What’s the Best Way to Kickstart Your Weight Loss?
The weight loss journey can be hard enough without all of the conflicting information and trends out there putting pressure on you. From the Ozempic craze to fad diets, social media and the internet are filled with methods for losing weight quickly. However, there are healthier and less intense ways to start on the right path to losing weight and keeping it off.
Set realistic goals and be flexible: With the allure of losing weight quickly, fad diets and workout plans that promise fast results can seem appealing. But experts say that the key to making new health habits and behaviors stick is to have realistic expectations. Losing about one to two pounds a week is the safest and most sustainable, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When starting your weight loss journey, it is best to set short-term goals and reward yourself for meeting those goals. The most effective goals are “specific, realistic and forgiving (less than perfect),” said the CDC. Being realistic about your goals also means “expecting occasional setbacks.” When they happen, it is best to “get back on track as quickly as possible.”
Avoid having a goal be reaching a specific number on the scale because that has a “pass/fail connotation,” said Deviny Mo, manager of UCLA Health Sports Performance. People either struggle to reach the number and “lose confidence in themselves,” or they reach their ideal weight and “go back to old habits that don’t support what they worked hard for and bounce back,” Mo said. “I like to tell my clients to look at it as a journey of change.”
Excerpted from the Week
