The Slim Habit Blog

I have come across so many people who are overweight who have given up on diets and weight loss programs because they ‘just don’t work’. They feel that they should just come to terms with the fact that they are always going to be overweight, it’s in the genes or they have a ‘dysfunctional’ metabolism.

In most cases it has very little to do with genes or a ‘dysfunctional’ metabolism. There is absolutely no reason why anybody should resign themselves to being overweight. It is possible for everybody to lose weight.

In simplistic terms, weight is all about calories consumed versus calories burnt. Burn more calories that you consume and you will lose weight. There are ways of burning calories. The first is through normal every day activity and the other is by taking exercise. How effectively you burn calories is again down to how much exercise you take and also to the health of your muscles, both contribute to making your metabolism more effective. Keeping properly hydrated is also important for better metabolic efficiency. If you have been a serial dieter, then your muscle mass may have been seriously depleted. Resistance exercises are needed to build your muscles back up and make your metabolism more effective.

How many calories you consume is very important. If you reduce your calorie intake too much your body will work against you and prevent you losing weight. If you consume too many calories you will put weight on probably whether you take exercise or not.

One common trait amongst those who have ‘given up’ trying to lose weight is that the majority of people fool themselves about the number of calories they consume. In one instance the person concerned was convinced that she was only consuming 1600 calories a day. She was incredibly proud that of her healthy diet. The reality was that her daily calorie intake was 3500 not 1600. The extra 1900 calories she consumed was due to the fact that her portion sizes were too big and that she was economical with the truth when it came to totalling her calorie intake. She was not destined to be overweight. She had it in her power to lose weight and lose weight permanently. A dose of honesty and new eating and lifestyle habits the answer to her problem.

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Instant gratification, the quick fix, get rich quick, instant weight loss…maybe recent events will teach us that there is no money tree growing at the bottom of the garden and that false promises belong in the land of make believe.

It’s time to get real! If we stop to think about our past behavior and expectations, they have been extraordinary – extraordinarily stupid and irresponsible. It has been as if cause and effect didn’t exist and that there was no cost involved. Luckily, life is all about balance. Unfortunately it is only ever achieved when things go wildly out of balance. What follows is a massive correction. Disillusion, confusion and suffering is the result.

On the positive side, corrections tend to make us think. They bring the reality of our past behaviors into sharper focus. Did we think that there would be no bill to pay for our excesses? Did we honestly believe that a diet promising instant weight loss would get rid of weight we had accumulated over years? In a flash our weight would disappear with very little effort required? Unfortunately many of us swallowed the bait. The result? The nation is as overweight as it ever was: the obesity crisis is no better, in fact it’s worse. Diets, like so many things over the past two decades, have delivered only short-term benefit.

There are two fundamental problems with most diets. The first is that they offer very little structure, formulas yes, structure, no.  A formula is not a structure. People who want to lose weight need a program with a very clear and simple structure to follow. The Slim Habit, which is not a diet, has structure.

The second problem is that you can only ever go on a diet for a limited period. Once it’s over, you’re on your own. Little wonder that it’s not long before the weight reappears. The Slim Habit, on the other hand is a program which allows the individual to take control of their weight loss and manage and maintain their weight for as long as they wish. It’s a program which encourages learning and self-responsibility. It’s not about the short-term, it’s about the long-term. It’s a genuine investment in the future with long-lasting benefits.

Would you like to give your weight loss a boost? Click here and get your FREE A-Z Calorie Counter.

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You might think this question is a bit below the belt. Do you think you’re a rational person? Okay, do you think you act in a rational way when it comes to looking after yourself? Fine, so why are you overweight? It’s a fair question, isn’t it?

So, if you are overweight, even obese, it’s probably fair to say that you have not been giving yourself ‘proper attention’. If you had you wouldn’t be the way you are. Giving yourself proper attention is absolutely fundamental to being able to live a happy, disease free life, yet it is amazing how many of us completely ignore our own welfare.

Do you know what proper attention means? In simple terms it’s about self-responsibility. From an early age we are taught not to be selfish, but we need to practice what might be called ‘responsible selfishness’ when it comes to our own welfare. Over time we become the sum of our habits, both good and bad. What many of us fail to do is to notice our bad habits. We become lazy and allow our lives to cruise along on autopilot. The result? We end up being controlled by our habits. If we act in a totally rational way we control our behavior. We don’t allow our habits to take over. In fact we can manage our behavior by managing our habits. This is what you need to do if you want to slim down or lose weight, but what habits?

The Slim Habit program provides the habits that are needed to achieve permanent weight loss. These are habits that are designed to make the process of losing weight simple and straight forward. They give the essential structure a weight loss program needs to ensure that there is a positive – and long-term – outcome. The Slim Habits address eating habits and lifestyle habits and, most importantly, they put the individual in charge. Why is this important? Because the credit for the weight loss goes not to the program, but to the individual. It encourages learning and promotes self-responsibility. Remember this weight loss tip!

Would you like to give your weight loss a boost? Click here and get your FREE A-Z Calorie Counter.

