Every new year we try to make resolutions and weight loss figures prominently in our list. We secretly promise ourselves, THIS year, its going to happen!! We start our workouts and healthy meals with vigor and enthusiasm. But after a while, like an open soda can, our resolution to lose weight fizzles out. Why? What happens? Why we stop caring about new year’s weight loss resolution? What can we do to fulfill our resolution?

If we try to take care of certain simple things, we can keep our weight loss resolution and gift ourselves a healthy self to ourselves and our family.

Don’t Run to Measure Weight often: When you take steps to fulfill your weight loss resolution, avoid the scales. You have not gained weight in few weeks so you are not going to lose weight in weeks. But how to keep ourselves motivated then? How to know whether we are losing weight or not? Looks for signs. After few weeks pay attention to your body and how its responding to weight loss measures. Are you feeling energetic? Are you feeling light? Are you moving around a bit effortlessly? Have your clothes loosen a bit? If answer is yes, then feel happy. These are your rewards and motivating factors to keep your new year’s weight loss resolution.

Feel Good and Positive about Your Resolution: Don’t start your weight loss resolution with its so difficult to lose weight, I won’t, I can’t . Because this kind of mindset make you fight on two fronts. One you are fighting on weighing scales another you are fighting you, who else? Why waste your energy on two fronts? Why not concentrate on weight loss resolution only? We should feel happy that we have made a choice and if we make a conscious effort, our new year’s weight loss resolution is going to stick.

Be Realistic: While making a weight loss resolution on new year, take into account your lifestyle and responsibilities and set a realistic goal for yourself. If you are mother of young kids , definitely your schedule and time will be different from a single woman. Its very important that you set a realistic goal to achieve your new year’s weight loss resolution to avoid heart breaks and disappointments.

Stay Alert: Being alert is very important to achieve your new year’s weight loss resolution. Whenever we face a tough emotional, financial, professional or family situation, without knowing we start eating comfort food. Till we are able to devise a coping mechanism, we might have added many inches to our waistline. We have to stay alert and when we are facing problems in our life, instead of opening your fridge, pick up your phone and call a friend or family. Eating will not help, talking to a friend or family will give a fresh perspective or idea to meet the challenges of life. Meeting your new year’s weight loss resolution come from friends and family, not fridge.

Take Corrective Measures: New year’s weight loss resolutions face great threats from social gatherings, birthdays, marriage functions. They give your weight loss resolution a toss. Social occasions have emotional value too. We can’t refuse food and deserts. So enjoy the lavish spread but with some caution. Take small portions and savor each bite. If you can’t then let go and enjoy whatever portions you want. But after that be an ascetic for a week. Be frugal with sugar and fatty food and make your disposition like a saint as far as food is concerned. Eat healthy and healthy only till you reach your original weight.

Learn to Deceive Your Body: Your body has been used to whatever you are feeding it for years. So if you want your new year weight loss resolution to work make it Slow and Steady. Make slow changes in your diet and exercise. Give your body time to get used to these changes. This way you too will not suffer from withdrawal symptoms and your body too will not react in a strange manner. You will feel in control. Don’t make vegetables and fruits a measure part of your diet suddenly. Introduce healthy choices to your meals slowly. Slow and steady changes in diet will result in lifestyle changes without causing you and your body much distress. It goes without saying that your new year’s weight loss resolution will prove to be a success.

Make New Year Weight Loss Resolution Enjoyable: Be creative and introduce fun elements to your resolution. Weight loss resolutions are not some sort of punishment that you have to endure. Instead of doing exercise everyday, put on some music and dance. Go to a scenic place near your home and jog. Play some sports with your friends on weekends. Be imaginative and make your favorite dish in a healthy way. Share recipes with friends. Ask for new ideas to keep your new year’s weight loss resolution going.

Why losing weight is so hard? If you wonder in amazement or disgust about the asked question, take a little bit of comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Pay attention to the formula written below:

Calories taken by You = Your Basal Metabolic Rate + Your Physical Activity

If your daily routine consists of less physical activity and more calorie intake then it will definitely result in weight gain. But weight gain is simply not an equation. Weight gain is a sum total of environmental, genetic, metabolic, behavioral and cultural factors. We love to blame our genes but genes are not that powerful most of the time.

Why we find it so hard to lose weight?

