Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting a Weight Loss Program

This isn't usually the question that you ask when you are thinking about losing weight. Usually you consider it something that must be done by a certain time of the year, perhaps in combination with an upcoming wedding or reunion lingering on the horizon. I bet about 95% of the population wants to either gain muscle or lose fat, or both. But is it enough to just believe you want to lose weight in a specified timeframe? And what has stopped you from doing it in the first place all this time you've been sitting around with an extra tire or two? Here are five questions to ask yourself before taking the plunge.

1.Are you ready for failure?

This may sound a little bit pessimistic, but it's a valid question. When you are trying to do something as difficult as losing weight, which has been happily clinging to you for years or months, you can expect some drawbacks. On average, a �dieting' person will do something every three days to upset their dieting schedule because their limits are too restrictive or too sudden. You just ate a Thanksgiving meal and suddenly you are limiting your intake the next day. Don't you think the pressure will make you slip up once or twice in the next few days or weeks? Expect to fail once in a while, but expect to get up again and not let it affect your eventual outcome.

2.Are you in for the long run?

I know you've heard it said a million times that you have to make an active, healthy lifestyle just that-a lifestyle. The problem is that we think in the here and now terms, because here and now my jeans aren't buttoning. Well, the problem with this is that we often make ourselves unhealthy, not just physically but mentally when we think we should have immediate results. And when you do lose weight, what will stop you from going back to your old habits because you never learned how to live healthy, just how to give up things on a short-term basis? It shouldn't be done if you aren't in it for the long run.

3.Who are you doing it for?