There are so many diets out there that help you lose weight. Some will help you lose it slowly, and others focus on plans that will make you shed 10lbs in a week.
While they all have one main goal in mind, they take you through different strategies to drop the dress sizes. On top of that, they have different goals afterward. There are some that offer a maintenance plan, while others focus on just getting you to your weight loss goal. In many cases, there are no guarantees that you will actually keep the weight off in the long run.
Yo-yo dieting is dangerous. It’s one of the main reasons for various health problems. So, it’s up to you to focus on weight loss and keeping it off afterward. That leads us to this article.
I used to find it hard. I’ve tried every diet and struggled to keep the weight off once I’ve lost it. It didn’t help my physical health and definitely didn’t support my mental health. That’s when I realized that I needed to change the way I looked at the diets. I needed to change the way I thought about losing weight.
These seven tips have helped me lose weight and keep it off. I know I have the tools to keep the weight off forever.
The Problem with Yo-Yo Dieting
Why is yo-yo dieting so dangerous? Well, you never really change your weight problem. You drop down a few dress sizes and get into a healthy weight for a short period of time and then just end up where you were before your diet. And usually, you end up gaining way more weight than you originally lost.
Your metabolism slows down when you yo-yo diet. It struggles to burn off all the calories you eat because while dieting you cut down the calorie intake too much. When it comes to eating normally again, your metabolism doesn’t factor in that it doesn’t need to be so sluggish anymore.
You put far more stress on your body when yo-yo dieting. Your heart must work harder, and your arteries suffer. You are at a higher risk of developing high blood pressure. You will also not actually eat a healthier diet. When you go back to your original diet, you start going back to high saturated fat and high sugar foods, putting you are arisk of various health problems, including diabetes.
At no point, do you learn about healthy and sustainable dietary changes? You never learn about a good way of life that will keep your whole body and mind in check.
So, you need to follow these seven tips to lose weight and keep it off.
Change the Way You Think About your Diet and Weight
For many of us, we have this aim to get into a swimsuit or look good for an upcoming event. It’s often a short term goal to give us something to work towards. We want to feel good and look good at the same time, right?
Well, while short term goals are good for motivation, they can create the wrong mindset when it comes to weight loss. Once you reach your goal, what do you do now? Is there anything to keep you going afterward? Could you end up going back to eating the old food because you’ve reached your weight goal?
The hard work doesn’t stop just because you’ve reached your goal. You won’t just miraculously stay there just because you’ve dieted for a short period of time. It takes some effort to stick to your new weight. But you need to change the way you think about diet and weight.
Your dieting journey isn’t just for the one goal. While this is a goal in mind, it’s just one stop on the road to a longer term goal. Once you’ve reached that, you need to work onto the next goal. This could be to stick at the same weight for the next event. You may also have a new weight that you want to get down to for a future event.
Having small goals on a longer road will keep you motivated. You focus on being healthy rather than just dropping a few dress sizes.
And your weight loss goals don’t have to be just about the figures on the scales. You could develop new goals surrounding your exercise efforts and other health factors now that you’ve gotten rid of the weight.
Follow a Healthy and Balanced Diet
You’ll hear this a lot when it comes to weight loss, but it really is the best way to lose weight and keep it off in the future. It’s also the healthiest way to lose the weight.
When you follow a healthy and balanced diet, you’re not cutting anything out completely. While you cut down on the sweet stuff or the junk food, you’re not eliminating it for good. You’re creating a plan of attack that will allow you to eat everything you want. This helps to make you feel more satisfied with the food that you eat.
Withdrawal symptoms will be minimal, and you’ll find it easier to handle the cravings. When you’ve finished your diet and are at a weight that you’re happy with, you won’t be as likely to binge on all the food that you’ve banned. This keeps the weight gain afterward to a minimum.
Your diet becomes sustainable after you’ve lost weight. This is something we’ll touch more on in a moment, but do keep it in mind when you want to continue your weight loss maintenance once you’ve reached your goal.
A healthy and balanced diet will help to keep your body filled with the right food groups and nutrients. You support your whole system, so your physical and mental health are both supported. This helps to eliminate binging and snacking both during and after your weight loss efforts.
Add in a Good Exercise Routine
A good weight loss plan is only 80% diet. The other 20% is linked to your exercise plan.
This isn’t just about doing some cardio to help burn the fat and burn more calories. You want to do some weight training to help build muscle too. There are all types of exercise plans that you can include, whether you have 7 minutes a day to work out or you want to do a 60-minute power blast.
