You Better Shop Around
Choosing a weight loss program is just like making any other purchase: You'll need to shop around a while before you make a choice.You'll need to find a program that meets your goals and preferences, or, that you can modify without affecting its success (i.e., a plan you tailor to your own tastes).
Consider the Time and Money You'll Invest
The less weight you need to lose, the less money you'll end up having to invest in the long-run. For example, if you join Weight Watchers and you only have 11 pounds to lose, once you meet your goal weight, you'll be a lifetime member and won't have to pay for meetings; if you need to lose 50 pounds, you'll be paying for quite a while.If you have at least 48 pounds to lose, you can probably expect to be on a plan for up to a year (or longer, if you have more to lose). That's considering a healthy rate of weight loss is one to two pounds a week.
Programs where you must purchase prepackaged food such as Jenny Craig or Nutri/System may prove to be too expensive to someone with a large amount of weight to lose.
But if you're only trying to trim 10 or 15 pounds, these programs won't exactly break the bank.
Loosen Up if You have Less to Lose
Another "plus" if you're not aiming to lose a large amount of weight is the fact that you can probably get by choosing a less stringent program than someone who needs to lose a lot of weight.
To Try Again or Not to Try Again?
If you've tried a specific weight loss program before and it didn't work, you may not be choosing the right match for you and you may want to try something new this time around.Then again, if a certain program didn't work one time, that doesn't necessarily mean you can blame the program itself.
Case in point: It took three tries for Weight Watchers to "click" with me. I did the exact same Points plan all three times, but the first two tries, I wasn't willing to use the portion control I needed to in order to stay within my Points range. I wasn't ready to commit those first two times-around.
But the third time was the charm and I did take control of my portions. I lost 18 pounds in three months.
So, before you dismiss a program you may have tried before, do some soul-searching and ask yourself: Was it me or the program? Did you cheat? Did you give up too soon?
Or ... was the program just not something you could live with?
An honest answer will make your decision-making process much easier. You may find -- like I did -- that you weren't ready before, but you truly are now.
