15 Steps to Grow Thin
Surely, spring is a wonderful season. Everything awakes from winter sleepiness, long-awaited sun finally appears and we want singing, dancing, falling in love and flying. Only those, whose excess kilograms prevent them from flying, can argue this. Some of us even cannot take off, not to mention flying.
A well-known picture: opening a window to first spring sun beams, you rush to try on that striking dress, which was an occasion for many dates last summer. After 5-minute glance in the mirror (as a rule, surprised one), you close (and curtain off windows), put dress back in a wardrobe, and it starts seeming to you that it would be better if spring does not come at all. What should you do now?! Take a deep breathe, calm down and reckon although to 15.
1. Keep a food diary
Write down everything you eat during a week. You may be absolutely unaware how many useless calories you consume, until you start paying careful attention to them. In general, a diary is the best way to follow successful passing of planned program. So keep on writing, until you feel confidently on your new life road.
2. Analyze
Think, which of your food habits impede you, and change them. Moreover, think what they may be caused by. Very often people hide their real problems behind food. What makes you reach for the second portion of this divine cheese-cake? Boring work, captious boss, apartment that failed to wait till its lucky hour of repair, boyfriend, showing little attention that is so necessary in spring for you? Find other work, repaint walls of drawing-room in orange, change boyfriend! Finally, spring is time for changing not only in centimeters!
3. Get rid of self-pity
Beforehand, so that this damned pity could not interfere you further. And it is even better to set it on other channel. Necessary one. The thing that makes you fat, – is not a bar of chocolate, which you decided to spoil yourself with, when He did not call you again. And even not half of cake, which you and your friend celebrated the fact that He called at last with. These are your food habits. You need to change them not only to become slender and energetic, but also keep this state. Change for ever.
You sorrow for yourself while refusing from chocolate or vanilla ice-cream? Think! Does not such a good girl like you deserve surrounding men’s wolf whistles? Think better. Motivation is very important. Here you need to determine what is important right now for you. Any, even the most unusual variants, will suit (come to your junior sister’s school party unnoticed and have great fun there; put on that breath-taking short skirt, which you have been dreaming of for the second season already; drive him crazy with a stunning strip-tease). How many unique life opportunities go by!
4. Keep informed
“Keeping informed – means being on top of issues”, – one of popular slogans says. Grow thin sensibly! Quit relying on numerous experts’ opinions, telling you what, when and with what to eat.
Learn the way your organism works, what it needs, and learn providing it with all necessary things. It will repay your kindness with a flat belly, couple of slender legs and a sea of energy. Of course, you need time to learn orienting in the sea of calories, centimeters, physical trainings and hypoglycemic indexes. And you want to be slender right now already. So, add to your armoury basic knowledge:
– Everything you eat can be conditionally divided into proteins, fats and carbohydrates (according to prevalence of first, second or third in them, all three components in pure form are contained only in artificially created products). To imagine which your daily ration should be, draw a triangle on a sheet of paper and call its angles like 3 elements of nutrition. Write down 60-65% for carbohydrates, 30-35% for proteins and 10-15% for fats. Now you have only to read labels on products carefully.
– We all know something about calories. These are some obscure terms, with help of which we value products and divide them into good and bad. In fact, a calorie (to be more exact, kilocalorie) – is an energy, which you need to spend to heat 1 kg (liter) of water on 1°C.
To get rid of 1 kg of fat, you need to burn about 7000 kilocalorie, correspondingly, from 10 kg (or how many you wish) – about 70000, what is equal to energy, spent on walking of 1700 km. Not counting snacks and rest while trip.
So forget about ideas of strict restriction of your ration’s calorie content – in fact, what you need is to stick to a norm of 1500-1800 kilocalories a day to train off and about 2000 kilocalories to keep it.
– Sugar, products of fine flour (favorite cakes, pies and patties), of course, are very tasty. But, regardless of the fact that they are quite different, processes they cause set going similar mechanisms in your organism. Their essence is in change of acid-base medium of bowels, and as a result you will want to eat these products more and more often. As a result, you will receive excess calories on your diet’s counter and horror of excess kilograms on all – alas! – conceivable places.
Restrict consumption of these products and already in two weeks you will see noticeable (others will also see them!) results.
– Stomach is an organ of your body, which you set up merciless experiments on, filling it with food, not always so wholesome. In fact, a poor one needs not so much – a piece of wholesome food each 4 hours. This means you should eat at least 3 (and ideally 5-6) times a day. Longer periods organism will treat like hunger and save everything you ate after such break in store.
Of course, you do want to put in this mini right this weekend. And what can be better than treating yourself with some ultra-fashionable thing from new spring collection of your favorite designer! Images that occur to you are so tempting, that you are ready to go without food for weeks, to reach your goal as soon as possible. Moreover, you always can excuse shadows under your eyes and weakness with spring beriberi.
