Week #1: Are You Ready for a Change?

EatingWell Diet Challenge
Week #1: Are You Ready for a Change?
Week #2: Set Goals
Week #3: Boost Exercise
Week #4: Make Smart Choices
Week #5: Outsmarting Eating Triggers
Week #6: Get support
Week #7: Recharge Your Weight Loss
Week #8: Embrace Challenges
Week #9: Solve Problems
Week #10: Think Big Picture
Week #11: Be Nice to Yourself
Week #12: Celebrate Success

More Resources
Healthy Diet Recipes, Menus and Tips
EatingWell Diet Challenge Recipes
Essential Weight-Loss Tools
EatingWell Menu Planner
Diet Meal Plans

Most diet plans encourage you to start yesterday—or at least right this very minute. Never mind that your company is going through layoffs and right now, quite honestly, may not be the best time to overhaul your lifestyle. But you give in and you begin. Then you...fail. Again. In contrast, the very first step of the EatingWell Diet is deciding whether you’re actually ready to make a lifelong commitment to eating better and exercising regularly.

If you’re ready for a change, the next step is starting a food diary where you record everything you eat and drink—and how many calories these foods and beverages contain. Do this for a week to get a sense of what you’re eating now. Next week you’ll set calorie goals to lose weight.

Take our quiz to help you decide if you are ready to commit to making healthy changes, and use these articles and tools to help you get started on the EatingWell Diet.

Articles, tips and community discussion:

• Are you ready for a change? Take our quick quiz to figure out if this is a good time for you to start a diet.
• Consider the pros and cons of making a strong commitment to losing weight.
• Learn why starting your food diary is so important.
• Community discussion: Tell us what you’ve learned from self-tracking.

Tools to help you this week:

• Track your weight
• Find calorie counts
• Quick tips for eating out

Featured recipe: Paprika Shrimp & Green Bean Saute