What you do need to make sure is that you add a good exercise routine into your day. Schedule it in and make an effort to follow your plan of attack. Even when you don’t have the motivation or really want to do it, you need to get out there and follow through with the plan. You’ll feel better afterward, will burn more calories, and find it easier to keep the weight off in the long-term.
Health experts recommend 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week for a healthy body. You’ll need to double that if you want to lose weight effectively. This breaks down to 30-60 minutes a day.
There’s no need to do all 30-60 minutes in one sitting. Split it up into more manageable chunks to boost the chances of actually doing it all. This is your time to yourself, and your mind and overall physical health will thank you for adding this into your daily routine.
Create Sustainable Changes to Your Diet
There are so many people who will crash diet. This leads to the yo-yo dieting. We’ll get onto more about slow and steady dieting soon, but keep in mind that you don’t want to crash diet.
Any change that you make should be sustainable. This means it’s something that you can stick to for the long-term. Remember your dieting goal isn’t just to lose weight and that’s it. The sustainable changes need to help you keep the weight off in the long-term, so you don’t want just to go back to the original diet that you followed.
Sustainable changes will actually make you feel fuller. You won’t feel like you’re on a diet because you’re not actually banning anything. You find creative ways to trick your mind into thinking you’re having something naughty and you find healthy alternatives on a daily basis.
While you make the changes, do them one at a time and help them become a habit. It takes 6-8 weeks for something to become a habit, so you need to stick with it throughout that time. Once you get to the 8-week point, you will find it easier to stick to it in the long term.
Get Some Support Throughout
There’s a reason many people join weight loss plans like Weight Watchers. There is the support element. This can be a group leader or from the other members of the group. There is also support online in many instances.
Getting support is essential to help lose weight and keep it off. The support will be there to help you when you have a bad day and have absolutely no motivation. If you feel like giving up, you have someone there to keep you accountable and push you to do what you had planned anyway.
There’s less chance of you giving into the temptations around you. Once you lose the weight, you have someone there cheering you along when you stay the same and stick to your weight loss efforts.
The support can come from other people in your life if you don’t want to join a group. Have someone in your family take this journey with you and make it clear to close friends that you are actively losing weight and you want to keep it off afterward.
Avoid Crash Diets and Lose Weight Slowly
There’s no race when it comes to weight loss. This isn’t a sprint against your best friend. While you may have some healthy competition between you for motivation, you will both lose weight at different paces. Your friend may find it extremely easy to add in more exercise or may have a better metabolism.
It’s easy to think you have to give up because you’re not losing weight as quickly. There must be a different diet out there for you.
Well, that’s not the case. Stop focusing on the short-term sprint and focus on this long-term marathon. It’s a complete change to your lifestyle, which means no more crash diets.
You want to lose weight slowly. If it took you a year to put the weight on, it’s going to take you a year to lose it healthily. When you lose weight faster, you’ll get rid of muscle, water, and more. You’ll find your energy levels slip and you’ll definitely find it harder to do the exercise plan you have set. You won’t want to stick to the healthy diet and will find the cravings are more likely to happen.
When you lose weight slowly, you also develop the habits. You have this healthy diet that is sustainable and easier to follow. Those changes are much easier to continue even once you reach your goals. You’ll find that setting new goals to keep yourself at the weight for the long term is something you want to do.
Keep Yourself Feeling Full
Change the way you tackle your food and eating during the day. You don’t need to stick to three meals a day with two snacks in between. You may find five or six small meals throughout the day is better.
It’s all about keeping yourself feeling full. You want to feel satisfied, so you don’t feel like you’re on a diet. This is an excellent way to stick to it after you reach your short-term goals, so you keep the weight off in the long-term.
That doesn’t mean you have to keep eating. It’s all about eating the right food. High protein and high fiber foods are the best options to add to your diet. You still need some complex carbs and some healthy fats, but the protein and fiber are the two food groups that you want to focus on the most.
Protein and fiber break down in the body slowly. You’re left feeling fuller for longer, and you will feel fuller sooner while eating. It’s also worth eating slowly. Chew at least 10 times and put your fork down between bites to avoid shoveling your food in. You will give your body a chance to tell you that you’re hungry and you avoid overeating.
You Can Lose Weight and Keep It Off
There’s nothing worse than yo-yo dieting for your health. The next time that you lose weight make it the last time. Make sure you keep the weight off forever.
It is possible, but the work to do that starts right now. You’ll need to change the way you treat this diet and your weight loss goals. It’s important to set up the steps to change the way you think about food and exercise. You can definitely do it if you put your mind to it. You just have to want it badly enough.