– Be careful! Loss of more than 0,5-1 kg a week will definitely take place at the expense of soft tissue. Its weight will be restored right after you finish strict diet (owing to fat, as it is much easier for your organism to gain it, than build up muscles); and, secondly, it is rather sad to lose it! As it helps you burning calories and makes your body beautiful and neat.
So do not set yourself unrealizable goals as an object. A result, which you go to slowly, but confidently, will be most stable.
5. Form a plan of actions
Take a sheet of paper. Look at it. It is absolutely white, is not it? Imagine that this sheet of paper personifies your food habits. You will write down on it everything you think to be necessary. And will erase things that disturbed you before. No unnecessary things.
Divide it at least in 3 columns (if you are brave enough, you can divide it in 5-6, if you are not frightened at it – for some reason such quantity of meals seems to be tremendously big for those who want to train off). Write down approximate time (or time interval) of meals in these columns. Thinking over all possible situations (restaurant temptation with your loved one, lunch at your mother’s place, Friday kickbacks with your friends), compose variants of what and in which quantity you can allow eating to yourself.
6. Count
Check how many calories food you eat contains. In the end of each day look in your diary and sum up figures. If you manage to keep within necessary sum, compliment yourself and go to paragraph 7. If no, think about a reason of failure and try to refrain from repetition of this situation in future. For example, if a hungry day in your office preceded too abundant supper at home, which you cannot forgive yourself, take something on work with you tomorrow. You really can control your nutrition!
7. Play
Parting with bad habits is a difficult matter. So present gifts for yourself! For each day you lived the right way, each reached goal, each correct thought, definitely! Invent gifts beforehand, and do not give up until you get what you want.
8. Move
Although somehow! Success of your diet, regardless of how ideally it may be considered, depends 30% on your activity during a day. As Henry Ford said, “you can choose a car of any color under the condition it is black”. Find sport to your liking, walk, make more sex, whatever, but m-o-v-e!
9. Take measurements
Once a week, since morning, weigh yourself and measure sizes of breast, waist and hips. Do not hung up exceptionally on weight indices – you may look absolutely different, having the same weight. And you also can have smaller size, than earlier, while bigger weight. This is explained by the fact that muscle bulk weighs more, than fat, and reserves less space.
10. Follow speed
Your organism needs at least 20 minutes to realize a happy fact of eating. So take your time. Eat more slowly, and if you cannot, then switch to, say, kisses with your boyfriend. Finally, he should help you too!
11. Size is important
Follow your portions. Less is more. As for size of plates: even if you reduce volume of what your usual dinners, breakfasts and suppers consist of, at least on one third, without changing anything else, all the same you will start growing thin.
12. Drink
Yes, indeed. Those boring 8 glasses of water a day. Water is your #1 helper in a difficult matter of getting rid of excess centimeters. It will provide a feeling of satiety between meals, inspire you and clear organism from fat cells’ decay products (you have made up your mind on this, eh?). And they have not begun issue water in pills yet.
By the way, you can also start singing, not only drinking. With a view to cheer yourself up. Moreover, it is very good for strengthening of abdominal muscles.
13. Do not try to do everything at once.
This will only bring you to unnecessary disappointments. Your organism needs time to learn living a new way. Look closely at your plan and mark the most important, to your opinion, changes – those, which you will start with. When things you wrote down on a paper become a habit for you, put a new goal for yourself. Without forgetting about paragraph 7, naturally.
Moreover, spoil yourself with your favorite unhealthy food in tiny amounts. This way you will not get a feeling that you deprive yourself of best and most pleasant in this life. You know, food is also one of the greatest life pleasures. Have not you forgotten about it yet?
14. Imagine
Every day think of that wonderful summer (year, life) waiting for you in future. Remember in details how you have been living before composing your program, and imagine a new life – with a new yourself. Thins about all details carefully: what you eat for breakfast, what you wear, how other people react on you. Do this exercise every day, and this will significantly increase your chances for success.
15. Love!
Yourself, every cell and curve of your body. Look at yourself in the mirror more often (and without fear!). Think, what your body does for you every day, and thank it for this. Who else loves you so much?
If being absolutely frank, there is one more step. Probably, the most important. Believe in yourself! You will surely manage to do everything! Forget about past failures to grow thin. You just did not know a lot and therefore made mistakes. Don’t blame yourself. Knowledge on correct nutrition is not inborn. Remember all your achievements in life – you know, way to them was not easy, eh? Everything is possible. And for a human that has a goal, there are no obstacles. And soon you’ll nevertheless put on that breath-taking skirt. In fact, not for long. Soon you will have to put it off. You haven’t changed your mind as for strip-tease, eh?