It seems like my whole life I have struggled with maintaining a healthy weight. In fact, all of my siblings and I have struggled with weight issues. I would probably visit Weight Loss Flower Mound for help with losing and maintaining weight but since I have been doing well on my own, I won't. Today, I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks that have really helped me to lose weight steadily and successfully in hopes that it will motivate you to do the same. I think most of us could stand to lose a few pounds here and there so here are some ideas to hopefully get you started.

1. Cut back on sweets. This one is hard. Especially since I recently reviewed a gigantic box of ridiculously delicious cookies. Yeah, I ate quite a few of those. :( Anyway, that just goes to show that you MUST NOT over eat when it comes to sweets. I am not a fan of completely cutting out things from my diet so I don't. It isn't realistic to expect yourself to completely eliminate certain foods that are always going to be there to tempt you. Now, some people CAN do this but I am not one of those people. I just limit my intake of those foods and only eat them on special occasions.

2. Drink a LOT of water. So, this one is not so hard for me because I just love water. People used to call me a camel at my previous job because I brought a 1.5 liter water bottle to work and refilled it many times throughout the day. Within the past year though, I seriously cut back on my water intake and it showed greatly. Can you believe that when I increased my water intake to over 100 ounces a day I actually lost alot of bloating? Water can get rid of water retention by flushing out the system. The body is such an incredible machine and NEEDS water to function properly. Once I started incorporating more water into my diet, the weight started to come off very quickly. So, please cut the pop and sugary drinks and go for the best diet beverage that was ever created...WATER.

3. Exercise. After you reach a point when eating right just isn't getting rid of the excess poundage, it is time to start exercising. Now, in the beginning I didn't do a lot of cardio workouts, but I focused on doing push-ups  sit-ups and worked with exercise bands. This was really good and helped strengthen my body a lot. Now that I have plateaued in my weight loss, I am doing aerobic workouts daily in hopes that I will get the weight moving off again. Exercise also helps reduce stress and increase your metabolism...which is key to losing weight.

So, while I am not an expert, I am very pleased that I have lost 20 pounds this year. I am trying to lose another 20 but need to push beyond my current plateau, which isn't easy. Hopefully these tips will get you motivated to try and get fit this year and become a bit healthier than you are right now!