12 Lifestyle Changes You Need to Make To Lose Weight – And Keep It Off!
You already know that losing weight isn’t easy, and depending on your current weight, it can take several months of hard work to achieve decent results. However, with some simple lifestyle changes, shedding unwanted fat doesn’t have to be extremely difficult.
Most women want a slimmer figure, but they don’t know how to lose weight effectively, and after cycling through several different diets, they give up and continue poor eating patterns.
Below, you’ll find 10 simple lifestyle changes, and by implementing these changes immediately, you can breathe new life into your dream of sustained weight loss and enjoy the benefits that come with it.
Eat More Food During the Daytime
According to a recent study, adolescent girls who had a higher BMI ate fewer meals throughout the day, and the study found that girls who ate more meals were more likely to have a lower BMI.
The amount of food that you eat plays the biggest role in how much weight you lose, but the time of the day that you eat the food is also important. Studies show that women who eat more food towards the nighttime are more likely to be overweight.
One of the greatest tips to start losing weight is to eat more food in the morning and consume small amounts of food for lunch and dinner.
Exercise Frequently
When it comes to losing weight, exercise is recommended more than anything else, and it’s important to understand why it works. Women are more likely to exercise if they understand the benefits that it has on the body, and the major effect is boosting your metabolism.
The truth is that calorie restriction is the most important factor for losing weight, but the importance of exercise is almost as high as restricting your calories.
The problem that a lot of women have is a slow metabolism, and to fix this problem and begin correcting your metabolism, you should start exercising daily. According to studies in the American Journal of Physiology, regular exercise can help boost your metabolism, and the recommended amount of daily exercise is 30 minutes.
In fact, 30 minutes of exercise can deliver the same metabolism boost as 60 minutes. By adding exercise to your daily lifestyle, you’ll increase your metabolism and be more likely to make healthier food choices.
Practice Eating Mindfully
Some women rush through huge meals, and they still feel hungry when they’re finished. It’s better to take your time and savor every bite. The benefit of eating slowly is that it allows you to become more aware of your body’s internal signals, which can help you to better control portions.
When dieting, there is a good chance that you’ll succumb to powerful cravings, and by eating mindfully, you’re much more likely to eat a smaller amount when you fall victim to a craving.
To do this successfully, you should eat slowly and focus on the texture and flavor in every bite. Studies show that eating this way allows you to get more enjoyment out of your food, and you’ll need less food for the same level of satisfaction that you’d get from eating more.
In one study, two groups of women were monitored for a period of time, and one group practiced mindful eating while the other did not. Once the study was finished, the group that practiced mindfulness lost way more weight than the other group.
Observe and Change Your Habits
The reality is that it’s hard to lose weight, and since we’re all human, we all occasionally succumb to cravings for food. However, bad habits can have a profound impact on the way our brains interpret feelings of fullness and hunger.
Studies show that repeating poor eating habits creates neural patterns within your brain that help you to continue the bad habits. There is even the possibility that the way you’re eating is causing damage to your brain tissue. According to research from the Obesity Society, the amount of white matter in the brain is reduced in adults who’re significantly overweight.
Several other studies show that obesity can cause damage to brain tissues and increase your risk for diseases that cause damage to the brain. Fortunately, with some simple changes to your daily habits, you can rewire your brain and change the way it perceives food.
The process is called neuroplasticity, and during this process, your brain physically changes after you encounter a new experience. By changing your eating habits, you can rewire your brain to reinforce good behaviors, and you can kick bad habits to the curb.
The neural network in your brain is packed with receptors and neurons, and once you get addicted to food or engage in emotional eating, your brain links uncomfortable emotions to eating, which makes you more likely to eat when you’re sad.
As you change your eating habits, your brain will begin to rewire itself, and you’ll be able to make healthier choices. Your brain will even rewire itself for exercise and sleep, which are important for losing weight.
Planning Ahead
One of the biggest mistakes that women make when trying to lose weight is not planning ahead. Some of the worst diet failures are caused by not planning for unexpected situations. For example, you should always look at menus before you head out to a restaurant.
By taking some time to plan ahead, it will be much easier to make decisions that support your goals for weight loss, and you’ll enjoy less pressure to order poor food choices.
