The Venus Factor-How to Lose Weight

The first step on the road to weight loss is seriously considering your lifestyle and how you've gotten to where you are - sounds cheesy, but it is indeed true. Did something cause you to cease physical activity or just become less active? Is stress leading to weird eating habits? Have the people in your life or your job changed your eating habits? It is important to consider that our eating habits are altered by many influences, including our cultural and social backgrounds, our environments, our emotional (or psychological) links to food, our body image, and our economic standing among other things. Once you get to actively thinking about this, you might immediately come up with answers. If not, consider the following ways to track your habits and figure out what needs to be corrected: - Keep a food diary for a few days. Try to write down everything you eat or drink. If you would like, take calorie counts for all of the items you consume. At the very least, you will most likely see a pattern! - Take an inventory of the food in your house. - Watch the way you respond to stress. Also see how the people around you are eating and if they change the way you eat. If your coworkers eat at McDonald's every day and you keep going with them... that is a problem! But normally, these are things you might not consider initially. - Keep track of the amount of physical activity you're getting in a day. (Count walking long distances, consider the amount of the day you spend sitting down) - Talk with friends and family about your weight gain. Ask them if they've seen habits you've overlooked. Perhaps they can shine some light on the problem! - And last but not least, consult your doctor. If you can honestly think of no reason you're gaining weight and you're sure you're getting adequate physical activity and eating well, it could well be that there's something else wrong. And be completely honest with the doctor, too! ;) It is true that the obesity epidemic is blamed partly on our sedentary lifestyle here in America. I personally believe our diets to be more of a problem, but physical health is just as important as nutrition when it comes to being healthy, which is really the whole point of losing weight!