Everyone wants to lose some weight, whether it’s for the holidays or an upcoming wedding. This happened to one of my friends recently. He had this friend’s wedding in 12 weeks and decided he wanted to lose a few pounds before his friend’s big day. He tried on the suit he had bought a few years ago for a different occasion and found he could barely button the jacket.
And it made me think of habits that helped me lose weight, and more importantly lifestyle changes to lose weight who helped me on my own journey to pass them on to you. If there’s one thing I know for sure now, it’s that if you want to lose weight, you I have to make some lifestyle changes now and then. You can’t just wing it. It takes proper planning and discipline.
I lost 21kg last year and it has helped me become more confident, more outgoing and just feel better about wearing nice clothes. Of course, if you’re happy with your weight, that’s great. I think everyone should be happy in their own skin. But if you’re looking to shed a few pounds this year, here are some of the most important weight loss lifestyle changes that have personally helped me get in better shape.
Losing weight can often seem complicated, so I wanted to present these tips as simply as I could. They’re not hot or new, but that’s the whole point. The old advice works most of the time, it’s timeless, you just have to trust the process, especially in the beginning.
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1. Portion control
This is a tough one because I think it depends on a lot of things like your height and your typical weekly level of physical activity. However, controlling my portion size was a simple lifestyle change that helped me with my weight. It is reasonable; less food equals fewer calories.
But this is why I think it can get a little gray – If you’re older and do a lot of sports and exercise, you’ll need more food to fuel you and then it’s important to eat correctly fuel, not just any old thing because even if you are tall and exercise a lot, a poor diet can keep you overweight.
When I started watching my portion sizes, I was surprised at how little food I needed to eat to feel full. These days we often eat so much food, much more than we need. This leads to excessive bloating and water retention.
Take a note out of the Japanese book and stop eating when you are 80% full. See how you feel after you stop eating. How full does your stomach feel? Do you need to eat more or just want to eat more?
2. Stock up on natural foods
By natural I mean the things you find in nature, and the more the better. Essentially, these are your plants and meats. This doesn’t have to be very expensive either. One way I have found to make it less expensive is to buy bags of frozen fruits and vegetables and these bags can be used for many different meals.
Fruits and vegetables are great because they fill you up. Sure, they may not be as tasty as Chinese takeout, but if you learn how to season them well, they can be very tasty. Half the battle of eating healthy, natural meals is making them interesting. Get it wrong and they can end up very, very bland and let you down, so seasoning is vital. Stock up on spices and herbs and those store-bought tubs usually last a long time.
Eating more plants has been very beneficial for me personally. The extra fiber helped me reduce bloating, for example. If you also eat lean meats, you’ll find that you’ll stay fuller for longer.
Snacking is another thing to think about and one of the ways I overcome this is with fruit and nuts. Nuts are healthy (but high in fat) and fruit is very filling. For example, it is very difficult to overeat bananas.
3. Become a chef
A lot of people don’t like cooking and I totally understand. But, I think cooking is like exercising – you either exercise or you don’t and you either learn to prepare fresh food or you don’t. I think if you learn to cook you can massively improve your chances of losing weight and it’s such a simple lifestyle change to make. The reason for this is that you will know exactly what’s in your food.
So many prepackaged meals (and sauces) come with all kinds of preservatives in them these days that you just don’t need. For example, did you know that there are over 35 ingredients in a Big Mac bun?
Crazy right? This is just the bun…
They hinder weight loss and can be harmful to you. Processed foods are everywhere and sometimes hard to avoid, but when you learn to cook simple, healthy meals, you take back control of what you put in your body. No other surprise ingredients, just fresh one-ingredient foods.
What you eat is (most of the time) under your control, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing to focus a little too much on what’s actually in your food.
Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated or stressful. Just hop on over to YouTube to find some inspiration and some super easy recipes that will make you feel good.
4. Treat lunch like dinner 1.0
Who said lunch has to be a sandwich and a bag of chips? A lifestyle change that has helped me lose weight is to treat my lunch as if it were my first dinner. By that I mean I’m packing food that I would traditionally leave for dinner. This means eating lean meats and vegetables at lunch.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always packed a sandwich with a bunch of treats and maybe a piece of fruit. And this is generally accepted as a good lunch. But is it healthy? I’m not sure about myself. In fact, I think cutting bread out of sandwiches has been a big positive for my own weight loss, and I think it might help you, too.
Treating your lunch like your first dinner means you eat more real foods while sharpening your cooking skills.
And it’s not hard to do.
All you need to think about is when to pack your lunch. One thing that works for me is cooking a dinner that I can split up and have for lunch the next day. For example, if I make a chicken and vegetable curry for dinner, I can keep some back to put in my lunch box the next day. That way, you don’t have to cook in the mornings. Your meal is ready, just put it in the fridge once it has cooled and you are ready to go before you leave for school or work.
Changing your lunch habits can feel a little strange at first, so I like to make life easy by getting the extra dinner portion. It’s also hard sometimes to cut out foods you eat out of habit like chips and chocolate at lunch, but it’s worth it in the long run and that leads me to the next lifestyle change to lose weight on this list…
5. Get used to making sacrifices (at first)
This is the lifestyle change most people struggle with – making sacrifices. But if you want to lose weight, there is no way around it! You should say ‘no’ when someone offers you cake in the staff room. You should choose a lighter dish in the restaurant and you may have to pay a little more money for higher quality products from time to time.
But it’s not just food sacrifices you’ll have to make to lose weight. You may also have to say no to people when they ask you out to eat, or when you drive past a McDonald’s and they ask you if you want a burger too.
You may need to stay in more than you are used to and focus on your home cooked meals.
This is the awkward part.
But it gets easier. Once you take the trouble to cook easy, fresh meals, you don’t feel like you’re sacrificing so much anymore. You are getting used to your new lifestyle and each weight loss pushes you and keeps your motivation burning. Even better, this is when you stop relying on motivation because you see firsthand that your new lifestyle it really works.
Suffering and sacrifices are only temporary and when you learn that, everything becomes much easier. You are no longer so focused on how many calories you eat in a day because you are so used to eating a certain way that makes you feel good and feel better in your clothes.
Keep losing weight simply…
Losing weight is as hard as you make it. Yes, it can be uncomfortable at first. But what’s worth doing that isn’t challenging? If you follow these simple lifestyle changes to lose weight, I’m sure they can help you even if they help you pay more attention to your portion sizes, for example.