Social gatherings are notorious for peer pressure, and if you’re around other people who aren’t trying to lose weight, you have to expect that they’ll try to derail your progress.
With some simple planning, you can decide exactly what you’re going to eat at the restaurant and avoid the peer pressure from friends or family.
Planning ahead can even prevent you from going on a drinking binge and succumbing to the temptations of poor food choices. The real world is full of surprises, and when you’re trying to lose weight, you must always be ready for whatever life has to throw at you.
Don’t Eat to Soothe Your Emotions
It’s easy to eat when you’re feeling sad because it only requires a short walk to the freezer. When you’re under a lot of stress, you’re much more likely to overeat, and it doesn’t take long for emotional eating to quickly wipe away any progress that you’ve made with your diet.
Once you start emotional eating, you become more stressed because you’re not sticking to your diet, and it creates a vicious cycle of endless stress eating. If you engage in this activity enough, your brain will rewire itself to make you seek poor food choices when you’re stressed out.
Studies show that stress actually makes food more enticing than normal, and it even affects where your fat is stored. When your body has excess fat in your abdominal region, it increases your risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. One of the best ways to avoid emotional eating is exercise, and it serves as a great coping mechanism for stress.
It’s quite common for women to start emotional eating after losing a loved one or splitting up with a long-term partner, and by learning how to cope with these issues without resorting to emotional eating, you’ll be in a much better position to stick with your diet and weight loss goals.
Eat with More Structure
We all have busy lives, so it’s easy to grab something to eat from a nearby restaurant. A lot of women indulge in mindless munching and eat an endless number of snacks throughout the day. To lose weight, a simple lifestyle change that you can make is adding some structure to your eating.
The major benefit of structured meals is that you’ll feel hungry less often, and you’ll be much less likely to grab whatever food is near you. A structured meal plan reduces the risk of eating junk food, and by planning in advance, you can make sure you’re eating nothing but healthy food choices.
If you know you’re going to be traveling somewhere where it will be difficult to find healthy meals, then consider packing and bringing some healthy meals with you. You should also give flexible dieting a try. As the name implies, its a dieting method that helps you eat the foods you love while still staying in shape.
Give Yourself a Break
When we say give yourself a break, we’re not talking about a piece of that Kit Kat bar. Instead, don’t be so hard on yourself and try to look at the bigger picture. For the best results, you should stay focused on progress and not perfection.
It’s not uncommon for women to start dieting and believe they have enough willpower to stick to a strict diet every single day. The reality is that your willpower is finite, and you’ll have days when you slip up and don’t adhere to your diet.
By looking at the bigger picture and focusing on progress, you can forgive the minor mistakes and move on with your diet. If your goal is to lose a total of 60 pounds, and you’ve already lost 15, then you should focus on the accomplishment of losing 15 pounds and forget about the handful of days that involved some overeating.
One of the best ways for women to recognize progress is to try on some old clothes, and once you’ve lost some weight, it will be much easier to see and feel the progress you’ve made.
Record the Food You Eat
Dieting is very similar to managing your finances because you have to track everything. You can think of your daily calories like a direct deposit into your bank account.
Since you only have so many calories to spend in a given day, you need to know what you’re spending them on. An easy way to keep track of how much food you’re eating is to record it and keep records.
You’re much more less likely to make mistakes and succumb to food cravings when you’re tracking your food. A woman who tracks her eating patterns is better at correcting diet mistakes.
Food records give you a birds-eye view of your positive and negative eating patterns, and they can help you avoid unnecessary snacking throughout the day. Unfortunately, you can’t change bad habits that you don’t know exist, which is why it’s important to record what you eat.
Practice Positive Thinking
Many women make the mistake of thinking negatively while dieting, and this way of thinking can have disastrous effects on your weight loss goals. Dieting requires caloric restriction, and it might force you to avoid some of your favorite foods.
To practice positive thinking, you should spend time thinking about the types of food that aren’t off limits and make sure that you thoroughly enjoy these foods. It’s quite common for people to think that a diet requires you to eat full, boring food, which some people compare to eating cardboard.
The reality is that many healthy food choices taste amazing, and even if you frequently eat at restaurants, you should have no trouble finding plenty of healthy food options.
