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You may want to lose weight to fit in your size 8 dress, while your dad has to drop a few pounds to help control his diabetes. The reasons may differ from person to person, but a common goal for most of us at some time in our lives centers around losing weight.

Regardless of how much total weight you want to lose, you can start with a small goal, like losing just 10 pounds. To reach this ultimate goal, you need to design a plan before you pursue weight loss.

First of all, when designing a plan, keep in mind your unique situation. For example, consider how much free time you have to spend on exercising. Can you spare 15 minutes a day or an hour on weekends? Also think about what kind of exercises work for you. Would you go to the gym or go roller skating in the park? Knowing your preferences helps you form a plan that you can stick with.

The two key components of your plan consist of better eating habits and regular exercise. The best plan strikes the right balance for your lifestyle, so your plan can be different from someone else. Let's say you binge on cheesecake and you want to try playing soccer. On the other hand, your friend doesn't care for any dessert or for sports, except to watch games. Therefore, your friend's plan can focus primarily on diet, while your plan requires plenty of outdoor exercising and less cheesecake.

Changing old eating habits, like overeating cheesecake, involves a struggle. This change gets easier when you try new, healthy dishes. Have you tried South Asian cuisine, like lentil or spinach curry? Preparing exotic dishes requires more work: you find recipes, buy ingredients and cook.

To make the job easier, list each step separately in your plan. For instance, locate a recipe on Sunday and prepare another recipe on that day. Breaking down the tasks makes the plan more effective by giving you small, easy-to-handle steps. Accomplishing the steps boosts your self-confidence and pushes you forward.

Next, focus on the exercise position of your plan. Once again, breaking down your goal into small steps makes the plan easier to use. Would you rather exercise 7 hours a week, or 1 hour a day? Then, a plan to go bike-riding for one half hour and running for the second half hour sounds better than '1 hour.' Writing down specific exercises tells you exactly when to do which activity.

A detailed plan encourages you to commit to losing 10 pounds. As a result, you can avoid a common weight loss problem- quitting a diet before you reach your goal. Why would you want to fail, instead of succeeding at losing 10 pounds? Success in weight loss can give you increased confidence, which can spread to other areas of your life.