10 Healthy Habits to Help Lose Weight

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Ever hear of a celebrity, like Oprah, going on a diet and thinking, “Me too!”?

Many of us judge ourselves by how much we weigh compared with celebrities. Even to the point of when they go on a diet we do too.

Celebrities spend time at the gym with personal trainers. They hire someone to clean their home and maybe even have a personal chef. Certainly, they have the budget to buy fresh, healthy food.

For those of us trying to lose weight and stay in shape between the commitments of work and family, things can be much harder!

It all starts with a commitment to change our lifestyle!

You have probably heard it said that long-term weight maintenance is a lifestyle, not a diet! In this report, we will look at habits to easily incorporate into our lifestyle. These are ten healthy habits to help us lose weight and feel better!

Do you really want to lose weight and keep it off? If your answer is a resounding, “Yes!”, read on!

10 Healthy Habits to Help Lose Weight

Staying in shape can be challenging for those of us trying to juggle trips to the gym between work and family commitments.

We need habits that we can build into our busy lifestyles that will help us drop weight, but do not need a lot of time or money. To that end, we have come up with ten habits that we can all manage that should help us lose weight and stay in shape.

  1. Drink More Water

By now we all know the importance of water for our general health. Our bodies are composed of 60% water. The water that we lose through sweating, urinating and just breathing needs to be replenished in order to maintain our internal balance.

Why is water important for weight loss? The more water we have in our bodies, the more calories we need to just exist.

This means that staying properly hydrated boosts our metabolisms and helps us burn more calories naturally throughout the day!

It is recommended that we drink eight glasses of water a day. Have a glass of water first thing in the morning and with every meal. Carry a water bottle throughout the day and set regular alarms as a reminder to check in on our hydration.

  1. Manage Meal Portions

Thanks to the practices of most restaurants, we have all become accustomed to large meal portions. Most of us have also been trained to finish our plate, rather than just stop eating when we feel full. As a result of this, most of us are eating many more calories than we need at each meal.

Start reducing portion sizes by serving half as much food on our dinner plate. If we are still hungry, we can always get a little more.

  1. Get Adequate Sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep is essentially for losing weight. This is not just because tired people eat more as they seek fuel to keep going throughout the day. When we sleep, we also fast, starving our bodies of the immediate energy of food for an extended period of time.

At night with no food consumption we start burning stored fat. Burning stored fat helps us lose weight. We can increase the possibility of this by having our last meal of the day a bit earlier, and extending our breakfast a bit later.

  1. Track Food Choices

While many of us think we know what we eat, most of us do not. Sometimes we add a bit extra milk and sugar to our coffee, forget the butter on toast, did not think about the olive oil used to stir-fry, etc.

Keeping track of what we actually eat not only gives us a better understanding of how many calories we are eating, but also makes us more aware of our food decisions. Research shows that most people think that they make 15 food decisions a day, when in reality, each of us makes more like 200 food decision a day!

Increasing our awareness of when we are making these decisions, and the impact that they are having on our health and weight, can help us make better decisions. It is much easier to say, “No” to that something when we realize what else we have been eating.

  1. Plan and Prepare in Advance

We can make the 200 daily food decisions less challenging by planning our meals for the week. Write down a meal plan and prep our food for the week on the weekend when we are not feeling hungry.

If we have already decided what we are going to eat, and have it to hand, it is much easier to make good food decisions.

  1. Exercise is Essential Ingredient to Recipe

They say that weight loss is 80% food and 20% exercise. While this might seem that exercise is not important, we know that missing an essential ingredient, no matter how minor, can ruin a recipe!

The key with exercise is to find something that we enjoy and that fits into our lifestyle. If we find something that we enjoy, and we find it stimulating, either because it is challenging or because of the social atmosphere, we are more likely to stick with it and prioritize it.

For those who do not have a lot of time to exercise, we should think about prioritizing muscle building activities over cardio. We burn a lot of calories during that Zumba class, but afterwards our metabolism returns to normal. Not only do we burn calories when developing muscles, but muscles require more energy that other forms of body mass to be maintained. This means that we increase our metabolism and burn more calories in overall even when not actually exercising.

  1. When Eating, Eat!

Mindless snacking is responsible for a lot of overeating. Many of us have sat down in front of the television with a bag of popcorn, planning to just have a little, only to find that we finished the bag. When our minds are on other things it is easy to lose sight of what we are actually eating. It is best to avoid eating in front of the television, or at our desk at work. Eating should be something separate that we do, alone or with family and friends. When it comes to work, this can also give us a welcome break that helps reduce stress.

  1. Keep Healthy Foods within Reach

When we are hungry, we tend to go for whatever is easy. It is a great idea to keep healthy food accessible. Keep an apple, some healthy protein bars, or nuts at work for late afternoon snacks.

  1. Prioritize Vegetables

Vegetables are full of the vitamins and nutrients that we need for our bodies to work well! Vegetables are both satisfying and generally lower in calories that other food, like meat and bread.

Getting more vegetables into our diets can help our bodies work better! Veggies can also help us feel fuller, and eat fewer calories. When eating out, say no to the bread basket and yes to the salad starter, filling up on vegetables before deciding whether to finish our main meal or take some of it home with us.

  1. Community

It can be extremely difficult to stick to healthy habits when the people around us are not on board. How can we steer clear of unhealthy snacks when our partner keeps buying them at the supermarket? How can we avoid excessive desserts when a colleague brings cake or biscuits into work every day?

If we are serious about losing weight it is a good idea to tell the people around us what we are doing, and why it is important to us. If they are in our house, it is useful if they agree to stick to many of the same habits as us. If they are work colleagues, asking them not to offer us unhealthy snacks can help.

In It to Win It!

Are you in it to win it? Do you really want to succeed? Are you committed right now to make this a success to the best of your ability?

Many of us like the IDEA of losing weight but give up before starting because the task just seems daunting!

We wonder, “Where will we find the time?” or “How can I afford this?”

We can make huge gains by exchanging some of our current habits for these healthy habits to help us lose weight!

Make a significant lifestyle choice today!

References:

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/weight-loss-morning-habits

https://www.self.com/story/small-lifestyle-habits-help-lose-weight

https://blog.totalwellbeingdiet.com/10-habits-that-will-help-you-lose-weight