Dieting can be a tedious, torturous part of your lifestyle, but it certainly does not need to be. It might be as simple as limiting your consumption of “sweets”; or it could be as complicated as measuring out every gram of food you consume and then converting those measurements to calories. The most efficient way to diet and obtain your ultimate physique is by using the following five keys.
Organization
First of all, you need to organize the goals of your diet. You should establish short term goals like: “I am going to loose 5 pounds in two weeks” or “I am going to drop my body fat by two percent in fifteen days.” Long term or overall goals should also be established: “I am going to loose thirty pounds by the end of the year” or “I am going to lower my body fat to seven percent.” Once these goals have been established, it is time to lay out your plan.
It is most important that you plan out your daily caloric intake and macronutrient ratios to ensure that your body receives the proper nutrients that it requires, ultimately maintaining muscle while shedding fat, which is the primary goal of any smart weight-loss diet. There are two options when planning out your daily food intake. You can plan out exactly what foods you will eat and their corresponding gram measurements before you begin dieting, in what is called a meal plan. This is an easy to follow option that simply requires you to do a small amount of prep work for easy food measuring and making. The other option is to measure out your food as you go and record it in a food log.
Mental Preparation
The third and possibly most important ingredient to a successful dieting experience is the mental preparation. Discipline is the key to any dieting – you must be able to resist those tempting foods that you crave so much. This might not seem that hard to some, but anybody with a sweet tooth knows how hard it is to resist temptation. Showing discipline is the primary reason why the mental aspect of dieting is so critical. Everybody is human and is bound to “cheat” in one form or another when dieting; yet it is those that show enough discipline to get back on track and continue with their diet plan who will eventually achieve their ultimate body.
Implementation
The Implementation of your diet plan might sound easy compared to the previous keys, but underestimating the implementation of your diet can come back to haunt you. When you implement your diet plan, it is also important that you be willing to adapt your plan if circumstances change. Life can often be unexpected and you can’t afford for your nutrition to suffer because of it.
Evaluation
When you eventually come to the end of your dieting cycle, it is important to record your final results both by statistics and by photo. Since the start and finish of your diet are the most important points in recording your progress for comparison, it is also suggested that you periodically record your progress in between to fully display your transformation. The evaluation key is essential in your start-to-finish comparison and to your success with future diet plans. Just because your diet is over doesn’t mean your work is done – use your diet not only to look good, but also as a learning experience to improve upon in the future.
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