No matter what your fitness goals are, losing weight can feel overwhelming. There are a myriad of trendy diets and intense gym routines and confusing advice all over the Internet, which means it’s very difficult to know where to get a foothold and get started.
The truth is you don’t need to punish yourself to feel good within your body. Shedding excess pounds can be empowering, energising, and even fun if you do it in a way that’s from a place of self respect not self criticism. If you’re looking for real and sustainable ways to lose weight and feel better physically and mentally, we’ve got 10 effective tips that can get you started.
No crash dieting. No guilt trips. Just balanced advice for real people.
Find a workout that you actually enjoy.
Weight loss workouts come in many forms, and if you’re not a fan of early morning boot camps or treadmill marathons, you don’t have to do them. Weight loss workouts are most effective when they are something you genuinely enjoy doing. This could be dancing in your living room to a YouTube Zumba video, hiking up mountains with friends on the weekends, or swimming laps.
The best kind of workout is the one that you’ll do because it brings you joy and makes you feel good on the inside and the outside moving your body in a way that feels rewarding and not punishing means that you’re more likely to stick with it and it’s that consistency that will lead to results over time.
Focus on nutrient dense foods.
Before you say anything, this doesn’t mean that your whole diet should only be nutrient dense foods. Not only is that not realistic, but that’s very restrictive from day one. Eating for weight loss doesn’t mean living on lettuce or rabbit food or even fresh air. It’s about choosing real and nourishing foods that support your energy levels, taste amazing, and stabilize your blood sugar.
Think colourful fruits and vegetables and lean proteins, but don’t forget, you are allowed to have some chocolate or something that would be considered ‘junk’ in there. The key is balanced because you’ll find that the poison is in the portion. One chocolate bar per week is not going to make you pack on the pounds, but fifty of them probably would. Don’t obsess over calories, just focus on good quality food and balance.
Don’t forget to hydrate.
The most underrated part of any weight loss journey is staying hydrated. Not only does this aid digestion, it reduces your water retention and it can help you to prevent unnecessary snacking.
Often, adults will forget that thirst and hunger can be confused. You should aim to drink half your body weight in ounces per day, but it’s easier just to carry a water bottle that you would like and sip sip sip. If you need a flavour boost, go for fresh fruit like lemon or cucumber cut up into it.
Get yourself into a good sleep routine.
Rest is critical if you’re hoping to lose weight. Sleep matters a lot more than people think because a lack of sleep can mess with your hormones, and your hormones can lead to increased cravings, and that leads you to eat those sugary and high carbohydrate foods, and that reduces your motivation to move or exercise.
And around and around the wheel goes. Try to aim for between seven and nine hours of sleep per night so that your body has time to repair itself and improve its energy and metabolism.
Focus on your strength.
Cardio workouts are fantastic for the heart and your mental health but if your goal is long-term fat loss then you need to look at weight training. It doesn’t mean you have to start pumping iron in the gym because body weight exercises like lunges, squats and pushups can give you the same build of lean muscle.
The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you’re resting. Incorporating strength workouts 2 to three times a week will help you to see a shift.
Avoid obsession.
We need to ditch those good versus bad food labels. Food doesn’t have a moral value and calling them good or bad foods is essentially calling yourself good or bad when you eat them. If you want to stick to a weight loss journey then you need to make sure that you are eating things that you enjoy and practising mindful eating and that means avoiding obsession.
Eating without distraction and paying attention to your body’s hunger and fullness signals is the first step. The next step is to savor your meals and enjoy every single bite. Some meals will be less nutritious than others but that’s OK!
Try not to drink your calories.
Full fat sodas are one of the sneakiest sources of weight gain. A soda here, a fancy coffee there, those liquid calories can add up fast and they don’t fill you up. In fact, they often leave you feeling hungry or. You can still have soda, but just go for the 0 sugar option.
You can still have a coffee, but go for a sweetened iced coffee with a splash of almond milk instead of the full fat cream. There is a healthy swap for pretty much anything which means that you can still enjoy your fancy drinks without any of the fancy calories.
Weight loss isn’t just about the scales.
There will be absolute fools out there that tell you that muscle weighs more than fat and it’s just not true. Muscle and fat weigh the same; they just take up different spaces.
A kilo of muscle is going to weigh a kilo of fat but a kilo of muscle is going to be far more dense which means that you’re going to end up with a smaller body and smaller clothes but you may weigh the same. Celebrate these wins!
Learn to manage your stress.
Chronically being stressed can make weight loss a lot harder for you because it increases your quarters all levels. This affects appetite and fat storage especially around your middle section.
Reducing your stress with deep breathing or meditation and setting daily walks can really help.
Be patient with yourself.
Losing weight takes time and consistency so you need to be patient. It didn’t get onto your body overnight which means that it’s going to take some time to shed those excess pounds.
Your body is doing amazing things so celebrate the progress not perfection.
