If losing weight was as simple as eating less, and exercising more, everyone would do it. Losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle for the long term comes down to a total shift in the way we think, our daily habits, and our view of what food and physical activity means to us.

Plan for success

If you were given a project to complete by a certain date how would you do it? You would break it down into individual tasks that needed to be completed, schedule times during your week to work on these tasks so you stayed on track with the timeline, and made sure you used the most efficient tools to get those tasks completed quickly and well.

This is how you should look at weight loss. You’ll need to break your overall weight loss goal into smaller weekly or monthly goals, and then break this into the tasks you will need to complete for this to happen. Workouts, grocery shopping, meal planning, and food preparation should all be given a time slot during your week, that can become your new habits.

This may seem like a lot of effort at first, but like the formation of any new habit, what’s hard initially becomes second nature and takes no willpower at all after enough repetition.

Make it enjoyable

Pick meals that sound delicious. Choose types of physical activity that you enjoy, or find a way to make it more enjoyable such as listening to music or exercising with a friend. Take a healthy cooking class with your partner. When your choices bring pleasure instead of a sense of deprivation you are more likely to continue with them for the long term.

Keep it interesting

Try new types of group exercise, go rock climbing, travel and walk around seeing and experiencing new things, experiment with new and different types of dishes, and test out new recipes for healthy snacks that keep or are freezable. Variety is the spice of life!