight. Half the women failed when their spouses weren't supportive. Less expected was the finding that many women succeeded when their spouses stayed completely out of it. the divide was about fifty-fifty. It just shows that there is no correct way. Each couple has to negotiate their own terms.

Steps 9: Believe that you will succeed. --- A recent study found a link between having "dream" weight loss goals and shedding pounds. The researchers found that women with an unrealistic goal--to lose significantly more weight after 18 months than women with less lofty goals. Though they didn't actually hit their dream weight, they felt inspired to keep going because they were confident they could stick to an eating plan and had relatively high self-esteem--all predictors of weight loss success.

And the last but not the least.

Steps 10: Have a contingency plan. --- It might be easier to lose weight if your life were regimented, but let's face it; stuff happens. That's why it's so important to have a contingency plan in palce for those tough weeks. Instead of giving up until the problem passes, try to figure out a way to continue. For example, you could go to bed an hour earlier in order to get up earlier for your morning walk. If that doesn't work, set a reduced goal (such as getting more incidental exercise). But don't get too comfortable with a trimmed-back workout. It's just a temporary solution. Get back to your original activity goal ASAP.

Hope you guys will follow these steps. Good luck!