How I'm planning my weight loss program

Quick fix weight loss fads do not work for me, I need a slower pace and patience for it to work.  Patience is not my strong suit!

I'm a bit of a lazy dieter if I'm honest.  I know we need to diet and exercise to get the body we want.  I also know I'm not going to do that.  I'm in my 40s now, I don't have the want to exercise.  I do a little yoga some mornings, but I'm still working on that becoming a habit.

So I've decided to take things slow, after all, it's our lifestyles we have to change if we want to get fit and lose weight.  Time and again I'll go on a diet for 4/6 weeks then stop weighing myself and start back on the nibbles, then the carb high lunches and dinners and those 8/9/10 lbs I lost soon find their way back around my middle.

I figure, if I pick a few lifestyle changes to do now, then in around 6/8 weeks if these are embedded in my daily routine I will progress to a further 2/3 changes and eventually it will be that I'm eating far more healthily and actually enjoying my 10/20 minute exercise every day.

Starting Monday I'm going to track my progress for the next 3 months, and after this time I will revisit this post and update it with the hope of losing pounds and changing my lifestyle.

Here are my first 3 baby steps to losing weight and getting fit:

I've replaced my daytime snacking habits!

I work 5 days a week and during the working day, I'll eat cake and shortbread and flapjack if it's in the kitchen to share!  I'll eat some form of chocolate mid-morning and I'll eat breakfast biscuits and custard creams!  Not all of the above every day, mind, I'm not a glutton!  I just like to snack apparently!

To stop this, I'm having my breakfast before I get to work now, I'm then eating an apple and orange in the morning along with an Actimel drink (not sure why I'm doing that, but it feels right).  After lunch, I then have a boiled egg and another orange to snack on before I leave at 3 for the school run.

I've kind of started this, as I said it takes me ages to get into a routine.  It took me 9 months to actually successfully get up at 5am every day.  But I've started and will try with more earnest from tomorrow.

No food after 6pm

I'm not sure where I heard that or if it will work, but I've decided that I will have my breakfast at 6am and then my last meal by 6pm.   No food after that, meaning no biscuits with cups of tea at 8.30 at night when Max has gone to bed, no chocolate bars before bed.

I drink water if I want a snack and sometimes, I just go to bed!  Very much a work in progress this one!

Weight loss tea

No idea if this works or not, but as of tomorrow I will be trying out XLS-Medical's NEW weight loss tea– the UK’s first to be clinically proven to help you lose weight.

This I'm rather excited about,  the idea is you drink a cup of tea straight after breakfast, lunch and dinner and then the clinically-proven ingredient Litramine works by binding up to 28% of dietary fats in the stomach.  These form a fat-fibre complex too large to be absorbed by the intestine, which is then excreted by the body naturally.  This contributes to a calorie deficit, helping you to lose up to three times more weight than dieting alone.

My aim is to have all 3 of the tasks above form part of my daily lifestyle and become a habit and therefore I do not have to think about it.  By the end of February, I want to be on phase 2 which is focusing on my dinners, more healthy homemade cooking and the start of an exercise routine.

As of tomorrow I will weigh myself, and stick with the above each week for the next 6 weeks I will be weighing in on a Monday to see if there is any change.

I really do hope I'm back here on this post at the end of February with good news, a few pounds lighter and looking forward to the next stage in my slow weight loss, lifestyle changing program.

I welcome all hints and tips on losing weight.  My biggest challenge is being a fussy eater!