If you feel disappointed with your diet, there is an explanation for it.
“Diets don’t work,” says Carla Heiser, a registered dietitian and health expert in nutritional, and metabolic medicine in Chicago.
Yet all of us want to know the simplest and best methods for maintaining a healthy weight and look amazing while doing it.
So if you are counting calories and praying to keep the weight off, here is some good news for you, because freakishly perfect genetics isn’t the only reason why people who never seem to gain weight, stay so thin.
They have committed to a few healthy lifestyle choices that help keep the weight off, and if you pick a few that resonate with you, they can ultimately transform your life, too.
Here is a collection of 15 safe practices that’ll help you reach your weight reduction goals even more easily.
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15 Habits To Stay at a Healthy Weight
1. Try not to eliminate foods but portion them instead.
For all the fad diets hitting the headlines these days, you would assume the best way to reduce weight would be to fully remove certain food groups and only consume kale and carrots from the grocery store. This is not the case though.
A lot of those who lose weight and retain their desired weight do not achieve or even reach their desired weight by cutting certain items from their diet entirely.
It’s more about the reduction in portion size than eliminating foods someone enjoys.
And if you are starving a nagging sweet tooth that only worsens the cravings, but answering its calls that only adds inches to the waistline?
Don’t worry, you can fix this issue by doing a little bit of both! Take only half of the usual sweetener at Starbucks, split that cupcake with a buddy, choose moderation, not deprivation. And maybe you might find a newfound way to live the best of both worlds!
2. Slowly change up your routine.
For weight loss, it’s all about making healthier and wiser choices. But sometimes old routines can die really hard.
In fact, our daily routines might be having a negative impact on our healthy choices because we have done them so many times that they are on autopilot.
And since we all know that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit, it’s probably not a bad idea to change up what you do from day-to-day, to encourage new ways to lose a little weight.
You can do this by taking the stairs instead of the elevator or opting to walk a further distance from your car.
But remember, working too hard too fast can lead you to stress out and become discouraged, so don’t overhaul your life in a week; instead, take things steadily and change up only a few things so they don’t throw you off.
3. Give yourself physical tune-ups multiple times a week.
You would never pass up a tune-up for your car, so treat yourself with the same respect. Our bodies actually crave activity, and when we are sedentary too long, everything from our muscles to our joints gets out of sorts, builds up weight, and starts feeling stiff.
Manage to give yourself a physical tune-up at least four days out of the week, even if you only have the time to do a few sets of lunges in your living room!
4. Track calories with handy apps in your pocket.
- Image source // loseit.com
For those who would like a birds-eye view for weight loss, apps like MyFitnessPal, Loseit, and FatSecret will do all the heavy lifting to calculate your calorie intake, so no math is required and it might be a great way to see what is troubling you with your weight loss goals!
Certain people really keep track of their calorie intake because it gives them the special insights that they need to lose the extra weight.
These apps also monitor your workouts and help you grasp your caloric deficit every day. Give them a try and see if they add some good to your life.
5. Track your mood/energy levels and not the scale.
Sometimes things look more difficult than they really are, making weight loss feel like an uphill battle.
However, one of the easiest strategies to shed weight is to pay attention to how you feel and the amount of motivation you have, rather than by watching the number on the scale.
These two key factors are especially important during the first phase of weight loss. The extra pounds will be lost (when you go to the gym), but your scale number may not change or even go up.
The reason is simple, when you increase muscle mass, muscle weighs more than fat and when your body is not used to working out it also stores up extra water weight.
So know that when it comes to losing weight healthily, it’s all about how your body feels — NOT how your dress fits — how you personally feel with your mood and energy levels– and NOT what the scale tells you!
6. Know another World Outside of Cardio.
If you want to drop some serious weight in a relatively short amount of time, take up strength training. Strength training can help you manage your weight or lose weight, while also increasing your metabolism to help you burn more calories!
In fact, resistance training (another term for strength training) aids in extra weight reduction by improving post-exercise calorie-burning.
It does this because when you increase your muscle size, your body, will burn additional calories (for those muscles) while you sleep, making this is such a great way to increase weight loss.
7. Prep your body at the start of each day to burn more calories.
Within 30 minutes after waking, having a healthy breakfast will do marvels for your metabolism and is one of the best habits for acquiring a stable weight.
People who prefer to skip over breakfast will fill the gap in-between with many midday snacks, pickings, and indulgences to fulfill their hunger pangs, which can also be called hunger consumption.
8. Prepare your Own Healthy Cuisine rather than ordering in.
Your favorite restaurants are your greatest frenemies when it comes to the world of weight loss.
While they may whisper sweet nothings to your belly, they’ll force-feed you empty calories and a bunch of junk ingredients that you could really do without.
