If you are like me, you have spent a lot of time thinking about losing weight over the course of your lifetime. Like many adults I slowly gained weight year by year through my late 20s, 30s, and 40s. Then, a few months shy of 50, I decided to do something about my weight and take steps to actually lose weight. Now – I realize there are some people reading this that have tried many things and some didn’t work. Some worked temporarily, but then you gained the weight back, and some plans MIGHT have worked, but you never really tried them. I believe the most important part of any weight loss plan is YOUR COMMITMENT to do something about it.
When you read my 7 tips below, I want you to realize that I used these in isolation (in other words I didn’t use any other diet plan or specific workout plan in conjunction with it). If you have already started a different weight loss plan – I encourage you to stick with that – BUT if you also use these seven recommendations – it will accelerate your weight loss! Doing these 7 things helped me lose 35 pound in a year and a half. AND an additional year later, I have KEPT ALL THE WEIGHT OFF (and even lost a couple more pounds)!
Here is the list!
- Become more active in microbursts. We all know in theory that if we eat less and exercise more, we should be able to lose weight. But actually doing that is really difficult! Don’t sacrifice any of the current physical activity you are doing. Just add little bursts (5 minutes or less) throughout your day). Examples: Do 10 pushups. Do 25 stomach crunches. Take a 2-minute walk. Lift weights for 30 seconds. The point is to do something! And do it several times a day. Exercising won’t just burn calories. It will tone your muscles. It will increase your metabolism. Which will help you burn more calories throughout the day.
- Don’t eat any high carb snacks. Notice I didn’t say don’t eat any high carb foods. If you want to go on a low carb diet, that is up to you. When I lost 35 pounds I didn’t cut out any specific foods. I simply changed when I could eat them. If you are the kind of person that can go without snacks, great! Skip them all together. Most of us get hungry mid-morning or mid-afternoon. I exchanged my high carb snacks for high protein snacks like roasted almonds, peanut butter, or peanuts. I didn’t need to eat many almonds or peanuts to curb my hunger My temptation had always been to go for a high carb snack if it was available (candy, chocolate chips, granola bar). Don’t do it! These high carb snacks won’t really satisfy your hunger, and you’ll probably eat way too much of them. If you want dessert, eat it right after a meal when your stomach is mostly full. You can enjoy your dessert, but you will be much less likely to eat too much.
- Keep a daily record of what exercises you are doing. You don’t need to purchase anything fancy. I used a Google Sheets spreadsheet file to keep track of my weight and basic exercises. Don’t make this overcomplicated. Focus on a few exercises that you know you will likely do on multiple days in a week. Keep a daily record of your weight, but focus on the AVERAGE for the month, and then compare averages from month to month. If you are looking to lose weight super-fast, then this is not the plan for you. But if you want to take the weight off and keep the weight off, this is a must. Seeing your weight go down over time is a HUGE encouragement. You will have ups and downs from day to day, but if you’re sticking to your plan, you should see results from day to day.
- Brush your teeth by 7 pm, and don’t eat anything after that! Now it doesn’t have to be exactly 7 pm, but you need to set a time that gives you a gap between brushing teeth and going to bed. For me 7 pm was the best time, because I routinely eat supper at 6 pm and go to bed by 9:30 pm (I know that is really early for some of you, but I do get up really early as well). The point is set a time that you are not going to eat anything after, and that should be at least 2 hours before you go to bed.
- Speaking of bed, get as close to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep as possible. Frankly, this one was the hardest for me. Even going to bed early, I have trouble sleeping an entire 8 hours in a row. I usually have to get up to go to the bathroom at least twice per night, and it can be difficult to go back to sleep. The point is this, you’re never going to get 8 hours of sleep if you don’t at least block out 8 hours to spend in bed. You may not sleep that whole time, but get in the discipline of doing it. Don’t watch TV in bed. Minimize phone use right before bed. Try to make sure your room is dark and cool. All of those things will help you sleep. The thing is, not getting enough sleep can make you hungrier during the day. If you get up in the middle of the night, you are more likely to break the “no snacking between 7 pm and breakfast” rule.
- Figure out which you have more willpower to do: Exercise More OR Eat Less. Once you figure out what is easier for YOU, focus on that! For me, I knew that I would have trouble cutting down on my eating, so I used some of the above tips to control what I ate, but I focused more on exercising . As a rule, you will usually be more successful in focusing on doing something positive rather than not doing something negative. So for you, if exercise is hard and not your favorite thing – focus on the eating the foods you should eat – and not just not eating the foods that you shouldn’t! Over time I found that even thought I wasn’t focusing on NOT eating certain things, I was naturally eating less as I had gotten out of the habit of eating high carb snacks right before bed.
- Don’t automatically exclude any other diet or exercise program. In reality I lost 35 pounds using primarily the above 6 principles. But if there is another weight loss program that you are wanting to try, go for it! Just make sure it doesn’t conflict with the above 6 principles.
Remember, the above plan is not going to make you lose 10 pounds in 10 days! Results will almost surely be slower (and as a result, healthier). Some people will lose weight much more quickly than others. Life isn’t always fair…
But if you can figure out your purpose for losing weight (your why) and your tendencies (your who), it will help you stick to your plan for losing weight and the activities that go with it (your what and your how).