Changing Anything in Life is Hard: Actually issue is not confined to why it is so difficult to lose weight only. If you want to change one thing about yourself, you will find it extremely hard to change. For example try waking up early than your usual hours, it will not be a cakewalk. If you are an introvert, try being an extrovert. If you fear public speaking, try to go on stage and speak for five minutes. So making changes in your life is hard. We take comfort in familiarity. That’s why losing weight is also hard.

Our Modern lifestyle: More often than not, our modern lifestyle permit us to sit behind a desk or a wheel. Most of us work in a office, in front of a computer, it hardly demands any physical activity. We go for shopping, not by walking but sitting behind a wheel. We hardly have time to cook and conveniently located street food corners are bursting with delicacies that have high amount of fat, salt and sugar. We often feel trapped in this lifestyle.

Home Cooking: We can hardly squeeze in enough time for home cooking. Either we have mastered the art of opening cans or we love those take aways. It seems all the time we are doing one chore or another. So its time to compromise on cooking. But if we somehow lean to cook a decent meal, it will do wonders to our weight loss and waistline. But again, we have to change our habit and instead of grabbing a bite at someplace, we have to relearn simple cooking, with fresh ingredients. Otherwise we will always find losing weight extremely difficult.

Emotional Well Being and Food Carvings: Losing weight is so hard because we fall prey to our emotional upheavals. Whenever we feel emotionally isolated or low, we tend to enjoy food a lot. Eating a high sugar and fatty food gives us comfort for the time being though the main problem remains at the same spot, but we feel good and satiated for a while. This tends to form a vicious circle which becomes extremely difficult to break.

Difficult To Make A In Change in Habits: What we are used to make it difficult to lose weight. Its easy for us to diet and exercise for few months lose weight. But we tend to revert back to the same old lifestyle and weight gain. This again forms a vicious circle that is difficult to break. Most of us are used to our morning coffee cup. Imagine, if someone puts a ban on our morning coffee and gives us lemonade else to drink every morning? How lost and disoriented we will feel and how long it will take to drink lemonade every morning. The same goes with weight loss.

So losing weight is difficult as giving up alcohol for an alcoholics. As an alcoholics craves for his drink, we too tend to crave for our ingrained lifestyle. As giving up alcohol requires a great amount of will power and self discipline, so does a healthy lifestyle.

Smoothies can help you in losing weight. Though smoothies alone are not very effective tool in losing weight. You have to combine intake of smoothies with your daily exercise. Smoothies flush out toxins from your body and keep it hydrated. Fibers present in smoothies help cleaning your system thoroughly. Smoothies are said to reduce stress levels and improve physical and mental performance.

If you are dieting for weight loss and following a strict regimen, your body might feel deprived of many nutrients. You might lose weight by dieting but you will not not be able to sustain such diet for long. If you include smoothies in your diet which are rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, fiber and anti-oxidants you will feel energetic and it will also lower your calorie intake.

Pay Attention to Your Smoothie’s Ingredients: If you are taking smoothie for weight loss, pay full attention to what goes into your smoothie. Instead of full cream milk , use skimmed milk. Instead of ice cream, use ice cubes. Don’t put chocolates and full fat yogurt in your smoothie. If your smoothie is full of chocolates, fat milk or yogurt, sugar and ice cream, it will contain more calories than a full fledged meal.

Prepare Your Own Smoothie: Instead of buying smoothie from corner shop, make your own. You will have full control over ingredients of your smoothie and your likes and dislikes. It will be a great investment in your health. Preparing smoothie will not take much time and you can drink it while going to office or whatever is your morning destination. A smoothie with healthy ingredients will make you lose weight and also incorporates a good habit into your daily routine.

Watch and Learn What is Good For You: When you are incorporating smoothies in your diet, pay close attention to your body. Feel the changes your body is going through over the time. Mix and match the fruits and greens in your smoothie accordingly. If a particular type of smoothie is not doing any good to you, add or deduct the ingredients accordingly.

Be Realistic: While trying to lose weight be realistic and practical. Smoothies can only help you to a certain extent in reducing weight and remaining healthy. You have to pay attention to your overall diet and exercise routine. Mere smoothies won’t take you anywhere in your goal of losing weight. Smoothies are just a small but significant part of your weight reduction plan.

