simple tips for natural weight loss. Not easy.
At my highest weight, I weighed 245 pounds. I was 14-years-old. I lost down to 170 by senior year.
Then
I regained a lot of weight during my first few years of college and
went back up to 235-lbs just 10 pounds shy of my heaviest.
These are the steps I took to get into “onederland” at around 198 until I lost even more weight down to 170.
They’re simple steps, but might not be as easy to work them at first.
how to lose weight when you weigh 200 lbs or more
But before I get into the steps, I’ve got to share what I learned about weight gain you might find helpful.
What causes weight gain and why do we get fat
I’ve
tried plenty of times to lose weight, but in retrospect I didn’t really
lose the weight until I learned why we get fat to begin with.
I
read a book called “Why We Get Fat” by Gary Toubes. In that book, I
learned what causes weight gain and how fat storage actually worked.
Well
children, it’s not because we eat too much and don’t do enough
exercising. Those so aren’t the reasons and are actually symptoms of the
root causes of weight gain.
According
to Toubes’ years of journalistic investigation into the food industry
and the science that dictates government regulated nutrition advice, the
reason we get fat is because the foods are shit.
Ok,
he didn’t say it like that, but that’s basically how I summed it up.
lol The foods we’ve been led to believe are safe are actually making us
sick AND fat.
It is these foods that make us too “lazy” to workout and it is these foods that cause us to overeat them.
They
make us “lazy” because they don’t have sufficient nutrients and they
cause us to overeat them because they’re actually manufactured for
over-consumption and lack nutrients.
Even
when you line up the timeline of the increasing popularity of highly
processed foods with the timeline of the increasing percentage of obese
and diabetic people, they directly correlate.
As
companies started manufacturing more foods, and Americans started
depending more upon these manufactured foods, people started to get
sicker and fatter.
Check out his full lecture here where he details how these foods have damaged our health.
So why do these foods make us too “lazy” to workout and hungrier than we’re supposed to be?
They’re manufactured to be over consumed and aren’t really “life” giving foods.
Evolutionarily, humans are supposed to store fat.
Fat
is a good thing to store and it is why we’ve been able to survive for
hundreds of thousands of years without refrigerating our foods. It is
what our bodies (intelligently) do in case of starvation. And before
food was readily available, humans did in fact experience periods of
famine.
But
today, we don’t experience any famine. Our bodies are hit with cues to
feast and store all the time. Without the famine, we don’t learn to burn
what’s on us and we get fatter.
And did you know a person that is morbidly obese is actually experiencing starvation at the nutritional level?
Food that is stored is food that isn’t being utilized for nutrients.
Again,
check out Gary Toubes’ ‘Why We Get Fat’. That’s your homework if you
haven’t read/listened to it already. Check out the lecture on YouTube as
well.
Once I learned why we humans get
fat and which foods cause weight gain, it was pretty easy to figure out
which foods to run away from if I wanted to start seeing substantial
weight loss.
Those foods are highly processed, factory manufactured foods, sugars and flours included.
So now that we’ve went over why we gain weight and get fat, let’s jump into the first thing I did to really start losing weight.
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Start with a mindset shift
This is something I wish I did FIRST.
I
gained weight I lost because I didn’t change my mindset and fell back
into old habits and beliefs that attributed to my weight gain.
Although
highly processed, manufactured foods cause weight gain, it is still our
mindsets that are at the root of why we consume those foods and have
other unhealthy habits that attribute to weight gain and other health
issues.
Our mindsets (self-images)
dictate everything from how much we weigh to if we get pissed off when
we get cut off in traffic. It’s deep.
For example, let’s break down my mindset that attributed to me weighing 245-lbs.
I’ve
been raised on these foods like many other Americans. My parents
thought they were spoiling me with these foods. My little brother and I
were rewarded with fast food weekly and ate breakfast at a restaurant
every weekend.
I grew up with all the
latest snacks and when the kids wanted ice cream sandwiches or those
fancy ice cream cones, they knew to ask my parents and that we had it
all.
And when family celebrated, we ate
and ate A LOT. We came together to eat all types of tasty foods.
Terrible for our health, but super delicious.
Those unhealthy foods, to my mindset, are associated with reward, good times, celebration, and self-spoiling.
Although
I had the knowledge to do better, I was still carrying the mindset that
I could “spoil” and “treat” myself with foods that were damaging and I
later discovered were addictive to me.
Because
of this mindset, I was hindering, slowing, and in many cases reversing
my work every time a party happened, I went out with friends, or was
invited to travel.
Add all that up, and
I wasn’t eating healthy but a couple of weeks or so out of the month.
Which isn’t enough time to really see the weight loss results I wanted.
And I actually gained weight.
Our
mindsets are many times why we don’t stick to our diets and why we’re
not losing weight. We know what the do, but we don’t know why we’re not
doing it.
That’s our mindset.
Changing
your mindset to one that is more conducive to having a healthy weight
is how you begin to develop a pattern of thoughts, ideas, and beliefs
that will support weight loss and make healthy choices easier to make.