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It’s what we all want -permanent weight loss – is there any other sort that anybody would be interested in? Surely when people want to lose weight they want the weight to be permanent, don’t they? You would have thought so, but maybe it isn’t really the case.

By and large there are two sorts of people who want to lose weight. Those that have become overweight and for the first time they have decided to do something about it. The other sort is the serial dieter. The seasoned campaigner who has suffered everything from low carb to low calorie, from Atkins to GI, from Cabbage to Weight Watchers and glooped all the gloopy potions and popped all the pills, but still the weight persists. Persists in that after every diet it reappears with monotonous regularity. Not fat and muscle, but just plain old fat.

Until now, going on a diet has been the most popular way to try and lose weight. There has been little else available except many, many variations on a theme. In recent years weight loss pills have started to become popular, but many people are unhappy about popping pills and there is some justification for their scepticism.

Do you really feel happy swallowing pills? It is a very brave person who swallows pills without knowing exactly is in them and the effect that they may have – in the short-term and much further down the track. How many times has a medication been found to be harmful years after it has been introduced? Far too many. Weight loss pills appear to work, but you can’t keep taking them forever and when you stop, rather the same as a diet, the weight comes back again.

I the end, permanent weight loss can really only be achieved by changing your habits. We are ruled by our habits, but it’s the bad ones that do all the harm. To make change you have to learn new habits, slim habits. Habits can’t be changed, you have to learn new ones that take the place of the bad habits. New slim habits make permanent weight loss possible.

Would you like to give your weight loss a boost? Click here and get your FREE A-Z Calorie Counter.

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When you are overweight or obese, what is the one thing that you want more than anything else in the world? It’s not just to lose weight, is it? It’s a bit more than that, it’s to lose weight permanently. That’s the dream.

For many people losing weight is a far off dream. It’s something they wish for every single day. To lose weight permanently is seen as being impossible. To feel this trapped is not good. It does self-confidence and self-esteem no good whatsoever.

What is one of the greatest problems about the world obesity crisis – if not the greatest problem? It is that so many people just don’t know what to do. They are utterly, utterly desperate. For years now, the answer to being overweight or obese was to go on a diet. It appeared to work. One of the reasons why this was the case, was because people generally were not that overweight. The problem has now changed markedly and people are considerably overweight. In this situation, diets do not work. There is just too much weight to come off, and most people cannot tolerate a strict diet regime indefinitely.

Diets have another problem because most diet regimes require strict calorie reduction – or some similar form – the body reacts against the diet and the weight comes back again. The diet having removed fat and muscle, what returns is just fat. The dieter has loss muscle mass they can ill afford to lose and life after the diet is more difficult than it was before.

Actually, there is only one sure fire way to lose weight permanently and that is to change. You cannot go on a diet and then just revert to the bad habits that make you fat. It makes no sense whatsoever, but this is what people do. The result is one continuous cycle of diet after diet.

The permanent weight loss secret is to learn new habits, new slim habits and change your eating and lifestyle habits. If you do you will be able to embrace a whole new life: a slim life full of new opportunities. Something to think about!

Would you like to give your weight loss a boost? Click here and get your FREE A-Z Calorie Counter.

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When you decide to go on a diet you are very likely to attract a great deal of comment and advice – sometimes much more than you would like. People are always eager to tell you what to do, but how much of the advice you get should you listen to?

Yet another diet? Which one this time? Will the result be the same? You will be surrounded with people pulling you one way then the other, each one enthusiastically justifying their decision. All the advice is given in good part, but it makes life very difficult.

Stay quiet. Don’t say a word about wanting to lose weight and your life will remain normal and controllable. Mention the fact that you’re going to lose weight and you will be asking for a very pressured life – not what you want when you are going have to jump through several uncomfortable hoops.

So, the first thing to do is to keep things to yourself. Do your own research. Make your own decisions. If you rely too much on the advice of others you will find out the truth the hard way.

Decision time…what to do? Here’s the most important tip you’ll ever get if you want to lose weight and for the weight not to return. Don’t go on a diet!

Diets are the traditional way of losing weight. The diet industry is worth over $61 billion. That’s a lot of money, so presumably diets must work? The fact is that diets deliver short-term weight loss. 95% of people who go on diets never achieve what all dieters want - permanent weight loss.

So what’s the answer? The simple fact is that if you want to lose weight permanently you have to change. You have to get rid of the habits that make you fat. You do this by learning new ones – slim habits.

The process of learning new slim habits is essential if you are going to lose weight permanently. Making change by learning new slim habits that will help you to change your eating and lifestyle habits will ensure that you can lose weight and for it not to return. It doesn’t get any better than that!

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The word ‘cancer’ is the one word people don’t want to hear. It has become so synonymous with death and suffering that it is seldom mentioned or even discussed – unless there is very good reason. This is despite the fact that there have been huge advances in the detection and cure of the disease in recent years.

Professor Martin Wiseman of the World Cancer Research Fund said: ‘Cancer is not a fate, it is a matter of risk, and you can adjust those risks by the way you behave’. We should be concentrating not on the emotional issues of cancer, but on its prevention.

