Weight Loss: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Weight loss is an ongoing process that’s less about chasing fad diets and more about changing your lifestyle. The goal isn’t to simply lose water weight for a few weeks and then pack it back on because you’re not able to stay with your diet. The goal is to change the way you eat, what you eat, and your activity level so that you naturally stay healthy.

As long as you’re keeping track of your calories and staying at a deficit you will lose weight.

Fad diets have been debunked to be nothing more than hype and misinformation. In many cases they’re actually harmful to your body because they promise immense weight loss at a very rapid rate, which isn’t recommended by most experts.

Besides counting calories there are smart ways to accelerate your weight loss, including:

·  Eating healthier foods

·  Increasing your daily activity

·  Finding a support network

·  Having a true reason to lose it

Let’s expand on those bullet points, shall we?

Food

Weight loss is all about the food because a calorie is a calorie. You can use a calorie calculator to figure out how much your body needs each day to fully function. Once you have that number simply subtract 500 calories and you’ll be on your way to weight loss.

Now, when it does come to food and weight loss you’ll want to find recipes that you actually enjoy. Sure, you can lose a ton of weight by only eating chicken but you’ll get bored and cave to the cravings for everything else. Cutting out the junk may be difficult but it’s doable especially if you replace those foods with ones that provide you with the biggest nutritional value. Eat hearty, rich foods that keep you full, provide all the essential nutrients, and give you energy, and you won’t care about grabbing a snack later on which could throw off your calorie deficit.

Activity

You don’t actually need to exercise to lose weight. That’s right. If you’re keeping a calorie deficit you’ll naturally lose weight because of your daily energy expenditure (doing chores, walking around, etc). However, being active does speed up the process because you’ll burn off calories. Additionally, it’s vital that you’re also working on your heart health in the process – cardio is your friend.

Many of us are at an office job so we’re very sedentary. All that’s needed is to get up every once in a while and do a few exercises such as squats, jogging in place, or basic yoga. You don’t need to commit to an entire afternoon at the gym to increase your activity. Ten minutes of cardio is often all you need to get your heart back into great condition and add to the weight loss deficit.

Support

At the end of the day you’re doing this for yourself and it’s going to take a lot of will power to change your lifestyle, but that doesn’t mean you need to go at it alone. A support network of friends, family, and strangers can keep you motivated and provide resources you need to overcome the plateaus and mental blocks you’ll experience along the way. You could even talk to a weight loss specialist at somewhere like this wellness center here to come up with a diet plan that will help you achieve your objectives.

A fantastic resource for motivation can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/progresspics, where users share their progress. Here you can read how they have met their goals, join the discussion, and find support if you, too, decide to share your progress. Outside of this site a public (or private) post to a page or your feed on Facebook can often give you that motivational boost to keep going.

Reason

Many that start their journey into weight loss do so on a whim, such as when they no longer fit into their pants. Sometimes the journey starts because of a New Year’s resolution or external conflict such as bullying. We take action on this emotional decision, throw out all the junk, research a diet, and set a schedule for an exercise routine. A month into the lifestyle change and you start to skip the routine; you’re falling back into bad habits.

What you need is a real reason to lose the weight – not just because it popped into your mind. The reason should be for health, first and foremost, but also have some emotional tie such as being active so you can do fun things with your child, staying healthy so you can travel, or simply taking on a new challenge that will change your lifestyle. With a strong reasoning behind your weight loss you won’t have trouble with falling back into old routines.