The 3 Golden Rules of Weight Loss

Picture the scene. You've spent the last week eating like a sparrow, killing yourself at your local spinning class and saying no to that extra portion of chips that you'd usually gobble up in a second. You even said no to the tray of doughnuts being offered around the office and watched everyone else chomp away as you nibbled on the fruit bowl you spent way too long preparing that morning...

So it's time to step on the bathroom scales and see if all your hard work has paid off. Surely you've lost half a stone this week, or at the worst about 4lbs. You take a long, deep breath... one foot on... the other foot on... and the result... half a pound!! Half a bleeding pound?! After two or three "re-weighs" and a "tactical wee" your weight still hasn't budged! What's that all about?!

You've probably heard experts say that hair loss is one of the side effects of crash dieting... what they forget to mention is that it's usually because it's been pulled out when your scales don't tell you what you want to see!

These 3 golden rules of weight loss will not only save you from pulling your hair out, but will help to manage your expectations and keep you motivated long enough to reach your weight loss target.

1) Aim for 1lb of weight loss per week on average.

Most people give up at slimming clubs because they expect too much too soon. You may have seen people lose 7lbs a week on celebrity fit club or in your glossy magazine, but they will have been on a seriously strict diet and done 4 to 5 hours exercise a day... not exactly realistic! If you've got a job, a family and a social life, then the most you should expect to lose is 1lb per week on average. Add up all the weeks in the last year you've spent dieting, giving up, dieting again then giving up again, then work out how much you'd have lost if you were losing 1lb per week consistently.

2) Don't expect to lose weight every week.

Our bodyweight naturally fluctuates 3 - 4lbs a day. Long term weight loss isn't like a leisurely stroll down a hill, it's like a really frustrating rollercoaster! If you expect to lose weight every week you're going to be disappointed... and bald! As a realistic target aim to lose 4lbs every 4 weeks (1lb per week on average). That means you might lose 1lb in the first week, stay the same in the second week, lose half a pound in the third week, then lose 3.5lbs in the fourth week (-1lb, -0lb, -0.5lbs, -3.5lbs = -4lbs over 4 weeks, -1lb per week on average). Or you might lose 2lbs in the first week, gain 1lb in the second week, lose 3lbs in the third week, then stay the same in the fourth week (-2lbs, +1lb, -3lbs, -0lbs = -4lbs over 4 weeks, - 1lb per week average).

3) Track your weight loss over time.

Although weight bounces up and down week by week, due to water levels, if you look at your weight over time you can see the trend, which tells you how much you are losing on average. Good weight loss should look like a downward rollercoaster. If you use a weight tracker you can see the trend of your weight over time, which is far more motivating that just looking at your weight bobbing up and down week by week. The winners in the weight loss game aren't the people who crash diet, lose 7lbs a week over two weeks, give up and put it all back on again. It's the people who lose on average 1lb a week over several weeks and keep it off.