Spectrum Health Offers Advice for a Healthy New Year – Five Tips for Successful Weight Loss

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., December 27, 2010 – Each new year brings new resolutions from people determined to improve something in their lives. Traditionally, the No. 1 resolution is to lose weight.

Jill Graybill, a registered dietitian with Spectrum Health Healthier Communities, offers five important tips to consider before finalizing your weight loss goals this year.

1. Think first.

The biggest step to meeting goals like weight loss, and the one most often forgotten, is to do your thinking homework. Figure out why you want to set this goal, all the steps it will take to achieve it, what it will look like once you do and, if you have set the goal before, what kept you from meeting it. This step is critical to success. Most people set halfhearted weight loss goals, assuming eventual failure rather than success.

2. Don’t set a weight loss goal that you are unwilling to keep for the rest of your life.

Many people will try completely cutting out junk food or carbohydrates from their lives, only to find that such a strict diet is boring and impossible to sustain. They eventually return to their old eating habits, but often indulge even more in the foods they have missed. This is why most frustrated dieters end up gaining weight from year to year.

3. Establish support by telling others about your goal.

Telling your friends, family and co-workers about your weight loss resolution will keep you accountable. Their positive support and encouragement is critical to keeping you on track, as the novelty of a new resolution wears off.

4. Learn to enjoy food again!

Most of us eat in the car, at a computer or in front of a television. Now is the time to turn off the distractions, sit down and slowly enjoy your food. Research shows that you will eat less and feel more satisfied. Don’t get caught up in eating foods that happen to be part of the popular diet of the moment. Stick with healthy food most of the time, indulge once in a while and always take time to enjoy the taste of whatever you are eating.

5. Learn to listen to your body and stop eating when you’re full.

Most people stop tasting their food long before they stop eating. In fact, people “eat with their eyes” and only stop eating when their plate is empty. You must eat slowly, because it takes the brain time to register that you are full.

For more information about achieving a healthier lifestyle, visit spectrum-health.org/healthiercommunities.
Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan that offers a full continuum of care through the Spectrum Health Hospital Group, a collection of eight hospitals and more than 170 service sites; the Spectrum Health Medical Group, mmpc® and West Michigan Heart-physician groups totaling more than 600 providers; and Priority Health, a health plan with 600,000 members. Spectrum Health’s 16,700 employees, 1,500 medical staff members and 2,350 volunteers are committed to delivering the highest quality care. The organization provided $115.9 million in community benefit during its 2010 fiscal year. In 2010, Spectrum Health was named a Top 10 Health System by Thomson Reuters.