Healthy Weight Loss and How to Keep the Weight Off

Weight loss can be a sensitive topic for many people and can cause seemingly unending amounts of frustration. These frustrations can lead to discouragement and giving up. It is also easy to compare ourselves to those we see on the internet and social media and think we are not good enough. It makes us wonder if we will ever be able to have healthy weight loss.

Social media and the internet contain millions of opinions on the best and quickest way to lose weight. Many of the opinions are non-researched and often very unhealthy weight loss methods. This article focuses on natural and healthy weight loss that can lead to permanent weight loss instead of extreme weight loss methods that often lead to weight regain. Even though everybody is different, the following tips may help you with your weight loss journey. 

First of all, no you do NOT need to follow some insanely restrictive diet (aka the keto diet, intermittent fasting, Atkins diet). Honestly, please don’t. Just don’t do it. It’s not worth it. I promise. I’ll go over why restrictive dieting is not healthy later in the article. 

A calorie deficit means eating less calories than you burn in a day. Calories can be burned through exercise, daily living tasks, digesting food, and to keep your organs working. You don’t have to be extreme in limiting your calories. For example, if you burn around 2200 calories a day, aim to only eat 1800-2000 calories per day. 

Now you are probably wondering how to figure out how many calories you burn in a day. To calculate about how many calories you burn in a day, use this calorie calculator: Mayo Clinic Calorie Calculator.  

To track how many calories you are eating, check out this really cool scale or download an app like MyFitnessPal.

Here are some healthy ways to decrease your calorie intake and lead to healthy weight loss

• Stop drinking sugar sweetened beverages. That includes soda, sports drinks like Gatorade or Powerade, lemonade, and more. I would even recommend avoiding zero calorie drinks that have artificial sweeteners, read my article on artificial sweeteners to find out why. Focus on water. If you really don’t like plain water, try drink alternatives like Spindrift or Hint.

• Increase your fruit and vegetable intake. Fruits and vegetables are low in calories but high in essential nutrients and will help to fill you up.
• Decrease your intake of processed foods. This does not mean you have to completely stop eating any processed foods, but try and limit your intake. 
• Watch your portions. Portion sizes are going to vary between people. If you are getting uncomfortably full after eating or are consistently going over your target number of calories, try smaller portion sizes.
• Don’t have “cheat days” or eat “less healthy” on weekends, just maintain a consistent diet. It is okay to have a treat sometimes and you shouldn’t feel bad about it or like you have to justify it as a “cheat day”. Just stick to moderation and consistency. Researchers did a study on eating habits and followed two groups: participants who ate consistently the entire week and participants who were more strict with their diet on weekdays. The participants with a consistent diet the entire week were 1.5 times more likely to maintain their weight over a year that those who had “cheat days” or dieted more strictly on weekdays.(1)
• Avoid super restrictive diets. Because restrictive diets are too difficult to maintain long term, the lost weight comes back when the diet is stopped. There are much healthier ways to lose weight that will also make you more likely to keep the weight off.

Exercise may seem intimidating, not fun, or too hard. I promise it is worth it. Start small and go from there. If all you can do right now is just go for a 10 minute walk every day, then great! Start with that and they try going on two separate 10 minute walks a day. Then a 20 minute walk each day and so on. You get the idea. 

Find a type of exercise you enjoy doing. So many options are available to get you moving and increase your heart rate. The more you enjoy the type of exercise you do, the more motivated you will be to exercise. Make a goal to exercise for 150 minutes a week, so 30 minutes 5 times a week. If you can do more than that, do it! Exercise not only helps with healthy weight loss, but will improve your sleep, mood, and even self-confidence.

If you struggle with motivation, find someone who can hold you accountable to exercising. That could be a personal trainer, a partner, or a friend. Consider trying our 1:1 online nutrition and fitness coaching! Also consider getting a smartwatch that tracks your exercise. Smartwatches help motivate by showing the number of calories burned, minutes exercised, and even remind you to keep moving your body throughout the day. 

Self efficacy means a person’s belief in their ability to succeed in certain tasks and situations.  Believe in yourself! You can do it. If you don’t feel completely confident right now, ask for help. Look up YouTube videos, see a Dietitian, or meet with a Personal Trainer. The human body is amazing, so by default, your body is amazing.

Don’t try and drop all the pounds at once. Rapid weight loss is often associated with rapid weight regain. Try focusing on just losing 1-3 pounds a week. Just a couple of pounds a week is a more healthy approach to weight loss. Losing weight takes time, so don’t feel discouraged if it takes longer than you want. 

Mental health can have a huge impact on our eating and exercise habits. If you are not in a good place mentally, it may be hard to have healthy weight loss. Researchers found that people who had lower levels of depression were more likely to have greater success losing weight.(1) Don’t wait to get help with your mental health.

Research has found that the best predictor of the likelihood of weight regain (after weight loss) was how long a person had maintained their weight loss. Specifically, keeping the weight off for 2 years reduces the risk of weight gain by 50%. (1)

Along with the ideas mentioned above, many research articles on healthy weight loss suggested eating breakfast and self-monitoring your weight to help keep the weight off long term.

Try setting goals for healthy weight loss. Make sure these goals are realistic and take into account the things I mentioned above. Unrealistic goals can lead to discouragement. Check out this article on how to set realistic goals.

Have any questions on weight loss or anything in this article? Feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

Reference: (1) https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/82/1/222S/4863393