Variety is The Spice of Life: Don’t stick to the same smoothie over a period of time. Your will become bored and so will your body. So for green smoothies for few days then switch over to berry smoothie. After a while you can try banana orange smoothie or spinach, banana and ginger smoothie.

Those overweight people who inherited FTO Genes should no longer feel frustrated. Its right that nature has done some injustice to them to a certain extent. But people with FTO genes should not feel powerless. They should gear up for some exercise to fight the negative effects of fat genes. Experts say that people having junk food genes can lose weight by exercising.

British researchers have collected data from more than 218,000 adults. Researchers studied those having a specific fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene. These genes gives a person a genetic predisposition to obesity. But researchers arrived at a conclusion that Obese persons can substantially reduce their weight by exercising. Researchers at the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit analyzed large amount of data and they found that the effect of the FTO gene on obesity risk is nearly 30 per cent weaker among those who exercise and are physically active compared to those who lead a sedentary life.

The researchers concluded that their findings contrasted with previous studies that suggest genetic influences are unchallengeable. You can fight the negative effects of your genes and keep your weight under control with the help of exercise.

People with FTO genes craves for sugar and fat. 49% Britons have one copy of FTO genes and 14% have two copies of such genes. Such people eat 100 more calories per meal and in a week all those calories amount to a whole day’s meal. People having two copies of FTO genes have the 69% change of getting obese than those who have not inherited such genes.

It seems the solution to the problem of weight gain is simple. You have to fit in exercise in your daily routine. The junk food gene was carried by our ancestors too. But they didn’t have modern gadgets at their disposal to make their life simpler. They had to walk extra mile for their daily chores. So FTO genes didn’t manifest in our ancestors like they are doing now. The same fact was revealed in the study. Researchers pointed out the importance of work out. The study revealed that people who lead a couch-potatoes lifestyle and have one copy of the gene, have 30% higher probability of obesity than in those who do not have one cope of FTO gene.

But physically active having the FTO gene only raised the odds by twenty-two percent. It means workout reduces the effect of the FTO gene by twenty-seven percent. The study findings were published in the PLoS Medicine journal. So don’t blame your genes and grab your jogging boots to fight off what is inherited by you in the form of jun food genes.

Weight loss and detoxification are closely related. Our body has an excellent detoxification system of its own. Our liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph and skin do their work efficiently. But today we are facing entirely different challenges in our diet than we faced few centuries ago. Today our plate is filled with hormone induced meat, and pesticide and insecticide infested food. We are fond of carbonated drinks and alcoholic beverages. We love refined and canned food as they are easy to cook and save our precious time. But such kind of food and drinks play havoc with our immune system and our body’s natural detoxification system is unable to take care of the harmful effects we suffer from consuming such food. This problem is not limited to food and drinks only. Our air, water and land too is polluted. So the air we breathe and water we drink is not free from chemicals.

How Toxins Lead to Weight Gain: Toxins and weight gain are closely related. Toxins from food, drink, air and water enter our cells, bloodstream, tissues and vital organs and effect their functioning. Body fights these harmful toxins by bloating our body, retaining air and water. Toxins slow the metabolic process of our body and slows burning of fat resulting in weight gain. We also feel tired and sluggish. Body systems and organs that clean our system internally are overworked and overloaded these days. They try to protect us from these toxins by surrounding it with mucous and fat. So that toxins remain isolated and will not cause an imbalance in any form. The obvious visible result is weight gain.

Detoxification Helps in Weight Loss: If you follow a detox diet it will help you in weight loss. Detox diet seems a necessary tool to be healthy and fight weight gain.

Detoxification Speeds up Metabolism: A higher rate of metabolism helps you in losing weight. If you want to lose weight pay attention to your metabolic rate. Refined food, high sugar, chemically treated fruits and vegetables and carbonated drinks are main source of toxins in your food. They slow down your metabolism and your digestive system can not burn enough fat. This results in weight gain. So switch to organic food and drink. They might not look attractive yet expensive but go for organic food.

Reduction in Size Due to Detoxification: When we consume diets high in sugar and salt and take carbonated drinks our livers get affected. Liver’s efficiency is lowered and it can’t burn fat effectively. Our body retain more water and air and our bodies look bloated. When body retains excess fluid, it is fighting toxins entered in our body through food. When we give up processed food and drink, liver functions properly and burns fat fast. This will help in weight loss.

