The 5 Ground Rules You Must Follow If You Want To Lose Weight

There are a lot of questions that come up when you decide to start losing weight: Should you cut carbs, or should you eat less fat? Can you eat chocolate or nah? How bad are juice cleanses, really? Should you do more cardio or more strength training? It’s a lot, and it can be a little overwhelming at the start of your weight-loss journey.

Before you get caught up in these finer points, we suggest starting with the basics. Have you heard the 'big rocks' analogy? It’s about a teacher who filled a jar with—yep—big rocks. But it wasn't until he added in gravel, then sand, then water, that the jar was totally, completely full. And there was no way he was going to get that jar full if he waited until the end to add the big rocks. The point: You gotta start with the big stuff if you really want to get the most out of anything in life.

And, when it comes to weight loss, the big stuff is really important. After all, a lot of people "fail" at their diets because they get hung up on the finer points while never paying attention to the big movers and shakers in weight loss. Sure, you can cut out bananas, gluten, milk, or unicorn tears, but if you're still eating 1,000 more calories per day than you're burning, you're not going to lose weight. The same thinking applies to your workouts and overall lifestyle habits.

That's why we tapped Fatima Cody Stanford, M.D., an instructor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and obesity medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, for the five basic weight-loss rules every woman who wants to lose weight needs to follow.

“I recommend that you implement these basic weight-loss rules at the same time, unless you find it too challenging to implement them all at once,” she says. “If that’s the case, take a stepwise approach: Start with diet, master it, move to physical activity, master it, and so forth.” (Speed up your progress towards your weight-loss goals with Women's Health's Look Better NakedDVD.)

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