The rules are simple. Changing your behavior is not. Accept that. It is natural that you may ‘fall off the wagon’ sometimes. That’s normal and expected. Just make sure that you commit yourself to getting back on the wagon, before you fall off. Believe that you can ride the bicycle and you will ride it. If you don’t believe you can ride the bike, then you’ll always fall and probably decide that you’re not going to try again since you’ve already made up your mind that you don’t believe you can ride the bike. I’ll tell you a trick to believing in anything…feelings. Feel that you are already riding. If you feel it, you believe it. Following below are what I call the HEALTHY WEIGHT RULES. If you abide by these rules, you will:
• lose weight if you are too heavy
• maintain your weight if and when you are in healthy range
• gain weight if you are too skinny
RULE #1. The amount of calories you consume must equal the amount of calories your body burns.
These are based upon normal body mechanics. In basic terms, metabolism, is a series of process by which food is converted into energy and products needed to sustain life. When the body converts food into energy, we call it digestion. The body creates heat during this conversion process. In laymen’s terms we say the body is burning calories.
During your quest for good health, you may have heard about calories, more specifically counting calories, but perhaps have not taken the time to understand exactly what a calorie is or the reason why all this attention is given to calories. A calorie is a unit of energy-producing potential in food. The potential of energy production from food, otherwise known as its calories, have been measured and that information is readily available and usually found right on the packaging.
Perhaps you have learned about it, but haven’t been able to stay true to a diet because it’s too difficult to be practical about how to count calories in everyday life. Well, I’m here to slap you in the face. Guess what. In order to make a change in your lifestyle habits, you must make a change in your lifestyle habit. This does not have to be difficult. It just has to be something you really, I mean really, want to do. But it’s SIMPLE! Initially, you will need some tools:
• small notebook (so you can write down what you eat)
• a small calorie counter pocketbook (the source from which you’ll write down your consumption into your notebook)
• a kitchen scale, in grams preferably (to measure your food-in order to look up a food in a calorie book, you need to know how much of the food you have.)
• measuring cups and measuring spoons
RULE #2. Eat mostly unprocessed foods. The more raw foods, the more organic foods you consume the more nutrition you give your body. The more nutrition you give your body, the better the body functions. Nutrition is the nourishment that we obtain from food. Since food that is processed or grown with chemicals or in depleted soil or poisoned by toxic substances or infused with artificial ingredients, the nutritious elements become reduced or even non existent. The more food (calories) that we consume that are without nutritious value (empty), the less positive energy is created within the body. This leads to disease.
RULE #3. Exercise. The human body is meant to move. It is made for the purpose of being active. If you do not activate its muscles regularly in a fashion to keep them limber and strong, then they will lose their purpose. It’s best if you start with small increments that you can incorporate into your everyday routine. View (daily exercise tips) for some examples.
RULE #4. Eat in proper portions. Listen to your body as to when to eat, which will in most cases be about 6 meals per day. Please pay attention to what is meant by the word meals. Meals are simply a serving of food. This could be classified as a snack, dinner, breakfast, lunch; it can be a liquid or solid.
THE GOLDEN RULE: The more you practice the first four rules, the more you will find that it gets easier to accommodate this way of living. They become natural habits. You’ll start to feel more energy each day you’ll notice an increase in lean muscle mass while you’re shedding off excess fat mass. In fact, as you become more attuned to your body, you’ll notice that if you don’t practice these rules regularly, you’ll be more sensitive to feeling ill at ease. Your body will be telling you what it needs and this time you’ll be listening!!
Now let’s do a mind exercise. Imagine yourself exactly as you would be in your ideal universe. If you could transform your body to exactly what you want it to be, what would you envision it to look like? Your body, your vision of your body. Not some celebrity’s body, because that’s not your body, that’s theirs. Envision your body. Go ahead, close your eyes.
Open your eyes. Print these pages and GET STARTED!!!! Right now.
HEALTHY WEIGHT RULES