Before going head first into a diet plan, take a step back to assess the situation. Long term weight loss happens when you make sustainable changes to your lifestyle, so a quick fix diet plan might not be the best solution.

Have a go at the following tasks to get to a fail safe weight loss plan.

Getting Motivated

How important is it for you to lose weight?

1......2......3......4......5......6......7......8......9......10

Not at all.............................................Extremely

How confident would you say you are, that if you decided to lose weight, you could do it?

1......2......3......4......5......6......7......8......9......10

Not at all.............................................Extremely

It seems like common sense that things are better achieved if they are important and if there is confidence in achieving them. What would make weight loss top of your list?

How could you improve your confidence in achieving it?

If you are having trouble finding the answers it helps to list aspects of your current life/behaviour in comparison with where you want to be.

List the pros and cons of:

  • Not losing weight
  • Losing weight
And think about where you will be in 5 years time in these ciscumstances:

  • Having lost weight
  • Having not lost weight
Once you have decided why weight loss is important to you, you can then work on building your confidence with a weight loss plan.

Taking Action

Long term sucess comes from making healthy choices. A change to your lifestyle becomes an everyday habit once you have kept it up for around 6 months. Do the activity below to help you identify some good habits to form. 1. List things that you could change about your current lifestyle.

Place your list on a sketched out version of the diagram below using the following guide:

  • How important (to you) is it for you to carry out / change that behaviour
  • How confident are you that you can maintain it in challenging circumstances (for example when you are tired, in a bad mood, when you feel that you do not have the time, when you are on holiday, when it is raining cold or very hot).

The Outcome

Box 'B’ will contain the lifestyle changes that are going to be the most successful for you at the moment, start with these.

Then the next step is to make a plan and let friends and family know whay you're up to, so they can help you to be successful.

Use guide below to structure your fail safe plan.

  1. The most important reasons why I want to make this change are....

  2. My main goals for myself in making this change are....

  3. I plan to do these things in order to accomplish my goals (specific action; time frame)....

  4. Other people could help me change in these ways:(person; possible ways to help)....

  5. There are some possible obstacles to change, and how I could handle them(obstacle; how to respond)....

  6. I know my plan is working when I see these results....

corporate health and wellness programs


Loughborough University Sports Science Service, Loughborough LE11 3TU, England

SBI
SBI!