Why does weight loss feel so difficult? Most people would say it’s because they feel like they have to deprive themselves.

It’s painful to:

• Stop eating foods you love.
• Eat foods you don’t particularly like.
• Miss out on social activities or cut back on them for fear that they’ll derail your weight loss goals.

It’s no surprise then that most people find losing weight difficult. Who would ever choose to feel deprived or unsatisfied?

But what if our thinking about how to lose weight was all wrong? What if the best way to lose weight was actually to NOT feel deprived at all?

So many people believe the “no pain, no gain” approach to weight loss is the most effective. But let me put it this way: If achieving a goal — weight loss or any other — requires being miserable, how motivated would you be to really stick to it? You wouldn’t!

For weight loss to be long-term it has to be pleasant. Otherwise you will always be struggling to stick to it. (And the sad thing is often when you struggle to stick to an unpleasant diet, you blame yourself. But it’s not your fault. It’s the diet that was unsustainable.)

So how do you ensure that weight loss is pleasant AND sustainable? Here are 5 ways:

1. Make tiny changes.

A lot of weight loss advice comes from the “shock and awe” school of thought. You throw out everything in your fridge and completely replace your existing diet with something radically different.

But the more drastic and different your new eating plan, the less likely you are to stick with it, especially when life gets busy. It’s much easier to keep your eating plan relatively the same and then make small changes in the right direction.

he best place to start is food portions. I tell my clients that even reducing portions by as little as 5% is a great start — something anyone can do.

Once you’ve cut back by 5% see how you feel. If you don’t notice that you’re eating less, brilliant! Now cut back 5% more.

n other words, make changes slowly so that you don’t notice them. Over time, lots of tiny changes add up to one big result.

2. Don’t stop doing what you enjoy.

Another popular diet strategy is to stop eating all the foods you love. But is that really sustainable? Of course not.

Instead, prioritize. Instead of eating both a cookie and a chocolate bar, decide which on your like more. Stick with that one, and stop eating the other.

3. Remove temptation.

I know lots of people who keep food on their desk at work. This is often food they really love but also can’t resist.

If you keep candy on your desk, every time you see it you think “Should I have it?” Even if you only give in once in a while, it still means calories are being consumed that you may not even have wanted and wouldn’t have missed if the temptation wasn’t there.

By all means eat candy, but make it a deliberate decision.

Click here to read more

Article Courtesy: http://www.mindbodygreen.com/

Picture Courtesy: http://valleysleepcenter.com/