Before and After Weight Loss: Looking After Your Body Pre and Post Diet

It’s the start of a New Year, and you’re ready to start that diet… Well done you! Finding the resolve to commence a healthy eating plan can be difficult, but you’ve already achieved a lot by reaching the stage where you’re ready to begin.

the main thing is to maintain your weight and stop yourself from sliding back into bad eating habits!

Before beginning to diet, it’s really important to prepare your body for the task. It’s also vital to develop a regime of caring for your body after the diet, and making sure that all your hard work is well maintained. Here is a helpful guide, outlining how best to get your body ready for weight loss, and how to maintain your achievements afterwards!

Before Weight Loss – Preparing Your Body for Diet

Whatever diet you choose to undertake in order to get rid of the excess weight, it’s important to make sure that you're physically (and mentally) fighting fit and ready to give it your all. Here are a few great tips to help get your body ready for dieting.

1. Start an exercise regime - as you probably already know, exercise is just as important as diet when it comes to effective weight loss. If you feel daunted by the prospect of sweaty aerobics classes and marathon runs, don’t worry; even walking to work still counts as exercise, and can help strengthen and tone your body.
2. Improve your health - winter is notoriously bad for catching illnesses, which can be detrimental to successful weight loss. Protect yourself against poor health by looking after your body as much as possible. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables (particularly those rich in antioxidants, such as onions, kidney beans, cherries and berries of all varieties) and enhance your health with supplements.
3. Detox - the best gift you can give to your body is a thorough cleanse! Before embarking on a diet, aim to spend a few days detoxing, to flush your system of toxins. Lemongrass tea is particularly effective at cleansing the system.

After Weight Loss – Preserving the Results

After your diet, you're likely to be feeling fantastic. After all, you can now see the results of your hard work, and you've rediscovered your confidence when you look in the mirror.

Now, the main thing is to maintain your weight and stop yourself from sliding back into bad eating habits! Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

1. Keep your diet varied - one of the major pitfalls after dieting is boredom. If you find yourself falling into the trap of eating the same things, day in, day out, it’s time to inject a bit of variety into your eating. Invest in some new recipe books and rediscover your enthusiasm for rustling up healthy meals!
2. Join a sports team - now that you've got the figure you want, there’s no excuse to not get involved in a local sports team, or take part in a fun aerobics class! Exercise isn’t just for losing weight, it’s also an integral part of staying healthy and fit, not to mention having fun and making new friends.
3. Create goals…and stick to them! - If you're worried about the weight piling back on, set yourself some realistic goals and make sure you stick to them. For example, if you know your weakness is chocolate, set a limit on how much you're allowed for the week, and indulge your sweet tooth on something healthier instead. If you're fond of a drink or two each night, set yourself the goal of only drinking on certain evenings.

Staying Positive and Celebrating Achievement

Above all else, remember that you've achieved a lot by dieting and that you should feel proud of your success. It's time to see your body as something to be cared for, and to take pride in ensuring that it’s looked after as well as possible.