TOP 10 Tips for Healthy Weight Loss

There no need for a long introduction, let’s get straight to the business.  The title tells you what the article is about and inside the article has 10 well thought out tips.  Here we go!

1. Energy Balance Matters
   There is so much information on diet, exercise, health, and fitness all over the internet, social media, books, magazines (for you older people), etc.  Let me give you simple and quick advice… energy balance works.  Calories in must be less than calories out.  This is very simple in theory but not always easy in reality because this equation is a moving target.  The equation looks like this: Body Weight Maintenance = Caloric Intake = Caloric Expenditure.  In order to lose weight you will need to find your maintenance caloric intake and begin to make modifications.  These modifications can come in the form of caloric intake (food consumption) or caloric expenditure (exercise).  In order to lose a significant amount of weight, you will eventually need to modify both sides of the equation meaning a reduction in calories and an increase in exercise.  

   One final tip and one of the most important tips to follow is to avoid crash diets.  What I mean by this is dramatically cutting your calories in the early stages of dieting.  Ideally you eat as many calories as possible while dieting.  The reason for this is that you will at some point need to reduce your caloric intake to continue losing weight.  If you find that your maintenance caloric intake is 2000 calories and you ‘crash diet’ right away down to 1200 calories in an effort to lose weight quickly, you will indeed have a dramatic weight loss initially but you will lose the ability to continue to reduce calories in the future because you cannot cut calories forever.  We need to eat something to sustain ourselves.  1200 calories is already a low calorie diet, cutting down to 800 calories is not a good idea.  So when making the decision to reduce calories, go slow.  Go from 2000 calories to 1800 and see what happens.  Then move to 1600 a few weeks later.  It should be a slow gradual process, not a fall off the cliff approach. 
    

2. Choose a diet structure but the exact one doesn’t matter
   Most people do not have the knowledge base or willpower to eat a diet of whatever, whenever and achieve the body weight changes that they desire.  Implementing a diet structure of either time restricted eating like intermittent fasting and/or a structure that limits food choices such as  vegetarian or vegan, Atkins, paleo, keto, carnivore, or whatever else can be extremely beneficial to help with weight loss.  There is nothing magical about time restricted eating or any specific diet because ultimately, it comes down to energy balance.  However, I believe most people will thrive on a structured diet rather than a flexible diet approach where you can eat whatever as long as the calories consumed equal the total that you require to lose weight.  Being left to your own devices to eat whenever and eat whatever is most likely how you got to this point where you’re interested in losing weight.  In order to get the results you want, doing something different than you’ve done, is most likely a good option for the majority of individuals out there.  

3. Water

   Since these are my tips for weight loss, I’ll tell you exactly what I personally do.  The only liquids I consume are water, black coffee, and protein shakes.   This is literally 99% of the fluids I consume (on the extremely rare occasion I may have an alcoholic drink or flavored coffee of some sort, but that is pretty rare in my world).  Limiting the amount of calories you consume from liquids allows you to consume more calories from food which provides a “satiating” effect.  Satiating means “fuller”.  Because you can consume more of your calories from food, you will experience less hunger and be more “full” which is extremely beneficial when dieting to reduce those hunger cravings which lead to snacks.  Eat your calories, don’t drink them. 

4. Weigh Yourself

   You need to regularly weigh yourself.  Some coaches recommend every day, others every few days, and others may even suggest just a weekly weigh in.  Either way, the most accurate time to weigh yourself is in the morning after you relieve your bowels (both #1 and #2) and before you consume any food.  This makes your weigh-ins essentially the same every single time.  Your weight can fluctuate throughout the day by 5 pounds or more based on water weight, food intake, dehydration, and females can experience even more fluctuations during their menstruation period.   I recommend at least two weigh-ins per week to ensure that one of the weigh-ins was not a fluke.  Over the course of many weeks, you will see a pattern of body weight and if you’re dieting, ideally the pattern is a slow and gradual (1-2 pounds per week) of weight loss.  

5. Exercise

   I will give similar advice to beginning exercise as beginning dieting with calories.  Start slow and build up over time.  Save some options for later to simulate the body's response to lose additional pounds.  Assuming you have no strict time frame for weight loss and you can take as long as required to lose weight the most sustainable way possible, I suggest doing zero cardio in the beginning.  Begin by lifting weights in a total body fashion two times per week.  As time goes on, you may want to increase that to three times per week and eventually when the body begins to stagnate on the weight loss, you can begin to add in cardio, but again, do it in a slow fashion.  Start with a couple 20-30 minute walks per week and over the course of many weeks, build that up to a more intense effort if needed or desired.  

