People often start their weight loss journey with a dream to look fit and maintain a healthy weight; however, most of the time they are unable to achieve that goal, which is fairly understandable. With people advocating various weight loss therapies, giving out contradictory statements and vowing to get you results out of the blue, it is only natural to get annoyed, but, the actual achievement lies within consistency towards healthy habits and being patient. If you were looking for some guidance on weight management techniques that are safe and effective, you have landed on the right spot. In this write up, we will deal with prominent measures that would help an individual manage to stay within an ideal weight range over a sustained period of time.
Shift your Mindset on Weight Loss and Build a New Strategy
The first step of this journey would be to know one thing and one thing only, Loose Weight Responsibly! For that you need to comprehend that it’s not merely your diet plan or gym, there is a lot more that needs to be taken into account such as – the change in your work life schedule and most importantly your personal life and all the stress that comes with it. To be fit, everything about your life needs to be balanced; your mental health, your sleep, your nutrition, and building a strong and enhanced physical activity routine. Ambrose et al (2019) argue that if all of these areas become aligned, you are able to put into place a strategy which will guide not only your quest to lose weight but improve your health as a whole.
Start small with positive changes that can seamlessly integrate with your day to day life. Start replacing bad habits with good ones, as long as they are suitable enough for your busy work life. This way, it is easy to be faithful and does not create a sensation of missing the food which occurs frequently when diets are too strict.
Turn you attention to a Nutrient-Rich Food plan preferably without worrying about what the latest diet trend is.
A reasonable portion of people looking to lose weight tend to make a major mistake and that is, following the diet of the month. These trends interest people because they are ‘weight loss miracles’. In reality they never work and cause more harm than good. Mostly, these starving diets take off weight only to add it right back on once discontinued.
Instead of relying on quick fixes works on building the core of your diet with high level nutrition dense food. The whole grain, legumes, vegetables, healthy oils and butter. All these food ingredients have the qualities of satisfying hunger for long periods while at the same time providing the nutritious needs to your body. Such practices in turn help maintain healthy weight too.
You may not think so, but portion control is more essential than you think. Portion control is regarded as an existential enigma when discussing weight management. Yes, you heard it. Even diet conscious foods are able to cause excessive weight gain if you indulge in them. As we learn paper after paper, portion size is linked to one crucial aspect; mindfulness. Mindful portion size eating is important. It includes being attentive to body cues of hunger, eating slowly, and feeling satisfaction without going to the extend of fullness to reduce risk of over eating.
To ease portion control, it’s good to start using smaller eating plates or smaller serving bowls because they can enhance how large a serving looks; thereby making a person comfortably satisfied with less food. You may decide to measure your food or track your meals in order to understand your eating habits and make healthy choices. For continuous weight management, you must understand your body signals.
Moving forward, regular exercise is deemed necessary and a pivotal point of weight management. Regular physical activity contributes to achieving weight goals or maintaining one’s weight. Working out more burns calories, aids a healthy metabolism and even makes one lose more body fat, hence more calories can be burned while at rest. In addition to that, exercising improves one’s mood, boosts energy levels and improves sleep, all of which promote greater health.
Incorporate both aerobic and strength training activities into your schedule. Aerobic activities such as walking, running, cycling or swimming are effective at burning calories and enhancing cardiovascular health. Activities such as weight lifting and body conditioning work on muscles and improve metabolism. The best option for lean muscle gain and speedy metabolism includes such combined workout routines targeting all parts of the body.
Ensure you have ample hours’ sleep that will help you advance towards your goals with respect to weight management.
Out of everything, sleep is usually taken for granted the most, yet holds significant relevance in the process of managing weight. In the context of these weighing hormones such as ghrelin, leptin, etc, their balance gets thrown off because there is a shortage of sleep. So, during those days where one is not getting enough sleep, there is too much ghrelin production and not enough leptin and that messes up everything. This brings one to the next likely situation of making bad food choices and overeating, thus causing weight gain.
It is recommended that an individual goes to bed with the aim of sleeping for about 7-9 hours a night as this would enable the body go into repair mode, and also balance hunger hormones in the process. In addition, sleep betters metabolism, increases energy, and enhances mood which are essential in weight loss. If falling asleep is not an easy task for you there are a few things you could try – engaging in relaxing practices before sleep, turning off screens, and going into a dark quiet room.
Efficiently Deal With Stress
A great suffering and obstacle that people irrespective of gender face is obesity. On another note though a similar solution to a great degree of an obstacle can also help in being fit. To combat the reasons above it is essential to Understand the reasons first, when people are under stress their bodies produce a hormone by the name of cortisol, its main function is to encourage the body to store fat especially around the core region. Second, because of stress there is a feeling which many people describe as the urge to eat things to help them cope emotionally so they indulge in unhealthy activities.
Make sure that you have included relaxation exercises such as meditation, yoga, breathing exercises as well as journaling into your daily schedule, They all assist in regulating your stress. Another activity that can help you with dealing with your stress levels is indeed exercising as it also helps in the release of endorphins which help in improving one’s mood. Therefore having effective and healthy strategies in dealing with stress is a great step in order to not compromise one’s weight management goal.
Consume Enough Water and Stay Away From Sugary Drinks
Considered to be one of the major factors that affects the human body and the stage of being overweight to an extent is dehydration. Not consuming enough water during the course of a day can instigate more havoc in your body which overtime leads to an increased amount of core body fat due to eating too much and poor metabolism so make sure that you do not allow your body to reach that level. There are times where people reach for sweet snacks and food due to not drinking water thinking they are sufficed themselves only to realize they haven’t.
Try to aim for a minimum of eight glasses of water per day, but if you exercise, try to drink as much water as you can. If you don’t enjoy drinking water, you can try adding fruits or herbs to your water to make it tastier. Drinks that are high in calories and sugar, such as sodas, juices, or sweetened coffee, have to be kept to a minimum owing to their adverse effects on weight control.
Establish Goals and Review Them periodically
Measuring your progress is crucial while trying to achieve weight loss that is long lasting. You can log in your food intake or any exercises that you do in either a notebook or an app. This increases accountability and highlights potential sections where improvement is needed. This also helps you track and analyse your eating and exercise habits to see what factors enabled the success and which factors need improvement.
However, if you feel or see that the progress isn’t quite making the cut, do not hesitate to expound on it. Perhaps you need to cut down on the number of calories you consume per day, vary your training schedule or even get more hours of sleep. Always remember that the process of weight loss is an ever changing procedure and by being adaptable, you can remain true to your goal even when a few things do not go according to plan.
Seek Backing and Supervision
The most important component of weight management if you may ask is support and supervision. Be it a family, a friend, a gym partner or a weight loss program, sharing your struggles with someone can be a motivating factor. During such difficult periods, support systems help to boost moral and even when you attain the goals, they help to acknowledge the effort put in.
If you think you need more structured assistance, then perhaps you could approach a nutritionist or a personal trainer. Such professionals can help you in seeking accountability, give you advice that suits your needs and even develop a strategy that fits your requirements.
Ending Remarks
To attain a healthy weight and sustain the ideal weight into the future isn’t as simple as it may sound, it is a process. It can be achieved only if there is a shift in priorities, be it a healthy diet, regular exercise, ample sleep time, good hydration levels and average stress levels. When it comes to weight management, it is important to understand from the get go that there is no short cut, time frame or target that should be set. Constant and effortless work accompanied with adaptation enables such results. Combine these expert tips with your daily routine and you will be on the right path of accomplishing your weight and health management objective.
