1.  Weigh Yourself 1 Time per Day – Many diet programs suggest that you should weigh yourself once a week and look for the trend of weight loss.  This is what I suggest because I don’t want you to focus on the weight loss, but on healthy habits instead. But recent studies now show that daily weighing could be a key to lasting weight loss.  Researchers at the University of Minnesota monitored the habits of 1,800 dieting adults, and they found that those who checked their weight daily lost twice as much as other dieters who monitored their weight weekly. First thing in the morning is the best time to get on the scale. You should expect small day-to-day fluctuations because of water shift (bloat or dehydration).
2.  Watch No More Than 2 Hours of TV A Day – Watching TV keeps you from calorie-burning activities such as tennis, biking, yard work, or walking the dog.  Instead, you become a sitting duck for the junk-food commercials. Studies have recently shown that adults who watch more than 2 hours of TV per day take in more calories than those who watch less than an hour a day.  If you must watch TV, take advantage of the commercials and march in place, jog around the house, do sit ups, or ride a stationary bike while watching your show.
3.  Contact Your Health Coach 3 Times per Week – Support is so important to your success!  Seek out to find the best support for you.  Your Health Coach is always there for you by phone or e-mail, and they are very knowledgeable and able to help you reach your goal.  Also find a friend that you can check in with…hopefully they are doing the program with you!  I have a workout buddy, which I find, helps me return to the gym every day.  Take Shape for Life also has a fabulous and fun online support tool that will help you stay on track! It’s free to all our TSFL clients, so go check it out at www.tsflsupportinmotion.com, or simply go to your health advisor’s website and click on the “Support in Motion” icon on the home page.
4.  Eat 4 Grams of Fiber in Every Meal or Snack – A high fiber diet can fill you up and lower your overall caloric intake without making you feel deprived.  In a recent study at Tufts University study, women who ate only 13 grams of fiber or less per day were 5 times as likely to be overweight as those who ate more fiber.  Why? Well, possibly because it speeds the passage of food through the digestive tract and boosts satiety hormones.  We are lucky because our Medifast meals each have added fiber to them making them the perfect choice!
5.  Take 5 Thousand Extra Steps Daily – The average steps a normal person takes per day between going to work, running errands and doing chores is around 5,000.
Studies from the University of South Carolina and another from the University of Tennessee showed that people who took fewer then 5,000 steps a day were heavier then those who took at least 9,000.  Walking 10,000 steps per day have been linked to having a higher (good) HDL, a lower blood pressure, stabilized blood sugar, and lower percentage of body fat and lower weight.  Pedometers are inexpensive and easy to use.  They are a great reminder for you to “get up and go”!   It is easy to get those extra 5,000 steps in daily… you can go for about a 50 minute walk (2 ½ miles per day).
6.  Log or Journal 6 times per Day – In my years of supporting clients with their weight loss, the ones who have the best success are those that use a journal to log in their day.  Monitoring your eating and exercise helps to keep you on track, and allows you to go back and review your progress.  Use the journal that TSFL has, or carry a small notebook or PDA to record your day.  TSFL also has the new online support system mentioned earlier which I highly suggest you take advantage of!
7.  Sleep at least 7 Hours a Night – There have been many studies recently showing that weight loss or weight gain may have a direct effect on how many hours sleep you get per night. A study out of Columbia University Medical Center found that those women who slept 4 hours or less per night were 234% more likely to be obese.  The magic number for hours of sleep in this study was 7 hours or more.  Going to sleep earlier not only keeps you away from those late night cravings, but sleep also gives the body needed time to repair and rejuvenate.  Chapter 7 in “Dr. A’s habits of Health” will give you the education and direction you need to get healthy sleep.
8.  Drink 8 Glasses of Water Per Day – Water may be a thirst quencher, but that’s not why it is one of our ten tactics to weight loss. Your body is made up of 55% water.  Water is needed for day to day functioning and is essential to life. (Pages 114-115 Dr. A’s habits of Health) Water is very helpful in weight loss because it helps speed metabolism.  Researchers in Germany found that by drinking two glasses of cold water their subjects’ metabolic rate increased by 30% and the effect persisted for 90 minutes!  Drinking 1 glass of water also shuts down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters in a university study, and many times when you feel hungry, you are really just dehydrated. Drinking water will help flush out the toxins and by-products of burning fat. So, drink up and add the ice!!
9.  Never Work Over 9 Hours – A recent study found that adults who gained weight in the previous year were more likely to have work many overtime hours.
The reason for the weight gain could be that the person is too tired for exercise, works late to exercise, chooses high caloric-dense fast foods for dinner, or the stress of their job is causing weight gain through hormonal changes in cortisol.  Make sure to set firm limits on your work days so that you have time to enjoy life, exercise, and prepare healthy meals.
10.  Shave 10 Points Off Your Glycemic Load – Foods that carry high glycemic loads will cause an increase in your blood sugar which then starts a cycle of the body releasing insulin to combat the rise in blood sugar and the storage of excess sugar as FAT. This natural occurrence will then leave the body low in blood-sugar and that can start the whole cycle once again…hunger>eat high glycemic foods>insulin release>fat storage…and so on. It’s a very unhealthy cycle and many people don’t realize that they are creating their own hunger by eating the wrong foods. A study out of University of Massachusetts Medical School found that those who ate foods high on the glycemic scale weighed significantly more than those who did not.  The study also found that there is about a 10 pound body weight loss for every 10 glycemic points dropped off the foods ingested.  So, please stick to our Take Shape plan!  It is low glycemic, healthy, and by eating every 3 hours, your blood sugar never has the chance to drop.
Remember it is the small changes in behavior that you do every day that will add up to enormous success!!