   Now I will also say, my personal preference is to exercise with weights but if you do not enjoy lifting weights, do something else that you enjoy.  However, you may want to consider learning to enjoy weight training.  There is no better exercise method for building muscle than weight training.  The benefit to weight training is its ability to build muscle.  Adding muscle to your body frame will increase your metabolic activity (meaning, you will burn more calories at rest with increased muscle mass), increase your insulin sensitivity (improve your blood sugar), and allow you to enjoy leisure activities longer into life by being a strong and capable individual.  If performed correctly, weight training can be extremely easy on your joints which cannot be said for things like running.  No matter which form of exercise you do, you need to find something you enjoy, can realistically perform on a weekly basis, and have some level of intensity to the effort. Walking is a nice start, but I strongly suggest finding something that is at least slightly more vigorous to perform 1-2 times per week in addition to any waking activities.  

6. Weigh your Food
   Not everyone will be happy to hear this tip but it works.  Look, the more accurate you can be with the amount of food you’re eating, the better your results will be.  If you do not measure your food, how do you know if you’re eating half a cup of rice or one and a half?  If you multiply this over every food, every meal, every week, your results will be all over the place and you won’t know how to manipulate your food intake to get better results.  Not only will you achieve better results but you will also achieve those results in less time!  If you do not weigh your food and you get half-hazard results, you will either quit before you achieve your goal or it will take you much more time to achieve your results.

7. Meal Prep
   If you have no healthy food prepared, what will you eat?  More often than not, most people will make unhealthy choices in those situations.  You know you need to eat so prepare food ahead of time that supports your weight loss goals.  Meal prep is easily one of the most effective things you can do to stay on track to achieve your weight loss goals.  And while you’re meal prepping, remember the previous tip, “weigh your food”.  

8. Set Realistic Goals

   Everybody wants results NOW.  This isn’t possible.  A healthy weight loss goal is typically 1-2 pounds per week.  If you want to lose 30 pounds, you need to give yourself 15-30 weeks, which may seem like a ridiculous amount of time for some people but it’s not.  Think about it in this frame of reference as well: 1) If it took you say 5 years to gain those 30 pounds, losing it in 30 weeks is not all that long and 2) If you were to lose 30 pounds and at the end of that year you asked yourself what did I accomplish this year that I’m proud of?  Would you really care if it took you 30 weeks or 15 weeks or even 52 weeks?  The point is, during the year 2020-whatever you lost 30 pounds and that is something to be proud of.  Take your time, be realistic with yourself and continue to chip away at it little by little. 

9. Assess Other Variables of Health

   Take a look at other aspects of your life that can affect your health such as sleep and stress.  There are many studies out there that show lack of sleep on a regular basis will negatively affect your weight loss.  Do your best to structure your life to the point where you’re able to get at least 6 hours of sleep and preferably 7-8 hours every night.  Another big factor is stress.  Lack of sleep may be causing some stress, as we all know, being tired can make you irritable and lack the necessary desire to do all of the things I’ve mentioned to facilitate weight loss like meal prepping, exercising, and in general making healthy choices.  One of the biggest stressors people experience that is controllable is preventing issues before they start.  Having a plan for the week can be extremely beneficial.  If exercising and meal prepping are new to you, you will need to adjust some of your time to fit those things into your new routine.  Adults typically have a very busy lifestyle that includes work, kids, house chores, family commitments, maybe even a small sliver of social time, etc. It helps to be organized and have a plan.  If you fail to plan, you should plan to fail.

10. Be Patient and Positive
    If you’ve never done something before, it will take you longer to achieve that goal than somebody who’s accomplished that same feat multiple times.  If you’ve never lost 20, 30, or more pounds before know that you will experience bumps in the road that you will need to find a way to maneuver around.  Everyone will have difficult situations that come up because life's complicated but I’m not talking about those things.  I’m referencing situations where you think you’re doing everything right and you’re not seeing the results you thought you would.  Be patient.  You will need to experiment with finding new ways to continue to make the progress you desire.  Success is often not a straight linear path from starting point A to ending point B.  There are ebbs and flows to success.  Keep going, keep trying things, and you will achieve your results. Be positive.  You can do it, especially if you follow these 10 tips I’ve outlined for you.   

I hope you found this article useful.  I wish you find just as much enjoyment in the journey as in the success of the results. 

You need to care more about your health than anyone else because this is your body and it’s the only one you’ll ever get.  No one else can do the work for you.  You will get out what you put in.