Top tips for ensuring successful weight loss
1. From today start saying “I can & I will do this”. Thinking more positively will increase your self-belief, increase your motivation and in turn increase your chances for succeeding at weight loss.
2. Schedule your day accordingly. Allow yourself adequate time for buying, preparing and eating healthy food. Set an alarm if necessary and make sure you are prioritising yourself in terms of eating healthy food and living a better lifestyle.
3. Stock up on healthy snacks that have a pleasing texture and taste. You may like the crunchiness of carrots, the creaminess of cheese cubes, or the smoothness of frozen yoghurt and slow down your eating. On average it takes 15 minutes for food to enter the stomach so that the length of time each of your meals should be.
4. Communicate with family and friends and ask for their support. Working on weight together with a friend or family member means you can encourage and support each other and it can help to keep each other focused.
5. Remind yourself several times a day of your weight loss goal and emphasise how important it is to you. You may use previous pictures or clothes to help you with this, but regardless of what your goal is ask yourself how important is this to me and how confident am I that I can achieve it.
Remember you are in charge!
Weight loss is a journey
Weight loss is a journey that often involves diversions and detours. If you have lost your way slightly and are perhaps struggling to get back on track it is important not to panic and remember everybody is capable of restarting.
Read my 3 steps below for successful restarting after a slip:
- Remember it takes a lot of courage to restart. Instead of focusing on what you DIDN'T do, write a list of the things YOU CAN do each day & keep it simple. For example: I can drink 2 litres of water a day, I can have 3 regular meals per day etc.
- Restart sooner rather than later.If you have lost weight and restart still below your highest weight then you are still successful.
- Never quit - One must remember it is OKAY to have a slip. Slips are natural but the most important thing is that one doesn't quit.
If you have a slip write it down, acknowledge the slip and try and identify why it happened, then rip the piece of paper up and throw it on the fire or in the bin. Draw a line under the slip and move on. Nobody needs to be carrying around extra weight particularly in the form of guilt.
Remember you are in charge!
Are you getting enough iron?
You get plenty of sleep and you're not catching a cold, yet lately you feel run-down, have crazy headaches, and can't focus at work. It may have something to do with how much iron you're getting in your diet. An adult woman should aim for 18 milligrams per day.
Why do we need iron?
Iron is needed in the body to make haemoglobin, a substance in red blood cells that enables them to carry oxygen. If your cells aren't getting oxygen you may feel more tired, experience more headaches and also notice paler skin, brittle nails, and cold hands. Check out the list below to see which foods contain the most iron so you can be sure to get your fill.
Very good sources of iron, with 3.5 milligrams or more per serving, include:
3 ounces of beef or chicken liver
3 ounces of clams or mussels
3 ounces of oysters
Good sources of iron, with 2.1 milligrams or more per serving, include:
3 ounces of cooked beef
3 ounces of canned sardines, canned in oil
Other sources of iron, with 0.7 milligrams or more per serving, include:
3 ounces of chicken
3 ounces of cooked turkey
3 ounces of halibut, haddock, perch, salmon, or tuna
3 ounces of ham
3 ounces of veal
Remember you are in charge!
