If you’re going to lose weight then the very first thing you want to do is to decide to make it happen. This is where people have the biggest problem. Most people know that to lose weight; they should exercise more and eat less. It’s not what to do that’s the issue, but how they can do it. HOW do you eat less and exercise more?  How do you change your diet habits?

The following ten steps will give you the motivation and the tools necessary to make a positive impact on your lifestyle and help you lose weight easily and effectively.

1. Plan Ahead: You need to plan so you know what to do now and what you’re going to do going forward. Without a plan even the best diet and exercise program can get derailed when you run into adversity. You should know what kind of diet you are going to use to lose weight. Low carb, low fat and low calorie diets all work well, which path will you be following? Each of us will lose weight differently on different diets. This may be the time to seek the help of the professionals with a diet plan to determine what will work best for your goals and personality.

2. Learn how to Grocery Shop: Grocery shopping goes hand in hand with planning ahead. You need to know what choices you are going to make BEFORE you get to the grocery store. If you don’t know what you’re looking for then the marketers will surely sabotage your diet efforts once you get in the store. Learn what to buy and how to make a list and you’ll be one step ahead in your diet planning. Most good diet programs will teach you how to grocery shop and more importantly how to avoid the bad grocery store choices.

3. Understand there is no magic bullet: Some people will get discouraged and lose their initial enthusiasm when they begin an exercise or diet program because they expect overnight success or a ‘magic bullet’. It’s important to understand that no exercise program or diet book can cure a lifetime of bad eating habits. Nothing will happen overnight, but small daily changes and successes will add up in the long run. If you continually encourage yourself and work towards improving your habits on a daily basis you will make improvements and create a healthier you.

4. Understand Motivation: You should know why you want to lose weight. General reasons like ‘looking better’ or ‘becoming more healthy’ are not enough to keep you motivated and keep that fire burning for the long haul. If you want to change your behavior and keep your motivation high you’ll need specific reasons to lose weight that are goal oriented. I want to lose 20 pounds in the next 3 months is a specific and measurable goal. Weight loss sounds good until Friday at 5 PM rolls around and it’s time for you and your friends or co-workers to go out and “kick back” after a long, hard week. Remember, you need to find the fire within, the motivation to drive you daily, to reach your goals.

5. Self-Monitor: One of the most valuable things you can do is to self-monitor your own behaviors. Self-monitoring is the observation and recording of a specific behavior. This can be as simple as placing a check mark on a calendar when you achieve a certain behavior or as detailed as writing down everything about a behavior (i.e. time, date, location, specific details, emotions). Often people are not aware of their own behaviors and self-monitoring can increase awareness. This is especially true for your diet. I would be willing to bet most of us have no idea how many calories we eat in a day or where they come from. The simple exercise of writing down or tracking what you eat for a week can be very enlightening. Try tracking your food for a week with FitDay and I think you’ll be surprised. Often just tracking your eating like this is enough to help you stay motivated and lose weight.

6. Problem-Solve: Studies have shown that those who used behavior change and problem-solving strategies when losing weight did better at maintaining weight loss than those who merely used behavior change strategies. Problem solving means you find the real problem that is keeping you from reaching your goals. Once you’ve found the problem you can then create possible solutions to overcome the problem taking into consideration your lifestyle, personality and the likelihood of success. Choose one of the strategies and evaluate how successful it is in helping you solve the problem. If necessary change to a different strategy, but make sure you are working on overcoming the problem daily.

It is important to recognize that not all strategies will be successful. Various strategies can be created to ultimately identify and correct a problem. Also remember that just because something works for one problem, does not mean it will work for every problem. Seek out the best solution for each problem you face. Long hours at work, social settings, traveling for business, etc.; each present different challenges to your weight loss efforts, and will require unique strategies. Be creative.

7. Work with a friend(s) or your spouse: It’s been proven that social support improves weight loss and the ability to keep the weight off. You can use this to your advantage by getting a group of friends and/or family members together on a plan and working towards a goal. You are much more likely to exercise regularly if you know there will be friends there to meet you. It helps to keep you more accountable and can also help because of the peer pressure or competitive nature of people. And the support of friends and family can be just the little extra you need when trying to break through a barrier or plateau to the next level.

8. Train like you mean it: Don’t simply go through the motions when you’re in the gym. Make this time count! By training hard you’ll not only burn more calories right now, but you’ll also boost your metabolism to burn more calories later. You want to keep your rest between sets to 60 seconds or less and you shouldn’t be spending more than 60 minutes in the gym. Train hard and get out! Remember your goal is weight loss and you won’t get that by socializing or slacking off.

Additionally you want to plan for your training just like you plan for your nutrition in step 1. Get a spiral notebook and keep track of exercises, weights, rest time and sets so you’re not going forward blindly. The best way to see your progress is by writing it down and I can tell you it is VERY motivating if you can look back one month and see the progress you’ve made. This applies to both weight training and aerobic based training like running, biking or swimming.

9. Learn to Read Food Labels: This goes hand in hand with rule #2, learning to grocery shop. You would think this would be easy, but it does take some degree of understanding. For example, the nutrition information shows the nutrients based on each serving. There may be 2 or 4 or even 10 servings per package so you need to know that and how to determine your proper portions and the quality of the foods. It also helps in finding the proper proportions of macro nutrients which is very important in most diet plans.

10. Eat Breakfast: I’m sure you’ve heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and if you haven’t then I’m telling you now. Don’t skip breakfast. Not only has research shown that those who eat breakfast regularly consume higher levels of many nutrients, but it has also shown time and time again that those who eat breakfast daily have lower body fat levels and body weights. Breakfast gets your body started, gives you energy and charges up your metabolism. It is also the best time of the day to eat carbohydrates when you’re on a low carb diet because the carbs will provide your body with energy throughout the day. It’s not good to skip any meal, but breakfast is the worst meal of all to skip.

No matter when you decide to start losing weight or what diet plan you use there will always be difficult situations and barriers to changing your eating and exercise habits. As with any area of your life significant changes take desire, willpower, motivation and a change in your mindset. It’s easy to fall back into your comfortable patterns and skip the gym or stop for a pizza for dinner instead of taking 20 minutes to prepare a healthy meal. It’s up to you, but realize that if you don’t make the change now then when will you? The time to change is right now!