I don’t know what it means for you, dear reader, to feel “ready” to start losing weight. I don’t know what you’ve tried and stumbled over. But I do know what works for me to get me on a good roll, and I’m here to share it with you.

1. Find a space to track EVERYTHING. As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of SparkPeople. It provides an access-from-anywhere place where you can track your food intake, exercise, water consumption, and to read articles and recipes and chat boards for support. However that might not be your best “style”.

Some people need to feel a pen in their hand, dragging itself across paper. Others may need graphs and charts and multi-colored packs of markers. Some of you might just want to give yourself a “gold star” on the calendar for simply exercising that day. Whatever it is you’re planning on tracking, find the right place for you where you can track all of it at once.

2. Set up a blog. Be it your own “dot com” or one on SparkPeople or 3FatChicks, or even a free, hosted one at WordPress.com or Xanga or even MySpace. A blog helps you interact with people (it’s why I continue to struggle here, because of the reaction and response from my readers) and teaches you about how your exact struggle will never be identical to another’s, but you might find some uncanny similarities. Plus, the obvious, writing out your feelings just flat out makes you feel better. You also can see it as holding yourself responsible to others - but only do that if it’s for positive motivation… NOT if it’s going to make you feel guilty and submit yourself to your old, poor eating habits!

3. Make a plan. Some people like to focus on changing their eating habits first, before working on exercise. Others feel the need to do both right off the bat. Which ever you think will work best for you, make a plan. One of my favorites is to plan out menus for the week based on my activities. If I know I’ve got a meeting on a Tuesday night and I won’t have time to cook, I plan ahead for what I’m going to order from where. Otherwise, I plan out my grocery list based on what I’m going to cook. Plans help avoid buying too much food (thinking if you stock your fridge with fruits and veggies that you’ll eat them all, when you’ll likely wind up just ordering pizza if you’re not focused, and then the food goes bad) and guiding you through your week. Make sure you get enough of whatever so that if you do change your mind one night (or hubby says, “But honey, I’m just not in the mood for spinach and feta quesadillas tonight!”) then you have a backup meal.

4. Visit your doctor, weigh yourself, measure your body, and take pictures. I preempted this one with the doctor visit because while you may think you’re ready, you need to discuss your limits with the doc. You don’t ever want to stress your joints, your heart rate, or your body in any way, unless you know that you’re insides are up for the challenge. Even if you’ve done all this before - your body’s older (6 months makes a difference when you’re already overweight!) and you just need to have your doc on your team for this.

When it comes to weighing and measuring, you simply need to do both. Because when the number’s not moving in the right direction on the scale, the numbers wrapped around various parts of your body just might be. Write it down somewhere, and prepare to re-measure once per month, and ONLY once per month, preferably nowhere near your PMS zone, ladies. ;)

Taking pictures? You wouldn’t believe the motivation you get from looking at yourself in photos. I have one of me from when I was auditioning for The Biggest Loser that really gets my willpower up to par. Watching yourself shrink in progress photos is pretty dang inspiring as well. You don’t have to show them to anyone but yourself - but trust me, it’s worth it to take them.

5. Set your mini-goals and rewards. Make a goal to walk a certain number of miles each week for a month. Or a goal to eat 5 fruits and veggies a day, at least 5 days a week for a month. Or to get in 8 glasses of pure, calorie-free water every day for a month. Or to cut your full-calorie soda consumption from 8 cans a day to only one per day by month’s end.

Don’t forget to set a non-food reward for these goals. You could allot yourself 5 new song downloads from iTunes to add to your workout playlist, or a hands and feet day at the spa. You’ve been eying a pair of red sneakers at the store, and when you’ve put 60 more miles on the pair you have now, you’ll get the new ones. Mini goals help us stay focused on the task that earns the reward. When you complete one, make up a new one! Just make them realistic and achievable, but not too easy.

One last step… Step 5a:

5a. Get going! Nothing should be holding you back now. Take this one day at a time, and if you struggle (and you will struggle) just remember that you don’t need to wait for “tomorrow” or “Monday” to get going back on track. It’s never to late to reaffirm your goals, and revisit why this is so important to you. Just do it, and be prepared for success!

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