After you’ve taken care of your mindset, the next steps will be much easier to implement and stick to for lasting results.
Begin by eliminating highly processed foods
Now that I’ve laid the foundation, let’s get into the grit shall we?
Eliminate all highly processed foods from your diet. All. Of. Them.
For
my weight loss journey from 245 pounds, this was the simplest to
implement to start seeing some serious weight move. It wasn’t the
easiest, but definitely the simplest in getting results.
Some
would argue that you don’t have to remove these foods from your diet to
see weight loss. They’ll say just watch your calories, treat yourself
only occasionally and in moderation, and workout harder.
But
from experience, and from what I’ve been learning about the weight gain
highly processed foods cause, I know it’s actually best to eliminate
these foods completely.
Especially if you’re prone to binge eating behaviors, compulsive eating, emotional eating, and addictive behaviors around food.
These
foods are manufactured to be over consumed and addictive. Trying to
lose weight by simply eating them in moderation and watching your
calories is an uphill battle and introduces more struggle than it’s
worth.
I’ve seen people lose weight
doing that, but in knowing what these foods do and have done, I tell
people it’s better to remove them completely.
It
might take a mindset shift to not feel restricted and as if there’s
“nothing” you can eat now, but once you stop eating those foods you’ll
start to learn how to eat real foods.
When
I was forced to learn how to eat and cook real foods, I learned about
all types of bomb, super tasty healthy meal combinations I could use to
actually lose weight.
To begin eliminating highly processed foods, start with your house. (Duh right?)
Then
during your next grocery store trip, shop the parameter of the grocery
store and skip the aisles. That means getting groceries from the real
foods sections of the shop.
If it
wasn’t grown or raised, don’t buy it. Minus the flours and sugars. Those
were technically grown too, but the refinement process makes them yucky
for weight loss. Trust me.
I’ve
put together a FREE bundle that helps you transition to clean eating
and weight loss with a plan, cheatsheets, a resource guide, and
worksheets for planning your new habits and meals. Check it out.
Quit Drinking Your Calories
It is highly likely if you’ve removed all highly processed foods, you’ve also removed sugary sodas, juice and drinks.
But if not, do that!
Quit drinking anything that has more than 0 to 1 calories.
The
only exception to this rule is homemade smoothies and juices and maybe
healthy juices or smoothies you’ve purchased that you KNOW are natural,
whole, and without sugar.
Drinking your
calories is a super easy way to gain weight because you don’t get full
in the same way as if you were to eat those calories. You actually might
be consuming way more calories in liquid than you’re aware of because
it’s so easy to drink a lot.
I remember
one time I sat and had 8 full glasses of Coco Cola. That was likely
200+ calories a glass. On top of those 8 glasses, I had a full meal at
the restaurant and dessert.
Girl, I probably easily consumed close to 5,000 calories with hell of those calories coming from the coke.
I
just kept drinking and it was so easy for me to do that as it is
usually easy for anyone to drink lots of sugary soda or juices.
Mind
you we live in a society that makes big gulps and soda cups big enough
to double as garbage cans. We’ve definitely got a thing with drinking
lots of calories.
I definitely say give up the sugary drinks from where ever you get them.
Drink
water, sparkling water, sugarless, flavored sparkling water, teas, and
homemade (or natural, no sugar added) juices and smoothies instead.
That’ll remove plenty of extra calories and sugars from your diet.
Start eating 3 meals a day and practicing meal prep
You’ve
might have heard that eating 6 small meals a day will keep your
metabolism high and help you lose more weight. That 3 meals and 3 snacks
a day will keep you from experiencing starvation and holding on to
weight.
Yea,
I’ve heard that too and the struggle to stick to that was real. Not
only was I always feeling hungry, but carrying around 3 meals and 3
snacks was a hassle I later learned wasn’t necessary and was actually
counterproductive to weight loss.
Why
counterproductive? Because fat isn’t utilized when insulin is being
raised. Everytime you eat, your insulin is raised. So 6 times a day, I
was raising my insulin to where I couldn’t really burn body fat.
It
was also counterproductive because it never got me to a point to where I
didn’t feel hunger and cravings. I looked forward to each and every
meal and by the end of my 6th meal, I was hoping I had more to eat. That
was rough and a fight with will power.
Then
I learned the beauty and benefits of eating nutrient dense, whole, real
foods. Better yet, I experienced the beauty and benefits of focusing on
eating real foods.
See, when I started
focusing on eating real, nutrient dense foods and getting enough
protein and fat for my needs, I stopped needing as much food. I stopped
being as hungry and cravings started being manageable enough for me to
ignore them.
I went from barely being
able to go a couple of hours without eating to forgetting to eat
sometimes. Like, I actually forget to eat sometimes and have to ask
myself why am I starting to feel hungry. I start feeling hungry and
think “wait, did I eat today?”
That’s a
trip for someone like me that used to think about food so often that
I’d have to eat something just so I can get back to focusing on the task
at hand. It was that deep.
Once I locked in the real foods, I started getting serious about the meal prep.
