Three Simple Rules to Lose Weight and Feel Good About you

Losing weight is about simple, common sense direction – and hope. A simple plan that works for you and hope that you can shed those layers and keep them off – not for the short sprint of a few weeks or months, but forever. Losing weight is not about counting, measuring, fussing, starving, sneaking, or guiling. And it’s certainly not about depriving and proclaiming that you’re never going to eat your food faves ever, ever, ever again. Let’s get real – that’s not going to happen so why go there? Be reasonable with yourself.

Forget about what you’re going to "have to" give up. Think about what you "get to" add to your day. And that’s the first rule. Here are all three.

Rule 1: Add

Rule 2: Stop

Rule 3: Wiggle!

Sounds like a fun, new dance, doesn’t it? Add, Stop, And Wiggle! Well, a dance it is – especially when you wiggle into those pants calling to you from your closet.

Try these three rules on for that smaller size:

1. Add and fill up on the best-for-you foods first

The best-for-you foods: whole, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and beans.

• Breakfast: play around on with grazing on fruit all morning. Eat enough to fill you up – yes, more than one banana (if you don’t fill up on that morning pick-me-up and drop-me-down).
• Lunch: dive into a large green-leafy vegetable salad with 10 different vegetables (lettuce, spinach, sprouts, carrots, tomatoes, red or green cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, radishes, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, avocado…whatever you like). Eat enough to fill you up. Dressing: water-based with no oil, no dairy.
• Dinner: eat in order – first salad, second steamed vegetables, third a more filling vegetable, like potatoes, yams, or winter squash. Then add one of your old-time favorites if you still have a hankering for it. Tricky, huh? You’ll automatically eat less of those not-so-good-for-you foods that sabotage weight loss and those good feelings about that special person you.
  
• Snacks: fruit, cut up vegetables, and raw, unsalted nuts and seeds.
• Beverages: water and homemade fruit and vegetable juices.

2. Stop eating when your brain says you’re full

Before your stomach begs for mercy. Yes, tough to do, but it gets easier with awareness and practice. Remember, your garbage disposal is replaceable – you are not.

3. Wiggle! Give yourself wiggle room

We all need that. Follow the 80/20 Rule. 80% of the time, follow the three rules. 20% of the time, eat what you want. No biggie. Just be sure you don’t wiggle too much – it shows. So there you have it – Add, Stop, and Wiggle your way to those pants and feeling good about you.

Is there more to it ? Yes, but we have to start somewhere so why not start by playing to that catchy new tune of: Add, Stop, and Wiggle. So today, load up on those fresh fruits for breakfast, great big salad for lunch, and veggies first for dinner, and wiggle your way into those pants.

"You are the master of your own choices and either the beneficiary of or slave to the consequences."- Dr. Leslie Van Romer