If you’re not happy with your current weight and want to lose some extra pounds for your health, self-confidence, or a combination of the two, you’re already off to a good start. Weight loss should never be something that you do to punish yourself, but rather because your body deserves to be healthy – and you deserve to feel great in yourself. Finding a plan that incorporates making simple changes to your lifestyle so that it fits in easy and does not restrict you so much that you start to resent it is the best way to tackle any weight loss journey. Whether you have a specific health or weight loss goal in mind or just want to feel better within yourself, keep these tips in mind.
Set Realistic Goals
It can be easy to want to try and lose as much weight as possible in the shortest amount of time – but this isn’t realistic in the long-term and will only leave you feeling deprived. Ideally, you should look to lose a maximum of two pounds per week in weight for healthy weight loss that is sustainable over time. Consider your lifestyle and your nutritional needs. While eating very little is sure to work in terms of weight loss, it’s never good for your health if your body isn’t getting the right amount of fuel.
Work Out a Calorie Allowance
One of the easiest ways for most people to lose weight is to eat fewer calories than their body needs on a daily basis. You can figure out the ideal number of calories for you to aim for using a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) calculator. This will take factors such as your gender, height, weight, age and activity level into account to determine how many calories your body expends on a daily basis. Then subtract around 300-500 calories from this amount to set yourself a calorie goal that is in a deficit of your TDEE. For example, if your TDEE is 2,000, you should aim to eat around 1300-1500 calories per day to lose weight.
Drink More Water
Drinking more water is key to healthy weight loss. Not only does it rid your body of toxins, keep your bodily functions working healthily, and help you avoid water retention, but drinking more water throughout the day will also help you to feel full, which makes it easy for you to resist treats and snacks since your appetite is curbed. General advice for drinking water is eight cups or two liters per day, but this can vary from person to person so you might want to get even more specific and figure out exactly how much water you should be drinking for optimum health with this water intake calculator.
Track Your Meals
Planning and tracking your meals is an excellent habit to get into when it comes to successful weight loss. One of the best things that you can invest in right now is a good set of kitchen scales so that you can weigh everything that you eat and work out the exact calories. You can find several fantastic apps that allow you to easily work out the calorie value of anything that you are eating and even figure out how many calories are in a portion of a recipe that you are making so that you can easily continue to eat the same meals as your family with little extra effort.
Don’t Be Too Restrictive
Moderation is key if you are looking to lead a healthier lifestyle and drop some extra pounds. It’s worth trying to avoid the diet culture mindset and forget about restricting yourself to only eating salads and drinking water – it won’t work over the long term. When you deprive yourself of the foods that you enjoy, you are only going to be miserable. Instead, it’s a much better idea to allow yourself the foods that you like in moderation and find a way to fit your favorite treats into your calorie allowance for the day with a little planning.
Up Your Protein Intake
Last but not least, increasing the amount of protein that you eat with each meal can help you lose weight by keeping you fuller for longer and curbing your appetite throughout the day, making it easier for you to say no to snacks. While cutting out carbs altogether isn’t necessary, you should try to limit the amount of starchy carbs in each meal and fill up with healthy protein sources like lean meat, eggs, fish and legumes.
Weight loss doesn’t have to be a miserable diet of eating lettuce leaves and carrot sticks – you can lose weight by making some simple changes to your existing diet habits.
