George K.
Right off the bat; there are no shortcuts to weight loss. The good news is that you don’t need a shortcut. Losing weight, at a moderate pace, isn’t a struggle, and gets results. Doctors, nutritionists, dietitians, and fitness coaches have been helping people lose weight little by little for decades. Some people reach their desired goal while others find it too difficult and wind up giving up altogether. With sound advice, motivation, effort, and commitment, losing weight is never an impossible feat. To help those struggling, let’s see what you can do to make weight loss easier and not feel like a struggle.
There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Solution
That’s probably the first pitfall people encounter. So, your best friend lost weight by following a certain regimen, it doesn’t necessarily mean what they did or ate will work for you too. Your body is different from your friend’s and so is your metabolism, not to mention your mentality — how you think and feel about diet and exercise.
A diet that leaves you hungry, weak, or in a bad mood isn’t meant for you. This means you might have to do some trial and error to find the eating protocol that suits you, which leads us to our second point.
Habits
According to studies, it takes anywhere between 18 and 254 days to form a habit. Anyone wanting to lose weight has probably acquired some bad habits in the food choices they make, or in not being physically active enough. There are very few certainties about weight loss that apply to everyone. However, we do know that improving your health through exercise and the right food choices are two necessary factors for everyone. The idea, however, is not just to do something once or twice; to see the results, what you do has to become a habit. These new habits have to become your lifestyle. By now, we all know that fad dieting rarely, if ever, sustains results. If you don’t incorporate good habits and make it a lifestyle, you can fall into your bad habits again, which will make weight loss difficult.
Not Every Calorie Is The Same
A calorie-counting system works nicely for a lot of people. However, what is important to understand about calorie counting is that not all calories are the same. True, anything you eat or drink is going to have calories in it, but, to simplify it, there are good and bad calories. The calories in a donut topped with glazed icing is going to affect your body negatively compared to the same number of calories you could get from eating oats with berries and nuts. Simply upgrading what you eat makes a huge difference. This is especially true when trying to combat a plateau — a certain weight you can’t drop past. It just seems like you can’t lose anymore, but when you change to eating real food and keep away from refined foods and saturated fats, it will begin to have positive effects.
Build Meals Around Vegetables
Eating more low starch vegetables should be the prime focus of your meals. Make the vegetables your prime focus and from there create your meal. It’s proven that vegetables cause less inflammation in the body. Inflammation is one of the factors that trigger obesity. In any of your meals, vegetables should be the biggest component.
Be sure to have healthy snacks around you at all times. Any diet or new way of eating starts in your kitchen. Get rid of all the things that you know aren’t good for you. These things cause a lot of temptation, which increases the struggle. As they say, out of sight, out of mind. The internet is full of healthy recipes and ideas on how to manage your sweet tooth and satisfy it healthily.
12-hour window
Allowing your body to rest from consuming any food for 12-hours helps the digestive system and can speed up weight loss. During this time, the body may faster burn unneeded, stored fats.
The good news is that this 12-hour period includes sleep time. So, in effect, you will either need to have your last meal earlier at night or have breakfast later in the morning. It’s not difficult to do and will help with the journey.
Weight loss doesn’t have to be a struggle. There are plenty of methods and loads of healthy foods to try to make it easier. It’s a given that healthy eating and exercise are needed in any case. All the choices you make are important. The takeaway is to make choices that enhance your life and not make weight loss more difficult than necessary.