Combination of Exercise and Detox Diet Speed up Weight Loss: If you combine detox diet and exercise, you weight loss process will speed up because you are not filling up your body with junk food. There will be no extra burden on your liver, kidney and colon. You are making the right choice of exercise and detox diet that will accelerate your weight loss program.

People often give up weight loss programs because they find it a lone battle and after a while feel discouraged and isolated. Weight loss is not related with fun and enjoyment. Why not we can turn our weight loss program into fun? We all have heard about a friend in need is friend indeed. Why not start a weight loss program with a friend? If you and your friend both are overweight and want to lose weight why not start weight loss regime jointly?

Weight loss can be fun while doing it with a friend. If you want to lose weight take your friend along with you in this journey. If you have decided to reduce weight along with your friend, you can be benefited in many ways:

Setbacks will be temporary: Friends often help you fight life’s battles. Weight loss is also an important battle of your life. If you chose to take friends along with you, you both can motivate one another and keep a tab on one another’s exercise and eating habits. Whenever your resolve to lose weight is faltering your friend can step in and put you back on the right track. You can return the favor when you friend needs it for her own weight loss regime.

Effective checks and balances: Weight loss resolve gets a beating when you are out with friends and sitting at a eating joint. If you insist on ordering healthy choices, you might be ridiculed or pressurized to give in. But if you are with your friend, you both can resist the group temptation and order healthy alternatives for yourself so that your weight loss program runs smoothly.

Maintaining Exercise and Diet Schedule: If you are entering into weight loss program with your friend, it will be easy to maintain exercise and diet schedule. You know how we function alone, ‘I am skipping just this morning’ , ‘a little bit of extra butter won’t be noticed’, ‘ Just two more scoops of that ice-cream’… If you are reducing weight along with your friend, she can keep a tab on these ‘just now’ , ‘a little bit’, ‘only this time’ that are very harmful for your weight loss program.

Element of Empathy: If you are trying to lose weight, your other slim friends and family too can help you. But what you feel will be lack of congeniality and harmony. You might find it unfair if someone feasting on burger and pizza tells you to eat salads only. But you won’t experience such discord with your friend who is going through the same yearnings. Both of you will be on the similar wavelengths. It will be easy talking to your friend who is undergoing a weight loss program with you.

Though everything will not be honky dory in a weight loss regimen whether taken alone or with a friend. People always say a long and tedious journey can be enjoyable if taken with a right partner. So two overweight friends can decide to lose weight together and turn it into an enjoyable experience. That weight loss journey might worth narrating to your grandchildren one day!

Motivation is very important for weight loss programs. If you won’t stay motivated enough to lose weight, you will be unable to finish your weight loss program and end up feeling like a loser. To stay motivated you can go for internal motivation that comes from your will-power or you can stay externally motivated. External motivation comes from friends and family or weight loss clinics. They force you follow a regimen and stay motivated to lose weight.

What type of motivation is best for weight loss? Of course the best type of motivation is autonomous that comes from within. When you are all charged up to lose weight on your own. You go and enroll yourself in a Gym and follow a good diet. But sometimes it is hard to remain internally motivated to lose weight for a long time on your own, When your internal motivation starts to dry up, be practical and seek help of friends and family for sticking to your weight loss schedule.

External motivation is also good for losing weight. You see a slim woman wearing a smart outfit and you feel motivated to lose weight. Or your family members are insisting that you go and join a gym. Sometimes you and your friend jointly decides to lose weight and start following exercise and healthy diet regimen. But sometimes when external factors seems uninterested you tend to lose interest too in weight loss program. When your friends and family are not watching you tend to feel a little bit demotivated to follow exercise and diet routine. When that happens summon up your internal motivation for weight loss.

Be serious about your weight loss program and go for a mixture of external and internal motivational factors. When you are not feeling motivated enough on your own ask your family and friends to step in. When your friends are busy, summon up your own will power and keep up with your weight loss program. Think about being healthy and being able to do so many pleasurable activities on your own. Don’t view your weight loss efforts as some form of punishment but a healthy lifestyle change.
Try to remember why you want to lose weight and stick to your resolve. You know weight loss will not make you desirable, sexy, confident and sought after but it will help you remain healthy, away from many life style diseases and will give you more energy to do what you want to do in life. So apart from paying attention to diet and exercise, stay motivated to lose weight.