What Is The Key To A Successful Weight Loss Programme?

So you’ve finally decided. After weeks, months or perhaps even years of contemplation, you’ve at long last resolved to do something about your weight. And having made that momentous decision, you are now ready to take the first steps of your weight loss journey.

But where to begin? Is it good to lose weight fast? What is the best way to ensure healthy weight loss? What is the key to a successful Weight Loss Programme? These are all reasonable questions but there are times when the resulting tsunami of answers can feel downright overwhelming.

Diet seems like a good place to start and judging by the scale of the diet industry worldwide, a lot of people clearly agree. According to CNN, in the United States alone the industry was worth almost $60 billion in 2010, while at the end of 2011 the Guardian reported that in the UK the industry was valued at a more modest but still enormous £2 billion. Here in Ireland such figures are harder to come by but going by the vast amount of books, magazines, websites, TV programmes and other media coverage devoted to diet, as a nation we seem have an insatiable appetite for the subject.

It’s a similar story with fitness. From aerobics to all-day exercises while sitting at your computer, the Internet brims with exercise advice. And if you have ever doubted the strength of the association between weight loss and exercise, just visit a gym in early January.

While there can be no doubt that diet and exercise are essential components of a successful weight loss programme, on their own they are not enough. How else to explain numerous studies which estimate that up to 95% of people who lose weight through diet eventually put it back on again?

That’s not a very encouraging statistic but before deciding to give up on your weight loss resolution on the basis that there’s no point, it’s worth considering the reason why so many weight loss diets at best only lead to short-term results.

Diet and exercise are only part of the answer because they merely treat the symptoms of the condition, not the underlying cause. To do that, it’s essential to identify the attitudes and behaviour at the root of your eating habits. The moment you begin to recognise what’s driving your eating habits is the moment you can start to make lasting changes that are so important to achieving permanent weight loss success. 

By assessing your relationship with food, adjusting your behaviour, introducing simple but lasting changes to your daily routine and generally re-evaluating your lifestyle, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can deal with the drivers at the root of you eating habits. By doing so you will greatly enhance your chances of shedding those excess pounds and successfully reaching and maintaining your preferred long-term weight.