3 Environmental Barriers to Weight Loss

1. Lack of Time: For women in particular, lack of time is cited as one of the most common barriers to losing weight. A study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity found that young women who are trying to lose weight are often in the process of moving away from home, starting new careers, dating, getting married, and becoming mothers. These major life events will not only sap your energy, but they also take up a lot of time.
   So with all of the pressures of work, family, and relationships, how do you make time to lose weight? Try one of these solutions:
   
   • Ask for help. Speak up and ask for help managing the tasks that take the most time in your schedule. Let your spouse or the kids help with the housework, even if it means it won't get done the way you like. Ask your employer for flexibility in your work schedule. Ask a neighbor or your parents to help. Put a time limitation on your request so that they know you are serious and organized about reaching weight loss success.
   
   
   • Prioritize. The time that you devote to losing weight may not be the best time for you to invest in other avenues in your life. See if there are ways to put some pursuits on the back burner so that your health takes the top slot. Use forward thinking as part of that process. If travel, having children, and pursing an aggressive career are on your list of life goals, remember that these hopes may be delayed if poor health due to obesity becomes a problem.
   
   
   • Organize a schedule. Get out an old-fashioned paper calendar. Find windows of time that are not consumed by absolute necessities. Find time slots for healthy food preparation and exercise. Pen in these items. Schedule your negotiable items around these top priorities. Finally, post the calendar in a place where you will be able to see it and use it as a daily guide for your weight loss success plan.
2. Lack of Social Support: Losing weight is one of the most difficult personal challenges you may ever confront. If the people around you don't give you the emotional support you need -- or worse yet, if they sabotage your efforts to lose weight -- you are much less likely to be successful. Try these techniques to get the social support you need.
   
   
   • Define your needs. You can't ask others for support if you don't know exactly what it is that you need. Get out a pen and paper and write out specific ways that each friend or family member can help you. For example, you may ask for friends to avoid eating high-fat foods in your presence. You may ask your spouse for a supportive comment each day. You might want family members to refrain from making defeating remarks that minimize or challenge your weight loss success.
   
   
   • Speak up. Once you know what you need, approach friends and family to ask for support. Taking the time to talk to them will help to show them that reaching weight loss success is an important goal for you.
   
   
   • Create a new network. If you still don't get the support you need, branch out and find a new social network. Find friends at the gym or your weight loss center. Online resources, such as the Weight Loss Forum or the Weight Loss Facebook page are also great ways to connect with others who can relate to your struggles.
3. Lack of Access to Healthy Food or Exercise Facilities: There is no doubt about it -- fast food is more accessible than healthy food. And if lack of time is also an issue in your life, you probably also know that fast food is quicker. It is not surprising that many people have trouble losing weight because they don't have easy access to the right food.
   That same challenge holds true for exercise. Most of us don't have a well-equipped gym and a personal trainer at our immediate disposal. So when we are already strapped for time, how do we get to the gym, learn to exercise, and find time for a calorie-busting workout?
   If you are going to get serious and lose weight, your best bet is to get resourceful and get creative.
   
   • Cook in bulk. When you create a schedule to support your weight loss efforts, schedule a time to prepare food for the entire week. Make healthy soups, roast vegetables, and precook chicken or another source of essential protein. Invest in a few small containers and package the food so that it is easy to find in the refrigerator. You may even find it helpful to schedule specific meals for each day so you know that your meals are covered for the week.
   
   
   • Exercise at home. You don't need fancy equipment or an expensive trainer to burn calories with exercise. Learn how to be your own trainer! Invest in a few exercise DVDs, or use fitness programming on television to work out. There are also great resources online. The American Council on Exercise provides an exercise library with instructions for performing specific workouts.

The path to weight loss or fat loss success isn't an easy one. But if you can identify and overcome the specific barriers that hold you back, you'll find that you will reach both short-and long-term goals.

http://weightloss.about.com/od/emotionsmotivation/a/Environmental-Barriers-To-Weight-Loss-Success.htm

How to Lose Weight - The Basics of Weight Loss

At it's most basic, losing weight is about burning more calories than you eat. That seems simple enough, but if were really that simple, none of us would have a weight problem. Too often we take drastic measures to see results -- diets, pills or those weird fitness gadgets on infomercials that promise instant success. Maybe you lose weight but what happens when you go off that diet or stop that crazy workout program? You gain it all back and more. The real secret to weight loss is to make small, lasting changes. The key is to forget about instant results and settle in for the long run.

Rules of Weight Loss

To lose one pound of fat, you must burn approximately 3500 calories over and above what you already burn doing daily activities. That sounds like a lot of calories and you certainly wouldn't want to try to burn 3500 calories in one day. However, by taking it step-by-step, you can determine just what you need to do each day to burn or cut out those extra calories. Below is a step by step process for getting started.

1. Calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate). Your BMR is the amount of calories your body needs to maintain basic bodily functions like breathing and digestion. This is the minimum number of calories you need to eat each day. Keep in mind that no calculator will be 100% accurate, so you may need to adjust these numbers as you learn more about your own metabolism.
2. Calculate your activity level. For a week or so, keep an activity journal and use a calorie calculator to figure out how many calories you burn while sitting, standing, exercising, lifting weights, etc. throughout the day. Another, easier option is to wear a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned. After a week, add your totals for each day and average them out to get a general idea of how many calories you burn each day.
3. Keep track of how many calories you eat. For at least a week, enter and track your calories online (e.g., with Calorie Count) or use a food journal to write down what you eat and drink each day. Be as accurate as possible, measuring when you need to or looking up nutritional information for restaurants, if you eat out. After a week, add your totals for each day and average them out to get a general idea of how many calories you eat each day.
4. Add it up. Take your BMR number and add your activity calories. Then subtract your food calories from that total. If you're eating more than your BMR + your activity calories, you're at risk for gaining weight.

Example:

Mary's BMR is 1400 calories and she burns 900 calories with regular exercise, walking around and doing household chores. To maintain her weight, she should be eating 2300 calories (1400 + 900= 2300). However, after keeping a food journal, Mary finds that she's eating 2550 calories every day. By eating 250 more calories than her body needs, Mary will gain about a pound every 2-3 weeks.

This example shows how easy it is to gain weight without even knowing it. However, it's also easy to lose weight, even if the process itself can be slow. You can start by making small changes in your diet and activity levels and immediately start burning more calories than you're eating. If you can find a way to burn an extra 200 to 500 calories most days of the week with both exercise and diet, you're on the right track. Try these ideas:

Instead of...	Do this...
An afternoon Coke	Drink a glass of water. (calories saved: 97)
An Egg McMuffin	Eat a small whole wheat bagel +1 Tbsp of peanut butter (calories saved: 185)
Using your break eat sweets	Walk up and down a flight of stairs for 10 minutes (calories burned: 100)
Hitting the snooze button	Get up 10 minutes early and go for a brisk walk (calories burned: 100)
Watching TV after work	Do 10 minutes of yoga (calories burned: 50)

Total Calories Saved: 532 (based on a 140-pound person)

How Much Exercise Do I Need?

Exercise is an important weight loss tool, but how much you need varies from person to person. The guidelines recommend at least 250 minutes per week, which comes out to about 50 minutes, 5 days a week. If you're a beginner, start small, for example with 3 days of cardio for 15-30 minutes, gradually adding time each week to give your body time to adapt.

http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/howtoloseweight.htm