Do you know that the weight loss industry was worth $US224.27 billion in 2021 and it is expected to reach $US405.4 billion by 2030? I know, you are probably spinning your head in disbelief too.
The positive outcome is that there is no shortage of tools, strategies, methods, and diets to try to lose those unwanted kilos. Unfortunately, it also means that it can get overwhelming to pick one that suits your individual needs.
You might have tried a few tricks and seen great results, but then fallen off the wagon. You may be going up and down in your weight management and the constant rollercoaster is adding some unwanted stress. That is why today I want to do two things for you. First, I want you to shift your mindset about losing weight. And second start losing weight fast but naturally.
But before we start, are you part of my community? Join my newsletter to get the latest action steps on how to eat a healthy plant-based diet, de-stress, manage your time better, prioritize yourself, and anything in between so that you INCREASE your energy, SAVE time and INVEST well in your wellness!
Lose Weight and Keep it Off
Losing weight is a much more complex task than the diet experts want you to see. If you tried to lose weight a few times before and always came up short, you know what I mean. You may be seeing great progress, but if you can’t sustain it, the kilos will always come back.
I would like you to make a small, yet very powerful mindset shift about losing weight. I want you to stop obsessing about losing weight. Before you think I lost my mind, hear me out.
I’m not implying that you should stop paying attention to your weight or forget all the weight management tools you use to keep you in shape. I want you to shift your focus from losing weight to improving your health.
I’m guessing your ultimate goal is not just to lose weight, but to keep it off. This requires maintenance, perseverance, and change. It means updating your eating habits, self-talk habits, fitness habits, social habits, and stress management habits.
Losing weight is not one and done deal. But if you think that one single program or one method will be enough to lose weight and stay at your ideal level you are missing out on a chance of long-term success. And I want you to succeed.
I want you to look at yourself holistically. The main objective is to stay healthy and have the mental and physical energy to live your life to the fullest. This may mean different things to different people, but the principle is still the same.
Weight management is a part of your holistic program but once you focus on improving your health and all of your systems, the weight will fall off naturally.
How to Lose Weight Naturally
So, why is it so hard to lose weight? Or why is it hard to keep it off? After all, it is a billion-dollar industry! It is due to the two reasons I mentioned at the beginning.
Weight loss is not only about losing unwanted kilos. It is about a weight management plan that is long-term, and sustainable past the program or initial period of dieting. And for that, you need to focus on being healthy where weight loss is a part of it.
For any long-term success, you need to change your habits.
You always get results. The results come from the actions you take. If you stop taking certain actions such as reducing fast food and start doing other things like exercising, you will see different results.
But building healthy habits takes time and commitment.
And it is hard to stay motivated and inspired when you are on a strict diet with rules that are not sustainable for you in the long run. That is why you need to incorporate ways to lose weight naturally.
#1 Stop Eating Foods That Make You Fat
Let’s start with the obvious things you can do right now to maintain the situation. If you ever watched any action movie, the hero always maintains the situation first before it jumps to repairing it.
Your weight management plan is much more successful if you start with maintaining the weight you have and stop adding anything extra.
And the best way to do it is by starting with the food you consume.
If you find yourself that your weight is going up it is most likely because you consume products that contribute to it. As you have just learned most diets are very drastic meaning you won’t sustain the willpower to keep going. That is why reducing and eventually eliminating certain products from your diet is a better way.
Start with the obvious products such as processed foods, products full of empty calories, and ingredients you can’t pronounce. But most importantly, you want to cut out products containing refined sugars and starches.
The main reason why you want to avoid them is that they spike your blood sugar, make you insulin resistant, and increase inflammation. They change your biochemistry causing hormonal imbalances, unhealthy cell growth, and interruption of the healthy functioning of every system in your body.
This does not only impact your weight. It impacts your overall health. Think about it like a domino effect. If you eat products that contribute to weight gain, you feel tired and bloated. This impacts your focus and mental capabilities which then impacts your sleep.
Do you know that lack of sleep causes weight increase?
Every system in your body is connected. So, it matters that you stop eating the things that alter your weight.
#2 Start Eating Foods That Make You Slim
Hopefully, you are looking through your pantry right now and throwing away products that you know are not supporting you in maintaining your weight. This may be hard to do, but keep in mind the rule of small steps.
Even if you remove one product a day, by the end of the week you would remove seven things that were adding to your weight! Small steps add up.
If you follow the traditional Western diet, and you have started omitting products that contain refined sugars and starch you may be wondering what you should eat. Now, could be the best time to create a healthy, balanced diet.