Meal
prep is like automating healthy eating. It’s like making healthy eating
so easy throughout the week, you’re only excuse for not eating healthy
is because you didn’t eat what you prepped.
And I DEDICATED myself to meal prep each and every week with no weeks off.
To
start eating 3 meals a day and meal prepping, don’t fuss over the
specifics of macros and calories just yet. Focus on eating real,
nutrient dense foods until you’re satisfied.
What
I did when I first implemented this practice, was eat all real foods I
enjoy and kept it to eating a serving of eat food. Like, I’d have a
sweet potato, a chicken thigh, quinoa and then some steamed broccoli
with butter. If it wasn’t enough food, I’d add more to take with me.
The
goal is to get into the habit of eat real foods and allowing those
foods to regulate your cravings and appetite. Stick to real foods and
they will help and make weight loss much easier than if you’re eating 6,
low-fat meals a day.
Stick to 3 meals a
day, cut out snacking, and meal prep weekly and your appetite can get
so regulated that you actually start to naturally skip meals because
you’re simply not hungry. Lowering your calories comes naturally because
your body is learning to have a healthy appetite and burn the fat it’s
already stored.
Trust the process.
Practice no-night-eating
For as far back as I can remember, I’ve heard that night eating causes weight gain.
I
tried eating at night because a lot of intermittent fasting peeps speak
on skipping breakfast and eating late. I tried that and my stomach was
in pain each morning and the weight loss wasn’t that great either.
Before
paying these intermittent fast gurus any mind, i used to be not feeding
past 4pm. This created implementing intermittent fast super
straightforward and also the weight perceived to fall off in my sleep.
The
approach I are aware of it, whereas we tend to sleep our bodies square
measure rejuvenating and healing. If we tend to visit bed with food in
our tummies, our bodies need to use the energy it’ll go for heal and
rejuvenate so as to digest food.
Going
to bed fed lowers the standard of sleep, screws with the biological
time, lowers the standard of digestion, and causes biological process
problems.
When I started getting to bed
on associate degree empty abdomen, my abdomen felt higher|far better}
and that i awoke feeling better unwearied.
To
give this tip a strive, don’t eat any food when four pm and make
certain to solely drink water, bootless tea, and decaffeinated teas.
Don’t consume any calories when four pm.
Or, if you visit bed later than most, make certain to convey yourself 2+ hours to digest food before bed.
Once your body gets accustomed feeding three meals daily, not feeding in the dark can get easier.
Try to eliminate cheat days, however if you are doing, cheat monthly rather than weekly
Cheat days had Maine tousled. perhaps they’ll be “nicer” to you, however they weren't my friend and admittedly still aren’t.
If
I even have a cheat day, my mind will simply slip into justifying
having a cheat weekend that has snowballed into cheat weeks and months
on many occasions. and since i do know this concerning myself, I follow
no-cheats the maximum amount as attainable.
Also,
cheat days will bog down the healing from irregular craving and crazy
cravings. once you take away all extremely processed foods for associate
degree extended amount of your time, you stop introducing the foods
that created the accumulated hunger and crazy craving to start with.
You offer the body time to hospital ward from all the sugars and habit-forming foods.
And
if you’re susceptible to food addiction, binge feeding, or the other
disorder that causes you to question of management with food, it’s
really higher to chop out cheat days utterly unless these cheat days
square measure real foods that square measure simply off of what you
ready.
I had to simply accept this
myself and affirmative, it had been a tough pill to swallow. It’s
laborious to possess to be told to measure while not what I’ve spent a
decent chunk of my life relying upon. I had to be told a way to eat
however|and the way} to acknowledge however these foods hindered my
health rather than that specialize in how these foods tasted.
I
conjointly had to be told to grasp that these foods square measure
factory-made to style smart, be over consumed, and habit-forming. thus
my attachment to those foods are factory-made and since that attachment
is harmful to my health, it’s time to allow them to go.
Consider
eliminating cheat days to convey your body time to hospital ward and
obtain over the consequences of extremely processed foods. If you think
that you'll handle a cheat day, cheat monthly rather than weekly to
convey your body the time to heal.
Conclusion
I
hope you discover the following tips useful as they're ways I’ve
noticed worked the simplest for weight loss into “onederland.”
Remember
that weight gain is caused by foods that cause laziness and
over-consumption so creating you fat. you're NOT fat as a result of
you’re lazy and don’t elbow grease enough. The foods square measure the
foundation cause.
Secondly, begin with a
attitude shift particularly if you’ve tried to slim down before.
Sometimes, it isn’t the diet that’s not operating, it’s our mindsets
that square measure inflicting U.S.A. to fall away and fall off the
wagon. Work daily to align with health, wellness, and your natural
well-being.
Lastly, take away all
extremely processed foods, together with honeylike drinks, target
feeding three meals daily while not snacking, school assignment your
meals dependably weekly, surrender the night feeding, and check out to
eliminate all cheat days from your routines.
After attempting all sorts of things to slim down, it had been these practices that actually helped Maine lose the load.