16 Weight Loss Tips

Weight Loss Tips That Work!

1. Make specific goals. Instead of saying, “I will eat less.” say “I will eat carrots for my afternoon snack.”   Also, develop a SHORT time frames for your goals. For example, you might decide to follow your plan until your child’s birthday party in 4 weeks. Then when your child’s birthday party is over, pick another time frame to work towards like your families Christmas party. We can often make ourselves stick with something if we think of a short-term goal or time frames. We think, “ I can do this for 2 weeks until that wedding” and the wedding will also keep you motivated. When you give yourself a year until that wedding, then you can easily begin to tell yourself, “Oh, that wedding is a year from now, I will do better tomorrow.” When you reach for something coming sooner, then you can say to yourself, “this is crunch time!”
2. Have the same foods each week for breakfast and lunch to eliminate error. Find out the calories in a few foods and eat those foods for breakfast and lunch and then have more variety at dinner
3. Add one change to your diet each week. Use this Diet Self-Assessment for the one change that will benefit you the most.
4. Share your goal with someone for moral support and accountability.
5. Find a daily routine that works for you. We are less likely to error if our days follow a similar routine. Eat the same time and way every day. Write down specifics for your routine like, “I will only eat out two days a week and those days will be Friday and Saturday.” Add something fun to your routine everyday. That way you will have something to look forward to besides eating food. Also, your routine will not get too monotonous or boring.
6. Take a different route to work or to your daily places if you regularly pass by a tempting fast food restaurant.
7. Don’t skip meals. When you skip meals your body thinks it is starving. Your body will start holding onto your fat, making it harder to burn calories. In fact, one of the best way to lose weight is to eat 3 meals a day and healthy snacks in between meals. Make your snacks vegetables and fruit so that your snacks will take very little calories away from your meals. PLAIN vegetables are sometimes considered free foods because they have so few calories; however, fattening flavors and dips should not be added.
8. Get at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep most nights. Sleep deprivation changes hormone levels that regulate hunger in the body and causes an increase in appetite. Sometimes we eat when we are tired even if we are not hungry.
9. To prevent hunger and hungry overeating eat 6 small meals a day. If you eat 6 small meals a day, make each meal no larger than a fist size portion.
10. For maintenance, establish a weight threshold. In other words, continue to weigh yourself regularly and decide your weight limit. Tell yourself, ‘I will gain no more than five to ten pounds’, and be adamant about not exceeding that weight threshold. Have a set plan of action if you hit your upper limit like re-do your self-assessment and reevaluate your diet. When your weight is creeping up, perhaps adding another tip or exercise will do the trick. Make sure you haven’t slacked on your plan by letting yourself eat larger portions or grazing, etc.
11. Take control and make weight loss a priority. You need to develop a kind of “selfishness” about yourself and weight. Decide this is one of the your priorities. Too often other priorities go above our weight; so we never get to it. We see exercise as something we can cancel for our other priorities. However, if you are healthy you will have more energy to get things done, you will have more energy for your spouse, parent, children, and friends. You can increase your life span and thus the time loved ones have with you. Healthy eating and exercise improves our moods. A happier person is always more fun to be around. Plus, you are setting a good example for your children. Think of exercise as something you cannot cancel unless there is an emergency. By developing this “selfishness” you are actually being selfless.
12. Eat an apple before a meal.   Apples make you feel full faster due to the high fiber.
13. Search the Apps for your phone for helpful weight loss, fitness, exercise, and calorie counting apps. I like the “myfitnesspal” app.

14. To stave off hunger, eat natural sugars like fruit or complex carbohydrates like whole wheat bread, instead of refined sugars like donuts. Refined sugars will cause your glucose to peak and then crash, whereas complex carbs will help glucose stay steady for longer.

 

15. Learn to think differently about your trigger foods or associate negative thoughts to these types of foods. During Gina Willett’s “Food Addiction” seminar, Willett gives several example of how to associate your trigger foods to a negative thought. Below is a list of example:

• When you see French fries, picture them as 24 day old sponges dripping with rancid grease

 

 

16. Learn how to love other things in life more than food. If food is your only source of pleasure, make sure to reconnect with other things you enjoy like sports, music, volunteering, or movies. Take up a hobby so that you can enjoy another activity in your leisure time besides eating. People who succeed at weight control tend to develop new hobbies, interests, and friendships. If food is your first and only way to make you feel better, it can be a major issue.   For many of us, our lives revolve around food. Instead, we should try to make our lives revolve around other things. For example, when my husband and I first got married, eating was our major source of joy and the main way we spent time together. Now we fill our life with so many other things that food is secondary. We go to amusement parks, museums, walks around the park, canoeing, any may other activities together. We eat less and our lives are fuller.

 

• If you would like to evaluate your own diet and determine which tips work best for you, please take the free DIY Diet self assessment and evaluation developed by a registered dieititian.

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