Being on a diet is one thing but maintaining your ideal weight is even harder. Most people starve themselves on a very strict diet until they’ve reached their ideal weight and fall back to their normal eating habits after quitting the diet. Here are some tips to change your lifestyle and maintain your precious ideal weight. Don’t change too many things at once or soon you’ll fall back to your normal lifestyle and regain every single pound lost. Start with small changes and include some exercise.
Research has shown that for most people it takes 21 days to turn something into a habit. So don’t give up too fast. I know you can do it!
Once you’ll feel the benefits and even lost a few pounds you’ll notice you even like your new lifestyle. You will be able to maintain your ideal weight and you’ll feel healthy and look so as well. Feel your confidence grow and be surprised what small changes in your life can do for you.
15 Tips to Change Your Lifestyle
- Start to exercise more. Yoga is a great option I prefer to do. The postures will increase your overall fitness and help you to lose some pounds or to maintain your ideal weight. The breathing exercises are promoting weight loss. Yoga breathing increases levels of oxygen in our blood. It will flow faster and increases our metabolism and burns fat faster. A session of 15 to 30 minutes a day will do the trick. If yoga is not your cup of tea, pick any sport or form of exercise you like to do. If you like running or like to go swimming, then do so. Do not force yourself into an exercise regime you don’t like.
- Get into the right mindset of willing to change your lifestyle. If you’re calling it a diet you’re going to gain all weight back and maybe even more. Diets are temporary, however changing your lifestyle and eating habits will put you on a long-term track of success when it comes to losing and maintaining weight. Don’t see it as a diet and do not tell anyone you’re on one. Actually your just changing to a healthy lifestyle with all its benefits such as losing and maintaining weight.
- Drinking water also helps to lose weight. Water helps to metabolize stored fat, eliminates byproducts of fat and it also reduces the feeling of hunger and has no calories. Fruit and vegetables contain lots of water, another reason to use fresh products instead of ready-made meals every day.
- Tea, especially green tea, is another great way to help you to lose some pounds. The antioxidants in green tea speed up metabolism, giving you a better sense of well-being and making it easier for you to lose weight and remain healthy over time. So get rid of those high calorie, fizzy drinks and drink more water and tea. Iced tea is a great option on a hot summer’s day.
Here’s one of my favorites:
- Small changes in your lifestyle can easily help you to maintain your weight. When you restart your healthy lifestyle after a holiday the pounds you gained will disappear again. It will also help you to maintain your weight after a stringy diet. So why not start to change your breakfast first. Instead of eating eggs, toasts or waffles you could opt for fruits, yogurt, and muesli. If you do not like to eat that many fruits try to make a delicious and healthy fruit and vegetable smoothie. (Scroll down to download my FREE green smoothie eBook for some yummy inspiration)
- Eat healthy snacks during the day. Check out my healthy snack ideas in the recipes section. I’m sure you can find something you like.
- Don’t eat sandwiches for lunch but change to salads or soups. Or opt for no-bread sandwich ideas. Find some great inspiration HERE.
Scroll down for more tips.
- Eat slowly. People tend to eat fast these days, due to a lack of time. This results in eating more. There is a delay in the transmission of the signal for a full stomach to your brain. So when eating slowly, your stomach will tell you in time when you’ve had enough. (ALSO READ: How to Stop Eating When You’re Full)
- For some people, it can be helpful to join an online support group. They can offer great value, especially when friends or family are not supporting you to make a change in your lifestyle. It is essential that you do not feel alone, so if possible do this with the whole family. Share your successes, things you like and your failures to learn from each other. Changing lifestyle is not done from one day to another.
- Set realistic goals. Things you’ll be able to achieve. Don’t make it too easy but don’t fall into striving and losing the joy of it. Changing lifestyle and losing weight must not be a burden to carry around. You can lose 30 pounds a week if you work out all day and eat almost nothing. But is any human capable of maintaining this? I’m not sure. So make small and realistic goals and you’ll achieve more at the end. Those goals are personal and will be different for other people. Women aren’t men and women lose weight much slower than man. So if you are losing weight together keep in mind to set your own goals.
- Taking pills to lose weight is nonsense. Don’t fall victim to the hype and abundance of commercials that are promoting those fat burning pills. They aren’t effective at all. However, if you want to take pills then let it be the natural ones such as vitamins or essential fatty acids, that are not going to pollute your systems with harmful chemicals. Losing weight naturally is still the best and healthiest option.
- No need to refrain from everything but keep it to a minimum. Do not feel bad when you go out with friends and eat fast food, drinking fizzy drinks or eat a sweet dessert. No harm is done for indulging yourself from time to time, but do not fall back into those unhealthy eating habits on a daily basis.
- A good night’s rest is essential to burn fat. Your body needs at least 8 hours sleep a night. Give your body the time to rest, during our sleeping time the body detoxes. So do not think you’re doing your body a favor by sleeping less.
- You can’t eliminate all fats from your diet because our body and brain need essential fats, such as Omegas 3 fatty acids, to survive. But what you can do is choose them wisely. Not all oils are that harmful to our body. There is a big war going on between a lot of providers which one is the best and healthiest. I always use extra virgin coconut oil. It keeps weight in balance by boosting your metabolism. Coconut oil is rich in medium-sized fats (MCT), where most other vegetable or seed oils are larger. Those larger molecules are more difficult for your body to break down and they will be stored as fat. Medium sized fats are digested easily and instead of storing them as fat, our body uses it to produce energy. Ghee is another great option for you to choose from… if you’re not a vegan of course.
- Be creative. Eating the same foods over and over again will get boring over time, unless you really, really like them. For example, I love to eat strawberries every day. Can’t get bored of them. Avoid to shop in the diet section, these foods do not taste well, are overly processed, and are commercially inspired to steal your money. If you’re starting to lose weight it is wise to include more fibers into your diet, otherwise you may get constipated.
As you can see by now, losing and maintaining your weight is a big change in lifestyle. It is all about controlling your diet and exercising more, but do not exaggerate. Do not overdo yourself. When you’ll start feeling the benefits you’ll see you’ll love your new way of living and eating. Give your body the time it needs to adjust to all the new things. So again start small and build up from there.
If you are serious about losing weight and changing your lifestyle, CLICK HERE.
Thanks for reading. I hope this information was helpful. Until next time!
Amy Goodrich
Crazy cat lady, life and food lover, certified biologist, and holistic health coach.
A guy I know managed to lose 7 pounds in one month with coconut oil. He takes a tablespoon of it in the morning and another before bedtime. It tastes yucky but the results are amazing. His cholesterol levels have also dropped!
Love coconut oil, we always use it to prepare our dishes. And indeed since I’ve started to use coconut oil my cholesterol level dropped and my heart rhythm disorder has been better then ever before :-).
What healthy snacks do you recommend? Are there anything we can buy already made at the supermarket?
I love all kinds of fruits and raw veggies, those are my healthy snacks :-). Sometimes I like to add some yogurt and honey with them as well to make it a sweet snack. But if you’re looking for some other snacks maybe you could try these, they all contain less then 150 calories:
– 1 package Original Apple Nature Valley Fruit Crisps (50 calories)
– 1 Laughing Cow Light Swiss Original wedge, 3 pieces Kavli Crispy Thin (85 calories)
– 1 oz buffalo mozzarella, 1/2 cup cherry or grape tomatoes (94 calories)
– 5 olives (any kind) (45 calories)
– An 18 Rabbits Bunny Bar (120 Calories)
There are many more :-). I’ll put it on my to do’s to make a nice list as an upcoming blog post 🙂