Of the many factors that influence how long an individual will stick to a particular diet regimen, a lack of results may be the biggest. The fact is most diets simply don’t yield the results that people are looking for to warrant the sacrifice. In the initial stages a typical dieter will give it everything that they’ve got for a week, two weeks, three weeks or more. Maybe the first week goes well, second week is a little bit slower and by the third week they didn’t lose anything. The forth week they continue to diet and exercise and they still didn’t lose anything. What do you think is going to happen? That person’s going to say, “Screw this! I’ve only lost four pounds so far and I have to do this until I lose 30 pounds? It’s just completely unrealistic.” People will just end the diet because they’re not seeing a return on their investment.

Your return is the results that you’re seeing whether you’re looking in the mirror and you’re seeing positive change, is there change physically in your body? Is there change when you step on the scale? Is there a change when you wrap that measuring tape around your waist? If there’s not, it’s disheartening, it’s discouraging and people simply aren’t going to follow through with a program that is not getting them the results that they’ve after. Who can blame them for giving up the fight. If I was spending 12 hours a day on my business and I never made a dime, then I probably wouldn’t continue in that line of business or with whatever I was doing for very long. Dieting is no different. It’s not that you “just don’t have what it takes”, it’s that NO ONE is going to continue to work hard with no pay off.

For for 99% of dieters, the type of programs that they’re doing are the type of programs that will cause them to plateau after a very short period of time, where they end up not getting the results that they want to achieve. These include diets that exclusively restrict or recommend excess consumption of a particular nutrient ( carbohydrate, fats or protein). Although these approach can work well short term if done correctly ( and under expert supervision), most will receive little benefit and may likely damage their metabolism in the long run. In light of this, people still want the quick fix and unwittingly adopt the fad diet approach as the only way to eat. They lose some weight initially, quit the diet because it’s not sustainable, put the weight back on, go back on the diet and the merry-go-round continues. This is the plight of the modern dieter.

Like any pursuit in life, you need to prepare thoroughly for the challenges ahead if you are to reach your goals on schedule. This means establishing baselines, reasonable timelines, measurement tracking systems, identifying behavioral limitations, food preparation strategies and a host of other criteria to determine the right path for you. I have found that most of my client tend to struggle with the food preparation part. It is often difficult to build new habits but by having a plan from the beginning and making gradual changes at your own pace things will be much easier.

Don’t expect optimal results from a fat loss program unless you’ve completed the following preliminary checklist:

•  Have you clearly established a specific goal (the exact amount of weight you want to lose by the end of the program)? Did you write your goal down to review daily?
• Have you calculated your calorie and macronutrient needs for each day based on the specific recommendations from your trainer and activity levels?
• Did you decide how often you will prepare your meals (daily, biweekly, or weekly)? Twice weekly is recommended.
• Did you plan out the entire first weeks menu? It is best to do this meal by meal and then make any adjustments or substitutions as you see fit during the week. Having a plan in place is fundamental to success. Be prepared.
• Did you set-up an optimal meal-time schedule based on your daily availability? For example, 7am breakfast, 10am mid-morning snack, 12:30pm lunch, 3pm mid-afternoon snack, 6pm dinner. Meals should be spaced 2-3 hours apart.
• Did you go grocery shopping for all the food items needed to prepare your first week of meals?
• Do you have a method for logging and tracking your actual daily food intake for future reference?

Most people may not realize that this much thought and preparation is necessary and those that do, seldom fullfill the obligation. Most take a haphazard approach to attaining thier fitness goals, or worse perform completely random workouts and expect consistant and measurable results.

That leaves only the small minority of people that understand that if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail . . . . . Get things right from the start and set the bar high for yourself. Track and measure your progress every step of the way. Set realistic deadlines but be flexible enough to change them as your body changes. Inplement strategies for overcoming plateaus you face along the way and begin realizing the lean and toned body you had envisioned to keep you motivated for now and forever.

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