Your new diet plan needs to contain healthy fats, complex carbohydrates, and proteins. Regardless of if you decide to follow a plant-based diet or not, you should increase your intake of plants.
The main reason for eating more vegetables is their nutritional value. Plants contain minerals and vitamins your body requires to run every system in your body. When you are deficient certain functions are compromised.
Including how your hormones are produced and how fat is stored in your cells. They impact how your skin looks, the level of your mental and physical energy, and your mood.
Adding vegetables to your diet is super easy. Either follow the rule of small steps and try to eat some type of vegetable with each meal or jump on the smoothie or juicing wagon. Additionally, I have plenty of resources so read any of my other articles to learn some simple and practical ways to add more vegetables into your diet.
#3 Reduce Size Portions
You might have heard the saying that the substance is in quality not quantity. Well, it works in weight management too. You have already started evaluating what you eat, now it’s time to look at how much you eat.
It must have been one of those strange moments when the results were in and the reason for the increase in obesity cases is overeating. We simply eat too much!
The food groups our body needs are macro and micro groups. The name indicates how much your body needs to stay healthy. You need a certain amount of protein (macro) to grow muscles, and you need a small amount of iron (micro) to help with it.
Overeating has a lot to do with the type of food you eat. I bet you never heard of someone who ate a bag of kale in one sitting! But eating a bag of chips, cookies, or chocolates is common.
You probably see a pattern with the foods that can cause you to eat more than you need. Those foods are usually high in empty calories, artificial sweeteners, and full of processed starch.
Simple carbohydrates are quickly absorbed into your bloodstream, so you get a surge of energy. However, they wear off very quickly, so you crash fast. What’s more, if you don’t do anything with the extra sugar and won’t regulate the additional insulin, they’re going to hang around and be absorbed by the fat cells.
Reducing size portions will not only keep your weight in check but will decrease the overload of the digestive system and increases your energy levels. So, how to make sure that you eat less?
One of the oldest tricks is to reduce your plate size. The smaller the plate, the less food you can put on it!
#4 Intermittent Fasting
I have only recently immersed myself in the world of intermittent fasting, but I’m hooked! There are studies and research to show the link between fasting and weight loss. Plus, I have worked with clients who saw significant weight shift by following this simple principle.
Personally, I use it for energy levels, gut health, to reduce the quantity of food I eat, and to synchronize my eating.
There are many ways to do intermittent fasting, but the basis is that you give your digestive system a longer break by not eating food. Digestion requires a lot of energy and if you keep eating almost the whole day (and half of the night), that is a lot of energy taken by one task.
Additionally, if you don’t have the time to exercise and burn those extra calories, they get taken up by fat cells.
Thanks to intermittent fasting your body can use the energy to attend to other functions, such as your immune, cardiovascular, or skeletal system. It can repair the damage done by stress, or other pollutants.
Intermittent fasting also helps with controlling the size of meal portions and getting into regular eating. When you eat regularly, and more or less the same amount of food, your body can easily digest it, remove the waste, and keep you in check.
If you want to try fasting, you can either pick a day (or few) when you fast or follow the rule of 16:8. It refers to the hours when you take a break from eating (16) and gives you a window (8) when you consume food.
#5 Reduce Stress
Stress management needs to be part of your overall well-being plan regardless of if you want to lose weight or not. Stress impacts you in more ways than you may realize, but it has an impact on your weight as well.
The two main stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol influence the way how your body consumes energy, and the response of your cells.
Cortisol, which is the chronic stress hormone, tells your body when and how to store fat. When you are in danger (aka fight-or-flight response) your body would do everything it can to keep you alive.
Stress signals your body that food may be limited so it needs to preserve as much as possible. So, in an attempt to prepare you for hard times, your body wants to store as much fat in your cells as possible.
The only problem is that food is not scarce. Unless you live in a disadvantaged part of the world, food is in abundance. So, a paradox happens. You keep on eating, and your body keeps on storing fat preventing you from losing weight.
There are many stress management techniques to choose from so pick one that gives you the best outcome. You can add meditation, walking, journaling, mindfulness, and resting to your wellness plan.
How to Lose Weight
Have you ever tried losing weight and it didn’t keep? Now, you know that weight loss is not one and done deal. It needs to be part of your overall health program.
When you shift your mindset from wanting to lose weight to wanting to improve your health, you will not only lose the unwanted kilos but keep it off and have the health to do all the other things you always wanted to do.
Join my newsletter to get the latest action steps on how to eat a healthy plant-based diet, de-stress, manage your time better, prioritize yourself, and anything in between so that you INCREASE your energy, SAVE time, and INVEST well in your wellness!
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