Instead of setting yourself up for betrayal, prepare your own meals like most healthy people do, making sure that you are using low sodium and even lower amounts of sugar. And if you do have to order in, make it a treat but make sure it doesn’t become a habit!
9. Don’t Eat All At Once.
You can brag about only eating two meals a day, but if each portion is large enough to feed your entire family, there lies the issue.
Surprisingly, you only need about a fistful of food, paired with healthy snacks in between, to achieve satisfaction per meal, depending on its nutritional content, of course.
Whichever the case, eat slowly, mindfully, and until you are full, and pack up the rest for later. And if you’re fueling up properly with the right nutrition the better!
10. Use Food As Thy Medicine.
Naturally thin people might not have to watch what they eat all-of the-time, but when it comes to reaching a healthy weight for yourself, the concept of comfort food shouldn’t resonate with what you are trying to accomplish, and a therapist isn’t lying at the bottom of a cookie jar either.
In fact, if you have caught a case of the blues, it’s best that you load up on fresh fruits, veggies, and herbal teas instead.
Food really is thy medicine for the people who have had a hard time sticking to their desired weight and are now pros at it, so choose right now to start looking at food that way too.
11. Rarely Give Into That Midnight Snack.
That little voice inside of your head that begs you to crack open that bag of Doritos is nothing more than temptation himself trying to get you to give in to your indulgences.
Once you start the habit of late-night snacking, it is a hard habit to break, and most healthy people feel it stings the hardest when it shakes them from their weight loss goals.
As much as you try to convince yourself otherwise, a couple of chips will always lead to a couple more.
To avoid feeling guilty, choose healthier options before bed like these sleep-inducing foods and sip on some chamomile tea until you doze off instead of grabbing for that late-night snack.
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12. Always Stay Hydrated.
Though I wish that I could run down the nutritional benefits of cocktails and flavored sodas, but unfortunately, I would come up short.
In fact, if you still rely on those drinks for hydration, you are probably loading up on empty calories and are one Dr. Pepper short from shriveling up like a prune.
Your body craves water just as much as it craves your next breath, so try to always have around a gallon per day. Not only will you see a huge decrease in your midsection, but you will also notice fewer hunger pangs just from having water alone.
13. Know that Stress will incur more weight gain for you.
Don’t shoot the messenger, but if you also worry entirely too much, that stress could be packing on the extra weight.
Stress hormone levels, such as cortisol, increase during periods of tension. These tensions will make overeating a habit since rising hormone levels often lead to higher insulin levels. When this happens the blood sugar drops and the craving for sugary and fatty foods will try to sway you to eat even more. How cruel?!
So it’s about time to find good healthy outlets to undo some of those tough moments in life, so you don’t unconsciously pack on more weight than you’d like.
You can try picking up a new hobby, crafting, hanging with a new group of friends, or even practicing mindfulness. Do whatever feels good, and do it a lot.
To learn more about how to turn your stress into a superpower, check out 8 ways stress can be used to enhance your life here!
14. Refuse To Stay Up late.
If you want a flat belly, you will need to pick a bedtime and stick to it because when you are sleep deprived, your body will struggle to keep your hormone levels intact. As a result, fat will cling to your abdomen, and you will find yourself craving high-calorie foods throughout the days and nights.
15. Indulge in sugar only when the occasion calls for it.
We have all witnessed our skinny friends scarf down a cupcake like no one’s business, and yet the scale never tips against their favor. But, you probably looked over one small detail… It might look like they can eat a lot of sugary sweets, but in reality, they only indulge in sweets when they are out celebrating — with you!
In short, sugar makes the body gain weight, which could lead to fatty liver disease, which may contribute to early-onset diabetes, and can also increase the risk for heart disease.
In fact, there’s more because too much sugar can also contribute to high blood pressure and inflammation, which are very harmful to your health and can lead to heart disease.
So having sugar when the occasion calls for it is a great rule for weight loss.
Always Be Up For The long Marathon.
I wanted to add a final word regarding weight loss and sticking with it. Don’t worry, the long marathon doesn’t entail that you need to pull out your running sneakers either, but you will need a little endurance to keep up with your desired weight loss goals.
As you probably have already figured out, weight loss is a journey and it’s best that you try new things that work for you and if they don’t work, skip over them and try something else. There is no one-size-fits-all way to lose weight.
Sometimes journeys are filled with unproud moments. So no matter how many times you slip on a plate of pancakes, lick the syrup ‘off of your face’ in hopes of a better tomorrow. You can reach any goal that you deem believable and achievable — weight loss is not excluded. Stay healthy! 🙂
There you have it, as you probably had imagined, it will take some hard work, burned calories, half-eaten pastries, and a positive attitude to stay ahead of your weight loss goals, but like anything else, when you work hard for it, the victory will taste and feel just that much sweeter!
Author: Everything Abode
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