Just like most people on a diet I am often reading weight loss magazines. As a member of Slimming World I get the monthly magazine sent to my order each month and love a good read.
The stories that always interest me though is the ones were they have maintained their weight loss. Its like a New Year resolution – you can’t just do it for the short term it has to be a long term change!
Yes we could all lose a stone in the next 90 days but how many of us will actually keep it off for good?
So when you do read these stories you pay a lot more attention to them and I have found a common link with all of them.
Exercise!
Many of us moan and groan at exercise as we think about sweating in the gym or getting out of breath walking up a steep hill. But it does truly make a difference to your life.
I also find that it is a great way to kick start a quicker weight loss if you feel like your body is just not losing it at the rate you want it to.
So last week I increased my exercise in the gym. I was falling into a routine of simply power walking on the treadmill but not noticing that much as to how many calories I was burning.
So I changed my gym strategy to burning 400 calories and then whatever was left of my hour went into power walking on the treadmill as a cool down and then maybe do some press ups or something similar.
I ended up burning 400 calories with 48 minutes on the cross ski trainer and then did a bit of rowing and some treadmill work and I felt like I actually got into a sweat and did this just once in the week as I mix up my week with tennis and I felt much better. I also felt myself getting that incredible buzz that you get from the gym and I am always eager to go back.
I figured that I was burning about 200 calories before so I have doubled it and feel amazing.
And to show that it works after my first week of increasing my exercise I went from a week with a half pound weight loss to losing 3 pounds last week.
So the truth has to be in the weight loss!