I’ve worked really hard the last 10 months to lose 25 pounds. But more importantly, I’ve worked hard to do it in a sustainable way.

I’ve lost the weight before – many times, and somehow it creeps back on and I find myself trying to figure out the next way to lose weight and keep it off permanently. This time around, last December, I looked at establishing sustainable habits; ones that can be sustained with my crazy job schedule, work travel, kid sporting events, basically with real life getting in the way of my best laid plans. In the past I have done boot camp, Atkins, heavy duty working out (even if it wasn’t boot camp) and eating less to the point where I obsess about food (cabbage soup diet, anyone?). None of those options were sustainable habits. They worked and I lost the weight, but once the regular (might I say, bad) habits crept back into my life, so did the weight.

I was really trying to find a way to lose weight with my real life and not some unsustainable, part time effort. Over the last 10 months, I’ve found some things that work for me and my lifestyle. These are my top 5 habits that I have built in a sustainable fashion:

1. Got Sleep? I find that getting enough sleep helps me in many ways, including losing weight. The body can incorporate what you’ve learned throughout the day and rebuild and repair muscles during sleep. All of this builds a stronger body that is capable of losing weight.
2. Track Everything. I keep a food journal where I record what and how much I eat, and when. I also track when I went to sleep and what time I woke up. I also track how much water I had to drink. I also track how much exercise I did and what it was. OK, maybe you don’t have to track everything, but tracking your food and water intake is a good place to start.
3. Drink Water. Believe it or not, but drinking more water can help lead to weight loss. Something has to carry the fat out of your body. Let it be water. And you’ll stay hydrated and drink less of other things (like wine).
4. Choose Good Food. It is so easy at 3 pm to reach for the peanut M&Ms. Change your mind set to believe that it is just as easy to reach for a piece of fruit or something else that is healthier for you than M&Ms. I keep oranges in my office for this very reason.
5. Plan Ahead. One of my favorite saying is “failure to plan is a plan to fail.” I find that taking a little bit of time during my commute (or morning walk/run) to plan what I am going to eat for the day and when prevents me from eating too much or not at all, which leads to over eating (mostly bad stuff) later in the day.

All of these habits seem to have stuck, are sustainable, and work for me. You’ll notice there isn’t some grandiose goal in here to lose 20 pounds in two weeks. I avoided that. My larger goal was to make my habits sustainable. I wanted this to work for the long haul, not just for a quick weight loss effort only to be facing the same prospect 2 years later. I find that these habits are sustainable, and mostly, easily so. Please comment and let me know what works for you?