Losing weight in 2017. My feed is filled with people wanting to lose weight, people flaunting (in a good way) their weight loss and there’s a lot of philosophizing going on as well. Everyone seems to be an expert. Do this, don’t do that….. I’m going to venture that most of us are seriously overthinking the whole weight loss “thing”. It makes sense, really. It’s much easier to talk about losing weight than to actually try and do it.
I think the reason is that we fall into an “all or nothing” cycle. Either we are eating perfectly and exercising every minute of every day or we are sitting on the couch, stuffing our faces with ice cream. There has to be a middle ground to all of this.
What if we stop stressing about the big picture? What if we get out of our heads and just focus on the small changes we can do every day? Do something, do anything. But the key is, do it.
Last week I gave you a 20 Minute Workout that you can do, so today let’s go over the diet.
LOSING WEIGHT IN 2017
METABOLISM
Let’s start by talking about our metabolism, what it is and how it really works (hint, you can’t really speed it up by eating spicy foods).
What is it? To put it simply, your metabolism is process by which your body absorbs the energy, or calories, that it needs to survive on a daily basis. All of this happens as a series of chemical reactions in your cells. The good news is that, even though you may have inherited a slow metabolism from one or both of your parents, it doesn’t mean that you are stuck with it. About 70% of what you eat goes to your basic life functions, 20% is the fuel you burn through physical activity and the remaining 10% is for your digestion. Taking this into consideration, you aren’t destined to follow in anyone’s footsteps. You seize control of your own destiny.
Speeding up your metabolism can be done in a few fairly simple steps:
- Eat
- Move
- Sleep
Read the full piece: HOW TO BOOST YOUR METABOLISM
LOSING WEIGHT
So you’ve decided to get healthy, but the numbers on the scale aren’t budging and that can be very discouraging. Let’s take a look at speeding up the process. There are a number of small tweaks you can do to your everyday diet, tweaks that you’ll barely notice, but overtime will play a big factor in your waistline.
- De-stress
- Drink Water
- Lose The Sugar
- Eat Full Fat
- Toss The Scale
- Make Small Changes
The key to start you on your weight loss journey is to progress slowly, make the changes that you know you can keep first, take it one day at a time and don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad hour or two. It’s about changing your mindset. You are in control of what you eat and how much you move. Every day starts fresh so it doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. Focus on today.
Read the full article: HOW TO SPEED UP WEIGHT LOSS
DON’T DEPRIVE YOURSELF
Losing weight and staying at an ideal weight isn’t about just eating salads and drinking water. You have a life and you want to (and should) enjoy it.
- Make It Worth Your While
- Keep The Portions Small
- Make It Beautiful
- Plan Ahead
If you are always restricting yourself and only eating the foods that you “should” be eating then you’ll stray before you know it. Depriving yourself of all the foods you want is a diet killer. Now, let’s be reasonable. I’m certainly not saying that all you should do is over-indulge in everything you are craving at that exact moment, but having one slice of cheesy pizza, for example, with a plate full of vegetables is not so bad. Just don’t have three slices.. Then add an extra 10 minutes to your workouts that week. This also applies to eating carbs. It’s way too often that I hear people saying that they are swearing off carbs. Why? Remember, not all carbs are created equal.
Read the full article: CAN I LOSE WEIGHT AND STILL EAT SWEETS
SCALE NOT BUDGING?
Weight loss, most certainly, isn’t all about the numbers. I’m even going to argue that sometimes it’s best to put the scale away altogether if it’s stressing you out, but numbers can be a good guide to see how you are progressing. Here’s your reality check:
- You Don’t Eat Enough
- You Don’t Drink Enough Water
- You Skip Meals
- You Eat Too Much
- You Keep Doing The Same Workout
- You Aren’t Being Honest About Your Efforts
- You Don’t Sleep Enough
- You Are Wearing The Wrong Clothes
Set small goals and celebrate every time you reach one. Adding a few minutes of exercise to your day and tweaking your food intake just a little bit at each meal is very doable. Most importantly, don’t make it an all or nothing thing and don’t let something like a diet consume your life. Give yourself permission to go out and have fun!
Read the full article: WHY YOU ARE NOT LOSING WEIGHT
My challenge to you is to let it go. Don’t try tricking yourself, don’t try bargaining, don’t tell anyone what you are doing. Just quietly go about your day, making small changes wherever you can and in a month, see how far you’ve come. I invite you to get back to me and let me know how you are doing.
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