How many of us are aware of the link between behavior and disease? Too few of us pay it very much attention even although we might be aware of it. The fact is that there are six cancers that are linked to excess body fat and yet one of the world’s most pressing problems is obesity.

It is a sobering fact that the ‘bill always has to be paid’. One element of the bill that will have to be paid for the current obesity epidemic is a rise in the number of weight related cancers that will surface in the coming years.

There is a very urgent need for all overweight and obese people to lose weight if they are to reduce the likelihood of developing cancer, but what to do? Diets do not deliver permanent weight loss, they deliver short-term weight loss. Most overweight or obese people are caught in a never ending cycle of diets which do nothing to reduce their weight permanently and make them miserable in the process.

Surely there has to be an answer? The answer lies in not going on a diet, but by changing your behavior. If you continue doing the same thing and never make fundamental change you will always remain the same. No diet ever produces change.

Recognizing the bad habits that make you fat is the very first thing that has to happen This is followed by learning new habits, new slim habits.

Learning new slim habits helps you to change your eating and lifestyle habits. Habits can’t be changed so you have to learn new habits to take their place. It is these bad habits that have caused you to be overweight in the first place. Change them and you will be able to achieve permanent weight loss and live a slim, disease free life.

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Goal setting is a very powerful process for focusing your attention on what you really want from life. Without goals, life can lack purpose and become directionless. By understanding what you want and what you want to achieve, you know where you have to direct your effort and energy. Get into the habit of setting goals. It builds self-confidence and self-belief, and it’s also a great motivator.

If you want to lose weigh permanently and to ensure that you succeed, you must have a goal. This is not something that you casually think about, it’s something you need to write down. You have to make a commitment to achieving that goal. If you don’t, your chances of success will be significantly reduced.

Do you have a lifetime goal? Do you have a goal that covers the next five years? You need to know what you want, and have a goal if you want to achieve it.

With your new-found awareness, you should take a fresh look at what you want to achieve. To make it easier, why don’t you split your goals into different categories?  No one goal can cover all you want to achieve. Here are some examples of categories you could use: getting slim, health, family, career, financial, physical, self-improvement. There are other categories you could use. Make a list of your own, and set out your goal for each category.

Remember that each goal must be your goal, and it should be a SMART goal. A SMART goal is one that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and to be achieved within a set Time. Remember to make your goal statement a positive one. Revisit your goals and update them as you see fit.

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When you start a weight loss program, often as not it turns out to be a journey of self-discovery – you meet many new aspects of ‘you’. Some you like, and some you don’t. You discover hidden strengths, and uncover vulnerabilities that perhaps you’d rather not know about. You begin to understand some of the reasons behind your past behaviors. You start to challenge your thinking. You become aware just how much the way you think can affect your actions and reactions, your relationships, and how you deal with the world around you.

Discovering out the truth about yourself is not something you should ever be afraid of. It’s a process of learning. The more you learn about yourself, the stronger you’ll become. The stronger you become, the more you’ll be able to deal with the challenges life throws at you

If you’ve started a weight loss program, what new, positive things have you discovered about yourself? What have you discovered about yourself that has surprised you – good and bad?

So many of us pay ourselves such little ‘proper attention’. When we do focus our attention on ourselves we realize that we have very little self-awareness. Self-awareness is absolutely vital if we are to uncover the bad habits that have caused us to get fat. We then need to learn new habits – new slim habits if we are to be able to lose weight permanently.

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This is an era of great opportunity! Read the newspapers, look at the television news and it’s hard to believe. This a time when most people are thinking of survival, not opportunity! Opportunity is the last thing on their minds – but it should be.

What is happening across the world doesn’t happen very often, maybe once in a lifetime – which is probably just as well! But what we are seeing is a debunking of the ‘old order’, a clearing out of bad practices: a shaming of the greedy, and a powerful spotlight being focused on selfish self-interest.

There’s no point moaning about the reasons for our predicament. We know where the blame lies, but chasing them down is a waste of energy. What we all have to do is to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get on with creating a new moral order and a better and more just future for our families – and to make sure that we have safeguards in place to see this doesn’t happen again.

This is a massive readjustment which is taking place. It’s the beginning of a new world order where hopefully there will be more transparency and hopefully a better understanding of mutual self-interest.

What has all this got to do with opportunity and losing weight? The simple answer is, a great deal. Why? Because it’s all to do with change. The world is changing and so must we if we are to be able to play our part and be able to benefit from the future.

The obesity epidemic which has been sweeping the civilized world is a symptom of our unhappiness and the state of society. Of course it has other causes, but we have allowed ourselves to become flabby physically – and mentally.

What we all have to do now is to make change. There really isn’t any alternative any more. If we are to survive and prosper, we have to change our ways. We have to become leaner and fitter. If we do then there will be a whole host of opportunities for us to grasp – and we’ll be able to make the best of them.

Need to lose weight? Then you need to start by identifying your old behaviors and then learn new habits, slim habits to replace them. This is the way to make real change and achieve permanent weight loss. Answer the challenge, get slim and fit  and the new world will be your oyster.

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