By Julie Elaine Brown, M. A.

Gaining weight never seems like that much of a big deal—until you attempt to lose it.

As cold weather approaches, your body prepares for the big freeze and preps you with an extra layer of fat. If you’re a caregiver, you may have even more insulation than needed thanks to stress, being overworked, and a lack of exercise time.

How do you beat the bulge? Start with an exercise routine that’s adapted to your personal needs. Be sure to check with your doctor before engaging in an exercise or diet program. Once he or she gives you the thumbs up, it’s time to:

Accept the Challenge

This season, make losing or maintaining weight a competitive sport.

Your foe? 3,500 calories.

Each pound you gain is equivalent to 3,500 calories, so if you’ve gained even 5 pounds, you need to burn an additional 17,500 calories. That’s about 50 typical salads.

When you consider that the average 40 year old, 140lb woman burns about 1400 calories a day, it’s easy to see why some people never lose those last 5 or 10 pounds.

Don’t over promise. Aim to lose 1-2 pounds a week. While realistic, this is by no means an easy feat. To lose even 2 pounds a week, you’ll need to burn an additional 7,000 calories each week. That’s not feasible without a strict combo of diet and exercise.

Enlist your Loved One

Ask a friend to take the challenge with you, or, better yet, enlist your loved one if they are healthy enough to engage in some basic activities such as walking. (Be sure to check with your loved one’s doctor first!)  A daily walk before dinner can really help you forget about the stress of your day while fostering communication between the two of you.

This may sound amusing, but if your loved one is bored after being cooped up in the house all day, and he or she isn’t able to join you in the exercise routine, have him or her be your personal coach instead. Put on that Yoga video and follow the on-TV moves as they tell you what you’re doing wrong. I don’t know about you, but I know my Mom really likes this kind of back seat driving. If you do it with a sense of humor, everyone’s happy. Mom has 45 minutes of live comic entertainment, and you get a great workout in the living room.

Workouts at Home

I’m a big fan of the at-home video. It’s a great solution for those who are on the go. Plus, it’s relatively cheap, and nobody’s around to care that your socks don’t match.

I like Collage Video for at-home videos delivered to your doorstep. The member community boards are full of real-world people like us who rate videos and give great advice on where and how to start. Each video is also reviewed by a certified fitness professional, rating the quality of the workout type, the instructor’s voice and clarity, the music, the choreography, and more.

As a fitness trainer, I recommend Yoga, Pilates, and Mat-based exercises for beginners and advanced exercises alike. These types of exercises help keep your core (the muscles between your breasts and your hips) strong. The exercises can also help you to lose weight and relax. Yoga and meditation have a way of making you feel “centered” and can also regulate your breathing.  Stretching on a mat forces your body to stay still.  Concentrating on lengthening and strengthening your muscles helps promote mind-body awareness.

I’m also a big fan of the “Don’t let the TV commercials go to waste” technique when I’m watching regular TV. I always do things such as a few leg lifts or buttock squeezes in between television commercials. Those 3 minutes really add up here and there.

If you like these suggestions, but want to hear some others, see the article on “Hidden Fitness” for more great tips!

Stay Motivated!

Like I said, this won’t be easy –that’s why it’s a challenge. Keep yourself motivated with strict personal goals. You’d be surprised at how much faster and farther you can run, or how much more effort you can put into a fitness class, or even how fun it can be to walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator when you make it a personal challenge.

Forced motivation works even on the seasoned athlete. Competition moves us, and once we reach one goal, it’s natural to want to challenge ourselves with a new one. If you’ve been taking 3 fitness classes a week, up that amount to 4—and take all new classes. Increase a daily walk from 1 mile to 2. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies Aren’t Always Worth It

Reducing your desert intake can really help eliminate those extras pounds.  Reduce alcohol and carbohydrates as well, and eat even more fruits and vegetables. “Power” foods include bananas (the carbs in fruit are easy to burn off,) orange juice (lots of energy and vitamin c,) as well as high-protein foods such as tofu. Eat less, but eat better. Make sure every single food item you put into your mouth is going to good use. Bear in mind that a complete “no-holds-barred” attitude can be bad for you, too. If you go two weeks without a bit of dessert here and there, only to eat the entire Toll-House TM cookie package, you haven’t really accomplished much. Try having small desserts as rewards, so you don’t binge when you reach your boiling point. Everything in moderation! 

Take It One Day at a Time

While you should keep long-term goals in the back of your mind, remember goals are easier to stick to when they seem short-term. Trick your body into thinking your daily diet and exercise plan is simply for that day. Every day, congratulate yourself for achieving your goal. Do it again the next day and the next.  If you don’t do so well today, simply pay more attention to your workout and diet tomorrow.

Track & Log Your Progress

Everyone I know:

1. Underestimates how much he or she eats
   
   And…
   
2. Overestimates his or her workouts.

The best way to solve that problem is to keep track of everything you eat and how much you exercise. Sites such as www.fitday.com help you stay motivated with accurate reports. You plug in the foods you ate and your workouts, and the sites calculate both the calories eaten and the calories burned. 

Patience & Persistence

Two important things to remember: your body will resist change, and it takes time to notice a difference. Losing 5 pounds in a healthy way may take more than 6 weeks of daily cardio exercise and calorie restrictions. Losing more than those five pounds will take even more time.

You may even gain weight (at first) as you increase your physical activity. When you tone your body and increase your cardio, muscles will slowly replace the fat in your body. Now don’t get discouraged; for a few weeks you’ll notice both the new muscle mass and that extra “flab” you were trying to lose.

During this time, the scale may tip in the other direction, your clothes may feel tighter, and your appetite may increase. It is during this critical time that many people give up exercising. Again, this is part of the challenge. You need to persevere through this critical period (and make sure you stick with the diet) and you will see a difference. Trust me!

Recommended Plan

Every person is different when it comes to what burns the most calories and sculpts the troublesome areas the quickest. However, working out at least 4-5 times a week and varying your activities each time tends to produce the greatest changes.

Cycling, kickboxing, and running will all burn approximately 400-500 calories an hour and will sculpt your lower body relatively quickly. Swimming is another high-calorie burner that tones and slims your body simultaneously.

I personally recommend spending 10 minutes a day working your abdominal muscles—as your core, these muscles help your posture, support your back, and make you more conscious about over-eating.

The Rest is Up To You

This is a challenge that you are undertaking. While it won’t be easy, I assure you that the results will be more than worth the effort you put in. Take it slowly, eat in moderation, and exercise regularly. Besides keeping off those winter pounds, you’ll find your stress levels decreasing, and you might even grow closer to loved ones who take the challenge with you!