The problem that a lot of women make is spending too much time focusing on the negative and not spending enough time thinking positively about the wide range of healthy food choices they can eat.
Control Your Portions
An easy lifestyle change that you can implement immediately involves paying attention to portion. One of the major dieting mistakes that women make is eating portions that are too large.
The beauty of dieting is that it only requires you to restrict your calories, but technically, you can still eat almost anything you want. The catch is that you must pay attention to the portions and make sure you’re eating the correct amounts. For example, you can still enjoy your favorite cheesecake, but you’ll need to dramatically reduce the portion size to make it fit into your daily caloric intake.
Nutritionists recommend watching what you eat because it’s one of the easiest ways to make sure you’re not consuming too much food during any given meal. The concept is simple, and portion control consists of tracking your food intake and eating less.
Once you start effectively controlling your portions, you can eliminate hundreds of unnecessary calories per day, and you’ll find it much easier to lose weight. The major benefit of portion control is that you don’t have to deprive yourself of your favorite foods, but you will need to eat smaller amounts of them.
When starting a strict diet plan, some women are told to eliminate entire food groups, and although it’s an effective strategy for weight loss, it’s not the best option for everyone. In fact, some women do much better when they practice portion control and continue eating the foods they love.
Eat Fruits Instead of Drinking Them
Another easy lifestyle change that can be implemented immediately involves eating fruits and making the decision not to drink them. Today, every grocery store is packed with an unlimited supply of juice, and it’s not hard to find your favorite fruits in the form of juice.
There is nothing wrong with drinking juice, but when you eat whole fruit, you get significantly more fiber, and your hunger cravings will stay satisfied for a longer period of time.
Studies show that liquid is nearly as filling as whole fruit, and when you chew food, your mouth begins making more saliva, which signals your stomach to get ready for the digestion process.
Since juice doesn’t require the same internal process, you’re less likely to feel full after drinking juice. By avoiding juice, you can consume 48 percent fewer calories than you’d consume if you chose juice over whole fruit.
Bonus Tips
Supplement Wisely
Multivitamins
Weight loss should not be your only goal, you also want to ensure that your overall health is where it should be. This means getting the proper amount of nutrients and vitamins each day. Sometimes this can be a bit difficult, which is why I personally love to take a multivitamin each day, just to make sure I’m where I need to be.
Multivitamins are great because they pack a who lot of goodness into a small capsule that you usually need to take only once per day. However, make sure you get one that fits all your needs.
Pre-Workouts
A pre-workout supplement is not really necessary, but it’s a great way to get an energy boost on those days where you just don’t feel like working out. However, you have to be careful and follow the instructions on the label. Some of these products can pack a real punch and keep you up all night if you take them too close to bedtime. If they contain beta-alanine, you’ll also notice a tingling sensation.
Like I said, they aren’t really needed but if you take them properly (and i’d recommend speaking with your doctor beforehand as well), then they’re a good way to get a little boost on those gloomy days where you might want to skip your exercise.
Fat Burners
Another great way to increase your odds of losing a significant amount of weight is to add a fat burner to your diet. With help from this type of product, you can avoid hunger cravings and enjoy a noticeable boost to your metabolism.
Many fat burners are very effective at suppressing your appetite, and they can give you additional energy for daily exercise. However, it’s important to remember that these products aren’t magic pills, and you’ll still need to put in the work and stay dedicated to your diet.
Many women have the dedication needed to make lifestyle changes and lose weight, but they need a little boost to follow through with dieting and exercise.
A high-quality fat burner can boost your metabolism and increase your motivation, but it’s important to make sure that you purchase a safe product. Several fat burners on the market can give you dramatic results, but they’re formulated with a combination of unsafe chemicals.
You should avoid these products and try to buy from well-known companies. With these simple, effective lifestyle changes, you can start losing weight and get close to achieving the body you’ve always dreamed of having.
As with pre-workouts, a fat burner is not really necessary, but it can give you a boost if used properly.
For some buying advice, check out my list of the best fat burners for women here.
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https://examine.com/nutrition/not-so-safe-supplements/
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/why-stress-causes-people-to-overeat
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664987/
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2012/01/04/ajcn.111.016881
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404611002648
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