Trying to lose weight is no easy feat— and neither is dealing with pressure to have a certain image, as well as stress and anxiety surrounding dieting and eating. We spoke with health experts about four essential tips that can help you stick to your weight loss goals while feeling proud of yourself for your hard work and health accomplishments.
1. Recognize Your Strengths & Worth
Self-care starts with self-acceptance and often leads to self-love. Realizing that you are worthy of feeling good about your body is an essential step when thinking of specific goals or even planning on losing weight.
Dietitian and Wellness Professional Holli Rovenger says that a healthy mindset (or lack of one) greatly impacts any and all other steps to losing weight.
“There is so much involved in losing weight and keeping it off,” says Rovenger. “In my opinion, mindset, stress management, getting enough sleep and starting to move your body regularly through exercise should be worked on before food is even looked at.” She adds that if someone “changes their eating habits without dealing with their mindset or stress management,” the weight loss “will not be permanent.”
Rovenger also suggests working on developing hobbies that you enjoy doing, so “it takes the focus off food.” She says that you can notice that when you are busy, you “won't be tempted to eat as often or as much.”
You’ll feel better about yourself, Rovenger says, when you “make small changes in eating and lifestyle habits on a consistent and persistent basis” and when you “accept that present eating habits” are not “just” about the food. “Most of the change will need to come from changing behaviors internally and externally,” says Rovenger. This can be worked on with the help of a mental health expert—and recognizing when you want help and someone to speak with— is an immensely powerful strength.
2. Hydrate Often
Water is necessary for almost every major system in your body. If you want to lose weight healthily, you’ll need to hydrate often. Your body, overall, will thank you! Registered dietitian Kimberly Marsh, MS, RD, has helpful tips on how to plan out your water intake, especially since drinking 6 to 8 full glasses in one day can be easy to miss.
“If you want to drink more water to help you feel full, don't just say [you’ll] drink 8 cups of water in the day,” says Marsh. “Say, [you] will drink 2 cups of water before lunch, 2 cups of water between lunch and going home from work, and 2 cups of water while [you] cook dinner." By anchoring these habits to time frames, Marsh says, “you don't get to the end of the day and realize you didn't make it.”
“Hydration is important,” adds health expert Dr. Olivia Joseph, DC. “Dilution is the solution for pollution. What that means is if you have lots of toxins stored in fat in your body instead of properly absorbing water, your body will bloat and swell.”
She adds that “it’s very important that you aim to drink half your body weight in ounces of clean water.” Joseph notes that this is not not water that is artificially colored or sweetened, “which can make you crave more sugar and create more toxicity in the body.” She suggests adding a lemon if you want flavor.
3. Keep Your Blood Sugar Stable
When actually starting to analyze the food you consume daily, it’s crucial not to miss any important meals— that especially means breakfast. Having and maintaining stable blood sugar means that your cells won’t be flooded with insulin, and this gives your body a chance to burn fat to energize in-between meals.
“First and foremost, keep your blood sugar stable,” explains Joseph. “When you have too much sugar, it converts to fat in the bloodstream and on your body. When blood sugar levels dip, your body needs to break down muscle tissue. It does so by releasing cortisol which can also be a belly fat storing hormone.” Joseph adds that you might lose weight this way but “usually the weight rebounds” because you’re “actually hurting your metabolism by losing muscle tissue.”
So, how does one keep blood sugar levels stable? “Once you eat breakfast make sure you are eating a protein every 2 to 4 hours,” says Joseph, who suggests eating “lots of fiber, which you can get from vegetables.”
Joseph continues, “consuming good, healthy complex carbohydrates such as fruit or sweet potatoes is fine— you just want to make sure that you don’t eat carbohydrates without a protein present.” This, she says, tends to bring blood sugar levels up and down.
4. Exercise Consistently (But Don’t Overdo It)
When many people start drafting or thinking of weight loss plans, they usually think of exercise and how often they want to do it. Certified Personal Trainer & Nutritionist Josh Schlottman, CSCS, explains that exhaustion from over-exercising can be avoided by testing out how much exercise is best for you in a certain point in time.
“Making exercise a daily habit is an important part of sticking to your weight loss goals, but killing yourself in every workout will make you less likely to do the next one,” says Schlottman.
Instead, he adds “just do light exercise, at least starting out, and then as your body adapts to the workouts you can progress from there.” By then, Schlottman says, “you’ll have developed a healthy habit of working out consistently.”
Overall, losing weight can be a difficult and time-consuming process, but like our experts explained, a mindset change can make your journey not only easier but also more fun.
Liking yourself, your strengths and your body is difficult for everyone at some point in time. Finding support from those around you, paying attention to the water and food your body needs and exercising when you can are all great places to start. For more information, speak to your doctor, mental health expert, nutritionist, dietitian, personal trainer, etc. to create weight loss goals that you’ll be happy to move towards.
