If you did a quick internet search on ‘how to lose weight’, I guarantee you would find more gurus than you could poke a stick at, preaching about how they have developed some revolutionary method to shed those extra kilos that have always bothered you.
Now, while these gimmicky ideas may seem very appealing from the outside, the reality is that almost every one of these wild fads or inventions is nothing more than a marketing ploy to suck you in and spend your hard-earned money.
The truth of the matter is that when it comes to losing weight, going about it in a sustainable, realistic manner is genuinely the best way to go, not only to get the weight off but also to keep it off.
Managing Our Expectations
Now I know this is not the news that many of us want to hear, but this mindset is crucial if we want to make a positive step towards achieving a weight loss goal, where we can keep those kilos off.
This is because managing our expectations plays a major role in the success of any weight-loss regime. When you think about how you put on the weight in the first place, we all understand that it didn’t happen overnight.
It occurs because of repeated poor decisions that over time compound into one another and lead us down a slippery slope towards an unhealthy lifestyle.
Sometimes this outcome is a product of months or even years of choices, so as such, why do we expect ourselves to turn everything around in a matter of weeks and look like gods or goddesses.
It just isn’t realistic, and when it comes down to the physiological processes entailed with weight loss, it purely isn’t a way to achieve sustainable results.
So how then do I go about losing weight?
‘So how then do I go about losing weight?’, you might ask. Well there are a few basic principles that you should make sure are part of your journey to maximise its success and longevity. First of all, looking at controlling portion sizes for our different meals is something that might seems very basic but unfortunately is a variable that many people often struggle to master.
Most commonly, people seems to believe that starving yourself throughout the day and then eating a large dinner is a good idea. This regrettably, is probably the most counter-productive thing we can do.
Consuming the majority of your daily calories in the evening where we typically sit and rest afterwards means that rather than using that food for energy, our body stores it, predominantly as fat, and we pack on the kilos.
Instead, if we try to have our larger meals for breakfast and lunch, we can utilise the fuel for activities throughout the day and our metabolism has a chance to break down the majority of what we intake for its energy needs.
What should my exercise routine include?
Secondly, incorporating both resistance and cardiovascular into your normal routine, at least bi-weekly, is something that many people fail to do, but is crucial to enhancing our body’s metabolism.
Not only will improvements in strength and fitness improve our body composition but it will also increase our capacity to undertake more activities in our daily lives. If we are able to do more, then our muscles are more active and the the food we consume can be used by the body instead of being stored.
Ultimately, this equates to a greater energy expenditure, and if we are able to sustain a greater output than what we take in through food then we can develop a sustainable caloric deficit that will mean we lose weight.
When should I indulge?
Finally, making sure we allow ourselves to enjoy some of life’s great indulgences in moderation like sweets, chocolates and alcohol, is something that can be the difference in developing a sustainable weight loss routine that has the capacity for longevity.
That’s not to say that we should do things like eat 2 meals a day healthy and then have a takeaway for dinner. This means that if we have social gathering where we want to have a couple of drinks, then we should plan for it.
This means marking it out as a goal and working hard with our exercising and diet for the time leading up to this event so that the impact a few drinks have on the grand scheme of things is negligible. Having this mindset means that we don’t feel like we are missing out completely and we develop that balance, which is the most important thing when it comes to sustainability.
These principles, whilst not being the only things at play, can be the foundations to implementing a successful weight loss routine and allow us to shift the odds into our favour. Through keeping it simple and being accountable to these steps, there is a far greater potential for making long-term changes that are better for not only our weight but also our health.
