3 Easy Steps to Start Losing Weight
Did you make weight loss your New Year’s resolution? Or do you still have weight you would like to lose “at some point?”
If that’s you, my goal for you is to make this the VERY LAST TIME you ever make this commitment to yourself. I want you to lose weight, once, for the very last time!
I am going to give you 3 easy steps that you can start today to move towards that goal.
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Stop dieting. When you diet, you are following an arbitrary set of rules instead of listening to your own body. Instead of eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full, you’re eating when you have calories and stopping when you’re out. Not only do diets encourage black and white thinking about your eating (which is a recipe for failure), every person will respond to food differently! You need to have a plan that is customized for your tastes, lifestyle, and results.
2. Eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full. It’s truly this simple…and it’s the only true rule you need to follow! When you do this, you are listening to your internal cues. Now your brain will tell you to eat when you are not physically hungry, so don’t mistake the two! You need to pay attention and be onto the sneaky things your brain will tell you to do even when your stomach knows better.
It’s also worth mentioning that this is MUCH easier to do if you are eating whole foods. The more packaged or processed the food is, the less it turns on the signaling in our body to tell us we’re full. So if you want a cookie, skip the oreo and make them homemade. And to be clear, homemade isn’t scooping them out of the tube and baking them! Homemade is literally making them with butter, sugar, flour, etc.
3. Think about every diet you’ve ever done and write down anything you liked, that worked, or was easy for you to do. Even if the overall diet failed, there was probably something you learned that worked for you - especially if you were able to lose any weight on it!
Pick one of those things and start implementing it. When it’s easy - and I mean on a scale of 1-10 I want you to be at least an 8 - make it harder. To do that, add another thing that worked OR make the habit more difficult. For example, if you are drinking enough water that your urine is pale yellow (and that’s easy), add another/different healthy habit you’d like to try. Or, if you are adding a serving of vegetables to your day, when that becomes EASY, make it more difficult by adding another serving.
DO NOT TRY TO IMPLEMENT ALL THE THINGS FROM ALL THE PLANS AT ONCE!!
Remember, the goal for weight loss this year is to lose the weight once and for all...so do it slowly with intention. The whole time you should be asking yourself: “Is something I can do forever?” Meaning, unless you never want to eat bread again, I suggest you build a plan where bread has a place in your eating. It doesn’t mean you can’t cut back, just don’t cut it out.
And if a non-dieting approach to weight loss appeals to you, schedule a consult! I work 1:1 with clients to help them look and feel better about themselves!