2 Simple and Effective Weight Loss Techniques You Are Likely Not Using

If you want success in your weight loss efforts, you must be strategic in the way you approach this endeavor. Here are some highly-targeted techniques you can use to ensure success that you may not currently be using to your advantage.

1. Set small goals.

It's perfectly alright to dream of obtaining the fittest, hottest body you can imagine. What's not alright is to expect to get that body in a very quick period of time, especially if you must lose a lot of weight. Losing up to two pounds a week is natural and healthy, but striving for something in the vein of 60 pounds in a month prompts you to take ineffective, and likely dangerous tactics that set you up for failure.

Obtaining your healthiest body is a journey. Take a deep breath, relax and enjoy your travels into a fitter, happier and healthier life. It's not a race, so give yourself milestones that you can actually achieve and maintain. And don't forget to recognize successes other than that of losing X pounds per week. Reward your motivation by recognizing how much more energy you have now than when you started, how much less your knees hurt in month two, how much less sugar you eat now, how much heavier the dumbbells are in week three of your strength-training, and so on. The more you realize victories from small achievements, the more mentally and physically prepared you'll be to take on the big ones, and the more all these achievements will start to be less weight loss tactics and more of a true lifestyle.

2. Utilize the Power of Intention.

Want a mental edge that can bring powerful results to your efforts? The power of intention is a way for you to allow the things you want in your life to manifest into reality. You do this by believing that the things you want already exist. In the case of weight loss, you would live each day as if you already have the fit, healthy body you desire. In doing this, you do not dwell on what you are not, because that only produces more of what you already have. Here's an example. If you let your thoughts focus primarily on the fact that you're not thin and that you're not healthy, then that's exactly what you get more of - an overweight, unhealthy body. If you instead focus on the fact that you are fit and healthy - because you lifted weights today and because you ate high quality foods, for example - then a healthy body will come to you easily and naturally.

Since our minds influence our bodies on a cellular level, it's imperative that we be positive in everything we do when striving for a healthy weight. Our bodies become exactly what we imagine them to be. Eating an orange and some walnuts for a snack is positive. Dwelling on the idea that this food is doing wonderful things for our body is positive. Believing that a one hour session of yoga just made us significantly healthier and stronger is positive.

On the other hand, eating a bag of corn chips, drinking a diet soda, or eating a fruit pie from a fast food restaurant is negative. It's impossible for us to imagine our bodies doing anything productive from consuming these things. And likewise, sitting in front of the television all weekend is not positive and does not give our minds fuel for imagining a better self. Dr. Wayne Dyer said it best when he stated, "You don't attract what you want. You attract what you are." Imagine great health from everything you say, think, eat and do, and you will get exactly what you want.