Six Creative Ways to a Thinner You

Doesn’t dieting get boring? Counting calories and feeling deprived, and dragging through day after day until you can go off your diet is no way to lose weight. Try these six creative ways to weight loss and eradicate the boredom from weight loss plans forever.

1. Switch the focus from taking things out of your diet to adding things in:
On most diets we make lists of foods to eliminate: “no chocolate”, “no desserts”, “no eating out” in order to reduce calorie intake and this leads to cravings and feelings of deprivation. Instead, plan on adding things into your diet that are good for you: more glasses of water, more fresh fruits, more vegetables, and more whole grains. If you actually succeed at eating and drinking more of these healthy and filling things, you
won’t be hungry for some of the empty calories you’re used to eating, and the result will be weight loss!

2. Keep a journal, and make it fun: If you know that writing down everything you eat helps you lose weight, but you hate the idea, switch things up a bit; keep a record of how many minutes you exercise each day, or how many fruits and vegetables you eat—go for a record!

I know one woman who likes to track her “calories saved” every time she craves something high-calorie but instead walks away…”saved 550 calories driving by DQ instead of going in and ordering a blizzard” might be one of her entries. Then you can see the cumulative results of your positive actions add up during the week with lots of calories that you passed up.

3. Establish a reward system just like one that worked for you when you were a kid! I like to use pretty little stickers of flowers or smiley faces and give myself one in the margin of my appointment book for every day that I walk more than 10,000 steps or eat fewer than 1600 calories, for instance. When I accumulate a certain number of stickers, say 20 in a month, I treat myself to something worth that many ‘points’ like a
massage or a pedicure or a new book. Be sure you know what you’re working towards to give yourself that extra motivation, and start burning more calories and eating fewer to help you get to your weight loss goal.

4. Pedometer challenges. There are several websites that host pedometer logs and goals, and most pedometers come with an insert of ideas for you to get walking! The suggested daily number of steps—10,000—is about 5 miles. This includes any walking you do during the day, so you can get more in by parking a little farther away, taking steps instead of the elevator (even going down stairs adds to your accumulated steps), or walking up and down the aisles at the grocery store. Start by logging your usual daily steps for a week so you get an idea of your starting point. Then strive to add another 1000 every week until you get to your own personal daily goal.

Here’s an FYI: You burn about 100 calories for every mile you walk, which equals about 2000 steps. This makes it fun to go out and aim to burn 100 calories during a run to the grocery store and feel good about all the walking you’re doing when you have to take those steps anyway!

5. Switch up the diets. You may have found that there is a diet plan that works for you, but you just can’t stay on it for more than a few weeks. If you can stay on Atkins or Weight Watchers or Medifast for nearly a month, but then can’t manage another day, set a goal of just a few weeks for each diet. Instead of going off the diet and back to your usual way of eating (which lead to your weight gain), you’ll continue to see weight loss results every week as you continue to eat fewer calories . . . it doesn’t really matter which plan you are on! You might set some other goals that work for you for short terms, like “pack your lunch every day for 2 weeks” or “eat vegetarian at dinner for 2 weeks” or “have 5 small meals a day for the next 2 weeks”. These are all steps that reduce calories for most people and will lead to weight loss even though it’s an unusual way to go about dieting.

6. Games and blogs: Some people write blogs to journal their journey of weight loss and this may give you motivation to keep going—especially if you dare to make it public! One journalist wrote daily dieting blurbs on twitter throughout the day. She said it worked well for her because it kept her accountable—she knew people were watching and, what’s more, they were rooting for her.

Another blogger asked for a sponsor each week during the 52 weeks of her diet—each seven days she lost weight for the follower who was cheering on her efforts and that kept her motivated.

Look for games to motivate you towards your weight loss goal. One game works on a bingo-like board, with a board of 16 squares for you to cover every time you perform a certain activity: it might be eating a fresh fruit or having a healthy breakfast; having 6 glasses of water in one day; or going for a 5,000 step walk (about 2-1/2 miles). Play with others in your family, make up new activities, or challenge yourself to going for a ‘blackout’ and cover every square on the board!  (see product listing here if you'd like to try the game).

Diets are dreary and exercise can be something we don’t look forward to. In order to lose weight through eating fewer calories and burning more calories, strive to make eating healthy and exercising fun any way you can. Then developing healthy eating and exercise habits will be something you can look forward to as you shed those unwanted pounds.

Please leave us your comments to let us know what creative ways you have for weight loss and if one of the ones mentioned above worked for you!