To lose weight and keep it off, you have to change your whole life.
Change is never easy. But if you can make a start and go slow and be thorough, you will get healthier and feel better.
Here’s how:
Eat a high fiber, high calcium breakfast
While lots of folks are virulently anti-dairy these days, the fact is that some of the longest-living people on earth eat yogurt at every meal. Not the sugary kind with the fruit at the bottom and all kinds of preservatives and chemicals: the tart, organic kind with probiotic cultures. People who eat breakfast every day eat less overall, and they also charge up their metabolisms to burn more calories than people who don't eat breakfast. People who eat dairy lose more weight than people who don't.
Cut out processed foods six days a week
If I tell you "Don't think about elephants," then all you are going to think about is elephants. You can't help it. Similarly, if someone tells you, "No more oreos, ever. They're poison!" then eventually you are going to devour a whole bag of those puppies even though you don't really like them that much. Instead of forbidding some foods, limit them. Just knowing you can eat whatever you want once a week helps you not obsess. Weirdly, once you begin to cut out processed foods and eat more healthily, junk food loses its appeal.
Eat five servings of fresh fruit and fresh veggies each day, more if you can
One study showed that people who did nothing but add fresh fruits and veggies to their diets lost weight when compared with a control group of people who made no changes. The reason for this is that fresh fruits and veggies are filling, low in calories, and high in nutrients. One theory about cravings ties them to nutritional shortages. Eating your fruits and veggies can actually tame that sugar monkey you're carrying around.
Divide up your plate
As a rule of thumb, half of your plate should be veggies, one quarter of it protein, and the other quarter whole grain starch. This isn't to say you can't have a plate of spaghetti and nothing else, it's just a guide for the proportions you should keep in mind. Eat until you're full, then stop. Easy to say, hard to do.
Take a daily walk
Experts recommend 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least five times a week as the absolute minimum required for good health. You can break that up though. So park a few blocks from your job and walk 10 minutes twice a day, and ten minutes at lunch, and you've done your 30 minutes. Even better, get up early and walk before you shower (or run if you are already fit). Walking early in the morning adds meditative benefits and revs up your metabolism.
Go to bed earlier
Most Americans are sleep-deprived and brag about it, but when you consistently get less than eight hours of sleep per night your body releases cortisol, a hormone that causes fat to accumulate around your middle. This is a hardwired response to stress, something your body learned a million years ago when people who weren't sleeping were usually people who weren't eating either or were in danger. Cortisol is part of the "fight or flight" response, and you can't stop it through willpower.
Meditate
Even five minutes twice a day will show benefits. Most Americans are incredibly unaware of what they are doing and where they are doing it. If you are rushing around all the time, your mind always on your next task, you're triggering that cortisol thingie again and that will chub you up fast. Slow down. It's not a race unless you make it one.
Take emotional eating seriously
Most people overeat as a reward or because it helps them 'stuff' uncomfortable feelings. We all know this intuitively. The image of the woman in her PJs watching reruns of "Sex and the City" while eating ice cream right out of the container because of a bad breakup or a bad day is a recognizable cultural stereotype. While you can't insulate yourself from emotional pain, you can pay attention to what happens right before you reach for the chocolate chip cookies. Is it boredom? Anger? Frustration? Sadness? Understanding what is happening inside you is hard because it means facing your real issues instead of burying them with food. Most Americans are perfectly miserable in their work, that's a big one. Many have no time for themselves. That's another. The catch here is that once you recognize your issue you have to make changes. Get a less stressful job. Take time for you. Dump the crappy boyfriend. Tell your mother to butt out. Whatever it is, you have to change it and take care of you.
Learn to appreciate whole foods
Whole foods are foods that are as close to their natural state as possible. A raw tomato is a whole food. A can of Campbell's tomato soup is not a whole food, and as innocuous as it may seem, that can of soup is full of salt, sugar, and preservatives that are not only bad for you, they will make you crave more salt, sugar, and preservatives. Whole foods are delicious and there are a gazillion of them, but you have to actually eat them, not just pay homage to them.
Buy local
One of the easiest ways to lose weight without dieting is to stay out of the supermarket. If you buy most of your food from local growers and (if you are a meat eater) from grass fed local livestock suppliers, you will feel better, save a little money, and meet lots of interesting people. Plus, you will find you are eating mostly fresh, whole food, which is lower in calories and higher in nutrients.
Love the body you have
Americans are obsessed with body image, and ironically, most of us are overweight. Millions of people are waiting (sic: 'weighting') to do all kinds of things "when I lose some weight." No! Do it now! I mean, what if you never lose any weight? You're going to put your life on hold for that? It's very hard, especially for women, to look at an imperfect body and say "This body is beautiful and it's perfect for me," especially when everyone around you is making fat jokes, but you have to do it. Self-hatred is not a good motivation for weight loss. In fact, self-hatred will sabotage your weight loss time and time again. Love yourself and live your life and your weight will sort itself out, or not. Either way, if you respect your own body, so will other people.
