1) Take care of yourself
This is the most important thing of all. All the other points here stem from this philosophy. Don’t punish yourself; heal yourself, nurture yourself, CARE for yourself. The following points are ways of caring for yourself.
2) Know where you are going and what your motivation is to get there; have a main goal, and smaller goals to reach on your path. Do not make it all about weight- think about reducing in inches too, and gaining health, vitality, and a spring to your step. Celebrate each step on your path to success.
3) Have a role model or two; women who have realistic bodies that you admire. Tear out pictures of clothes you like, even if you don’t have the confidence or figure to wear them now. Get to know what you really like, as opposed to what you make do with.
4) Take a daily constitutional, or some other form of gentle exercise
If you take regular exercise, you will become more supple, elegant and poised. Your figure will be trimmer, and all that extra oxygen and endorphins in your system will make you feel on top of the world. Start gently and build it up. Take every opportunity you can to move your body, from walking to work to stretching before bed.
5) Drink your water
And lots of it. Almost everything I have read to do with diet, fitness and beauty agree on this point. Drink it up. One school of thought suggests you work out your weight in pounds, halve it, and drink this many ounces of water a day.
6) Be prepared
Have healthy snacks to hand, and slices of lemon or lime to squeeze into water. Have your gym kit washed and ready to go. If you know you have a big meal or such thing coming up, plan some extra-healthy meals around this time. Be kind to yourself; make it as easy for yourself as you possibly can.
7) Eat something fresh at every meal
Some fruit with your cereal, or a glass of juice; a bowl of vegetable soup, or a luscious fruit dessert. Fill up on fruits and veggies to keep hunger at bay and reap beauty benefits from all those vitamins and minerals.
8) Eat foods as close to their natural state as possible
Think wholesome and unprocessed, as in wholemeal bread and pasta rather than white pasta. No long lists of chemical names as ingredients. A wholemeal roll you made yourself is infinitely preferable to a slice of plastic ‘stayfresh’ bread. Choose whole yoghurt and eat a little less of it rather than ‘low fat’ or ‘lite’ versions which are packed with sugar or sweeteners.
9) Eat foods in season, where possible
This is not about making a rod for your own back or resisting all temptation in your path. Instead it is about feasting on strawberries in summer, and thick root vegetable stews in winter. Food in season will always be tastier and healthier and better for both the environment and your purse. Be guided by what is abundant at the market stall, grocer, or farmers market.
10) Keep on going
This is hard. When the initial glow has worn off of a new routine, you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, or you are simply bored, it is easy to slip back into old ways. Remember why you are doing this. Look how far you have come. Keep on keeping on.
And one for luck...
Taken not from this book, but from another, Pig 2 Twig by India Knight; do not talk about it to anyone you know. It is one thing for me to blog anonymously to the world, but quite another to talk about pounds and ounces and inches and servings of fruit and vegetables to my friends and family. Really, you may as well go around saying 'look how fat I am!'. No, it is much better to shut up and get on with it, and save your loquacity for your blog...
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