The best part about the 30 day diet plan is it’s not a diet!

So what is it, you’re wondering?

I came across an interesting article yesterday about doing a 30 day plan. In it the author talked about how some computer software comes with a 30 day trial period.  After those 30 days if we like what it does we usually keep it.

I thought this was an interesting idea that could be used with weight loss and dieting.

A lot people tackle weight loss head on, trying to make a huge commitment that they can’t possibly keep. The weight that needs to lost seems impossible and the thoughts of continuing to diet and exercise for the months ahead seem too much and they give up.

But why not go micro small and focus only on changing one daily habit just for the next 30 days? And after the 30 days you can change back if things didn’t work out or you found it too hard too keep doing.

Here are some things you could try out for the next 30 days…

• Cut out soft drinks from your diet

• Do 20 -30 minutes of exercise per day. (This could be broken down into using the stairs instead of a lift or parking your car further way from work and walking the rest of the way.)

• Cutting out snacking and eating in front of the TV

• Drinking more water

• Putting more vegetables on your plate at meal times or even just starting to eat vegetables when you didn’t before. Of if you really want to push the boat out you could try to go vegetarian and cut out meat.

• Use smaller plates at meal times to reduce the amount you eat.

• Stop drinking alcohol or reducing the amount you may drink

• Give up smoking.

• Pull out the old exercise bike and use it while you watch your favorite soap on TV for half an hour.

There are numerous things you could try out and remember… it’s only for 30 days. It’s not a long term contract that’s going to go on and on to infinity.

But do you know what the interesting part is?

If you try something out and do it everyday religiously for 28 days it becomes a habit….and as we all know some habits are very hard to break.

Also if do your new habit or routine for the next 30 days what are chances that you’re going to turn around and undo all the good work.

For example if you gave smoking up for those 30 days do you really think you’d smoke on day 31…(Imagine all that wasted effort down the drain.)

Or would you give it another 30 days??

The best part of a 30 day plan is, it’s not a permanent thing that tends to really push your will power to the limit. Also at the end of the 30 days you can look back and see if you got the results for your efforts.

As you do this keep the following questions in mind.

• Did it work for me and did I lose some weight with what I’ve done?

• Is there anything else I could add to what I’m doing to make it better? Like maybe adding another 5-10 minutes a day to my exercises? Or cutting down, or out, anything else from my diet?

Remember its only for the next 30 days, right??

So pick one thing today you’d like to try out today and then mark off your finish date (30 days from now) on your calendar.

And as the days pass mark them off with a “chunky” red marker, it’ll look great the next time you visit the calendar see all those red X’s one after another and how far you’ve come.

Don’t be shy either; put that calendar up where you can see regularly during the day and where other people can also see it. They’ll probably ask what all the reds X’s on the calendar are for.

Don’t be shy and tell them. This can also help because if you know other people are monitoring your progress and could give you the added push in the early days when you’re not keeping to the plan.

So what are you going to change just for the next 30 days??

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You would assume that people who exercise would burn fat, its just a matter of burning off those calories and bingo you’re back in shape.

Maybe not?

According to a study done by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found this isn’t always the case. In their study, on this subject they worked with 58 obese people who for 12 weeks completed aerobic training under supervision without changing their dieting habits.

On average the group lost 7 pounds weight and in some cases half that amount.

So what went wrong?

Another study from University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver may have the answers to this question.

In their study on athletes, lean people and obese people (both sedentary) found that all didn’t burn calories after they worked out. It was previously believed that after a workout an “after burn” accord where the metabolism stayed high for some time after working out so that fat continued to burn for several hours after training.

But this doesn’t appear to happen.

They found that people were only burning 200 -300 calories for half an hour of exercise. Which could easily be replaced by a high energy drink leaving them back in the same calorie situation they were in before they started.

But its not all bad news.

They found that if you work out at a lower intensity (for example walking) a higher percentage of fat is burned compared to a higher intensity workout. To get in this fat burning zone you should try to maintain a heart rate of between 105 and 134” beats per minute. Try to keep to the higher rate and you’ll burn more calories.

The authors of the report believe that although exercise might not burn as much calories as previously believed its something we all should do as its a great help in improving mood, relieving stress and helps to lower blood pressure.

So, the moral of the story is exercise it still great for fat burning BUT don’t spoil all your good work with an unhealthy treat afterwards. Chances are you haven’t burned enough calories off to stop in settling on your hips!