It’s hard to narrow down the things that helped me the most with losing weight to only 3 weight loss tips… but after careful consideration I have found that the three things listed below were the absolute most effective methods that I utilized to lose a significant amount of weight (80 pounds) and keep it off.
Knowing what to eat and how to exercise are only a part of the struggle to improve yourself… what truly determines whether you’ll reach your weight goals, is if you can stick to a healthy diet, and consistently work towards your goals over an extended period of time.
To accomplish this, it will take more than a list of healthy foods and exercises…
The most important factors of weight loss success aren’t some special weight loss food or super fat burning exercise. It’s all about habits, and mindset, and how you handle yourself in the grand scale of things.
Although these are my top 3 tips… if you want even more powerful tips then check out my top 10 tips. If you are carrying around a lot of extra weight, check out my weight loss tips for obese people.
If you focus heavily on these 3 things, you will make your entire journey easier, and set yourself up for long-term success both with concern to your method, and mentality!
Make gradual changes
If you are already a reader of The Shape Within, you’ll know that it’s all about doing things one step at a time, at a pace that you can stick with, and not give up on. I created this website to help people start and finish significant weight loss journeys… and to do that it requires consideration and adjustment for how truly difficult it is to make a lifetime change to your eating and exercise habits.
People who have a few pounds to lose can technically reach their goals by making a temporary change even though making a lifestyle change is always the best route… however those who are obese and have lots of weight to lose on their journey absolutely must make a change that will stick forever.
This may sound intimidating… and it usually is because it’s so common to attempt making a huge change in a single day, which is one of the biggest reasons I see people fail perfectly good quality, healthy diets.
I used to weigh 245 pounds, and my diet was horrible. It took a long time for me to discover the right and healthy way of losing weight, and even when I did know what I should be doing it was so hard to do make the healthy changes I needed to get where I wanted to be.
When I finally made the choice/had the mental strength to start eating healthy and really make the changes needed to reach for my goals, I gradually started eating more and more healthy foods, rather than trying to make an overnight change which I had failed with so many times before.
I started first by eating one healthy meal every day, usually brown rice and chicken as my go-to meal, but I also started expanding into other foods.
I added healthy snacks into my day, like apples and unsalted, dry-roasted peanuts, and these things replaced junk food that I would normally eat at work like chips, cookies, and microwavable packaged foods.
I kept eating healthier and healthier, and in time my whole diet was filled with healthy foods, I was losing weight faster than I ever had by counting calories, and it was all happening fairly easily since I was “acclimating” to the changes gradually. I became comfortable with my new healthy diet content, and eventually started to enjoy the foods that were leading me towards my goals.
If you want to start losing weight in this same gradual way, but with a defined and easy to follow plan, try the 8-week weight loss challenge!
Focus on more, not less
In addition to making gradual changes, another incredibly important method/mindset that I took advantage of to make my weight loss journey easier was focusing on ADDING MORE healthy foods, and not worrying about restricting calories or cutting out any foods.
But how can you lose weight by eating more, instead of less?
This is the beauty of natural, super healthy foods and how they affect your body when your current eating habits are unhealthy (as almost everyone’s are in modern society).
When you transition from eating high-calorie, low-nutrient, insulin spiking foods… to foods that are just the opposite (high-nutrient low-calorie), your body is left in a calorie deficit while you are full and satisfied. All of this adds up to hunger-free, healthy, sustainable weight loss.
So if you have often struggled with trying to cut things out of your diet, you can have the confidence of knowing that you can simply eat MORE healthy food and lose MORE weight as a result.
Consistency, not perfection
The capstone to a successful healthy diet on a long-term scale, is consistency. Being consistent with your efforts means continually working towards your goals, but not necessarily being perfect or never slipping.
Consistency simply means not giving up completely, making more positive progress than negative… making sure the good outweighs the bad, and that your current habits are always an improvement from the week/month before.
You can be far less than perfect, and yet consistent with your efforts… and reach your goal at a pace that you are very happy about.
Perfection or the feeling of needing to be perfect, usually leads to being hard on yourself when anything doesn’t go according to plan, and feeling as though you’ve failed when in reality your current habits were a big improvement.
Give consistency a chance to transform you, and have the initial faith that it takes to wait for the results to stack up a little bit. Remember that 2 pounds per week adds up to 100 pounds over the period of a year!
If you make the decision to start changing your life today, and resolve to stay on track without the pressure to be perfect, you can be completely changed in a matter of months. If today is your day to change, then join the 8-Week Challenge!
