My 7 Best Tips for Losing Weight Healthily

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

---

Since my weight loss became noticeable, I’ve been bombarded with questions about how I did it. While most people ask, hoping I have some magic diet they never tried, some are interested in losing weight the right way. So, I decided to make a post with tips for losing weight healthily to help everyone out.

Over the past year and throughout my weight loss journey, I’ve learned a lot about losing weight and keeping it off. Here are my top 7 tips to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way.

Learn How to Cope with Stress

One of the best things you can learn in life is how to cope with stress in a healthy way. Stress negatively impacts our physical and mental health, our quality of life, and our relationships. When you have a stressful life, it’s harder to set goals and achieve them because you won’t want to leave your comfort zone. Stress forces you back into old, “comfortable” habits.

Here are a few great ways to deal with stress:

• Indulge in self-care often. This can include doing fun activities, taking time to relax, journaling, spending time alone, etc.
• Find non-food ways to treat yourself.
• Take care of your physical health. Try to get active daily, if you can.
• Surround yourself with people you enjoy spending time with.
• Don’t set unachievable goals for weight loss, work, or any other part of your life. Know your limits.
• If you’re going through a stressful time, talk it out with a therapist or someone you trust.
• Most of all, remove things from your life that stress you out. Don’t remove what you need, of course, but try to stay away from stressful people or places that you can avoid.

Make a Plan for Losing Weight Healthily

What’s that quote? If you fail to plan, you plan to fail? Planning your goals will get you focused on what habits you want to create and help you make them a reality. Having a set plan also makes you more confident with your new future, as you’ve laid out what you’ll be doing and see a clear path ahead. Also, don’t worry, if something doesn’t go to plan, you can always change the plan!

Map out the food you’ll prepare and how you’ll get active each day. Make it as easy as possible, and don’t try to change too much at once. Keeping things simple will make the new habit stick a lot easier. Then, put your plan into action, taking it one day at a time. As time goes on, you can adjust your plan as you see fit. I can guarantee life will somehow get in the way, and you’ll have to make some changes.

Planning what you’ll do in certain situations is helpful as well. For me, food is a lot less scary when I prepare myself to deal with it. If I’m out with a friend and we go to a fast food place for lunch, I know one meal won’t ruin my progress. I let myself enjoy having lunch with my friend while making some healthy food swaps if I want.

Don’t forget SMART goals! Make your plan Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. For more tips on goal-setting, check out the link here.

Fill Your Day with Healthy Food Swaps

Food swaps are a great way to enjoy eating while focusing more on nutrition. A food swap can be as simple as opting for a smaller portion of fries with your burger or changing it to a salad. Or, if you’re eating a salad with a heavy dressing, try changing it to a vinaigrette. If the food is still enjoyable, it’s a win.

For example, I’m a coffee drinker, and I’m not going to give it up without feeling deprived. BUT I like coffee regardless of what’s in it, so I choose to leave out the sugar and opt for milk instead of cream. This is a simple way for me to cut back on sugar while still enjoying my cuppa joe. For more examples of food swaps, check out my post for swapping out high-sugar foods.

Lastly, don’t forget to pack your day with filling, high-nutrition foods. This will keep you from overeating, improve your overall health, and help with stress management. If you need more info on what to eat, here’s a nifty interactive food guide.

Don’t Eat the Foods You Hate

On the other hand, don’t force yourself to eat foods you don’t like. Eating foods you hate makes you miserable and want to quit, which is what we’re trying to avoid. In other words, kale’s a “superfood,” but unless it’s going to give me superpowers, I’m not eating it. I’ll get my vitamins from something I enjoy, not Satan’s spiky lettuce.

Ignore the Bathroom Scale

In my post, 5 Reasons Why Your Weight Fluctuates in a Day, I explain why your weight goes up and down daily without gaining or losing fat. Because of this, I refuse to weigh myself more than once a week because it’s psychological torture. Focusing on the big picture will show you your real progress and keep you sane.

Also, please keep in mind that if you’re exercising more than before, you could be gaining muscle, which weighs more than fat. If you’re gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time, your weight may stay the same while you get smaller. Keeping non-scale victories in mind as you change your lifestyle will tell you more about what’s going on than the scale ever will.

Losing Weight Healthily Means SLOW Weight Loss

Forget that ad you saw that said you can lose 10 pounds a week. Those ads are unrealistic, harmful, and ruin your motivation. You should expect to lose 1-2 pounds per week or less. It took me a year to lose 40 pounds, but I did it without feeling deprived or sick. That’s less than a pound a week, and I’m not ashamed of my slow weight loss because I’ve kept it off long-term for the first time in my life.

Losing weight too fast can cause you to have side effects such as malnutrition, a slow metabolism, and a higher chance of ending up with loose skin. Fast weight loss is also unsustainable, meaning there’s a greater chance you’ll gain it all back and more. Food restriction can also lead to binge eating disorder and weight cycling.

“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” – Emilie Coue Click To Tweet

Realize Food Does Not Control You

Just because there’s food in the house doesn’t mean you need to eat it. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying “junk food” every once in a while. You’ll have to deal with food every day for the rest of your life. There’s no need to cage yourself around it, nor do you need to lose control around it.

Food is just that, food. Learning to allow yourself to enjoy it and also not overeat is a superpower; one that takes lots of practice to learn. Try to feel your hunger and fullness, and allow yourself to stop when the time is right. Once you’ve mastered this, the world is your oyster!

If you need some extra help controlling your eating, I have a great book I’d like to recommend! The Binge Code by Alison Kerr teaches you how to improve your eating habits. It offers techniques to stop overeating and make binge cravings disappear.

If you haven’t read The Binge Code yet, you really should! Learn how to stop being a slave to food and finally have food freedom. For more information on what the book teaches, I wrote a complete review of it here.

Click below for quick links to the book on Amazon!

• The Binge Code: Paperback
• Audiobook: The Binge Code
• The Binge Code: eBook

Losing Weight Healthily: Takeaway

Well, there it is! My top tips for healthy weight loss. I make it sound so simple, don’t I? In reality, the hardest part is putting all these tips into action and sticking to them. That’s why you should make a plan for sustainable, slow weight loss while learning how to cope with stress. That, paired with making a plan you actually enjoy, will set you up for success!

Do you have any other advice for losing weight healthily? Add it below in the comments!

That’s it for now everyone. If you’ve found some value in this post, please share it to inspire others too! Thanks!

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

This post contains affiliate links for products that I love. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission with no additional cost to you. Thanks for helping keep this site going! Also, this post was made for the site Lose Weight With Ang. If you’re reading this on a different site, please email us https://loseweightwithang.com/contact/

References:

• https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/tips-to-control-stress
• https://loseweightwithang.com/how-to-treat-yourself-without-using-food/
• https://evernote.com/blog/how-to-make-a-plan/
• https://loseweightwithang.com/5-reasons-why-your-weight-fluctuates-in-a-day/
• https://loseweightwithang.com/the-truth-about-losing-weight-too-fast/
• https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/
• Featured image credit: koldunovaaa/Krakenimages.com/bigstockphoto.com