There are really 2 things you can do...
1. Copy an existing plan (i.e. South Beach, WW, etc)
Pros - Easy to get going, just buy the book or look up stuff online or whatever. Also since others do it, there are usually good resources, recipes, support available.
Cons - Unlikely to find a plan that is perfectly customized to your strengths and weaknesses. Many plans are pretty specific which can be hard to follow.
2. Build a personal plan
Pros - Builds on your strengths and plans around yoru weaknesses, able to pick/use many of the strengths of various concepts/plans.
Cons - More thinking/planning up front, since it's personal nobody's done the exact same thing before.
I think both of these have huge successes here. I personally am a huge advocate of #2. I've always failed trying to do someone's else's thing. I have too many quirks and just peronal traits that making a specific plan was best for me.
So I sat down and just tackleded the calories in < calories out equation. For each I looked at personal strengths and weaknesses and then built behaviors to address...
Calories In
Weakness - I have a terrible idea of which foods are calorie dense and what a true portion size is.... Behavior - Calorie counting to expand my nutritional konwledge base and learn where I was wasting calories.
Strength - I am very good at making healthy choices before food hits my plate and terrible in not completely eating what is on my plate.... Behavior - completely skip many non-healthy side dishes, and limit portion size on my plate since I know I will finish whatever is there.
Calories Out
Weakness - Through the years I have really found only one time that I can effectively and consistently do hard gym workouts...late morning/lunch --- Behavior --- plan work schedule as much as possible to start early and block 11-1 or 10-12 for gym time.
Strength - I love playing with my toddler ---- Behavior - Include much more exercise in playtime. Running around playgrounds, doing pushups with her on my back, doing laps around the house playing "chase", etc.
You might look at those and think that none of that makes sense to you, and that's the entire point. Everything that I've done has been specifically targeted to ME and I've been really happy with that "plan"
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