Without a shadow of a doubt, the most common New Year’s resolution in the West is to lose weight. However, it is also the first New Year’s resolution most apt to be broken! Losing weight is not difficult in theory, but practice is oh, so different. This is because it involves lifestyle changes.

Our bodies change as we get older and typically our level of activity decreases too. Maybe, we get an office job with a promotion, whereas we used to work ‘in the field’. But people in general, do not regulate their diet to match their change in circumstances. We sit behind our desks or in retirement and think we can still eat and drink like we did twenty years ago. Big mistake!

Fortunately, there are dozens of diets on hand to help us reach our weight loss goals. There are the traditional calorie counting diets, as advocated by Weight Watchers; there are the ‘new era’ diets like Atkins, which have us counting carbohydrates and there are no end of fad diets which are frankly not worth wasting time discussing.

The choice of which diet you would like to follow is all yours, of course, but it is well worth examining the main types of diet to see which one will agree with you. Then you must decide whether you will need the help and encouragement of a weekly visit to a club or not, or whether you can get that companionship from an online club of slimmers, where you talk to fellow slimmers in the club forum online.

It is also worth fixing in your mind, why you want to diet. Is it to look better? Or to feel more at ease in yourself? Or is it for health reasons? Or all three? Have a think about your reasons and let them motivate you. Whenever, you feel like packing it all in, remember your motivation. Get a book and journal your progress, but first write your motivation in bold capitals on the front page or cover. Keep it in front of you and read it out loud to yourself every day.

Sound out some of the slimming sites online and work out a few key numbers like the average weight people are for your height, sex and body type and your BMI or body mass index. Write these figures on the first page of your book too and use them as the eventual goals.

You could produce a graph and plot your weekly weight to see how you are doing. Set realistic goals and targets. You can get heaps of free information from the Weight Watchers and Atkins websites or / and go to see your doctor for advice and leaflets.

Aim to shed something like 10-20 pounds in the first month and eight to ten per month after that. Go slowly and aim to go slowly, because then you will hit your targets and you won’t feel like giving up. When you get within five to ten pounds of your target weight, assuming that you have lost a lot of weight, throttle back a little and allow yourself a little more leeway. Drop your target to one pound a week, so that you will get a feel for ‘eating normally’.

The dreaded exercise; you have to face it, you will have to do more exercise, but two times thirty minute walks a day is ordinarily enough. You could swim once a week too or get an exercise machine, if you are tied to the house by family.

If you want to know more about Welsh food, food in general or cooking eggs in particular, just visit Traditional Welsh Recipes. Free reprint available from: How To Keep To Your Resolution To Lose Weight..

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