If you’re serious about losing weight, you need to stop doing diets. They’ll only fuck your body up (read more about it —here—), essentially because they’ll reduce your BMR.
My three most important tips for losing weight to you are: 1) Eat less than what your body burns by tracking your food, 2) allow yourself treats (YES!!!) and 3) do something active you actually enjoy.
1. To lose weight you need to know you’re eating fewer calories than what your body burns. Research shows that even just keeping a handwritten food journal makes you eat less, mainly because you become more conscious of what goes into your mouth. This is good.
If you’re serious about losing weight, log your food and drinks onto an app like MyFitnessPal. It takes the guesswork out of it. If you eat less than what your body burns, you’ll lose weight. Simple as that. You can calculate how many calories your body burns in a day on my BMR calculator, and then when you on average eat fewer calories than that number, you’ll be on your way to sustainable weight loss.
2. If you don’t allow yourself the things you enjoy the most, you’re doomed for failure in the long term. The beauty about flexible dieting is that you can eat whatever you want, as long as it’s in moderation. So you can eat cake, but if you eat cake all day you’ll feel shit after the sugar crash. And hungry. If you eat a ton of vegetables instead you’ll feel like you’re eating loads and cant get enough of food. So just find your balance, eat healthy things that you like - that’s the base of your nutrition. Then add treats, preferably at special occasions only (like eating out, going out with friends, at parties etc.). But even if you want to eat a chocolate bar every night, that’s not really a problem. Just log it on MFP and make sure you’re not going over your calories.
3. Doing something active you enjoy is so so so so important. The worst thing is when people see exercise as something horrible, a chore to do. Don’t go from zero exercise to getting a gym membership with no trainer or a plan, because it is veeeeeery unlikely you’ll keep doing it long term. Plus deep down you’ll probably hate going, even though it makes you feel better afterwards.
Instead, think of active things you actually enjoy doing. Is it walking? Cycling? Rock climbing? Swimming? Even just playing pool? No matter what it is, if it gets you up on your feet it’s a hell of a lot better than lying down on the couch eating crisps.
The bottom line. Losing weight should not be a chore, but something quite fun because you know how good it’ll make you feel when you’ve lost some. I personally LOVE veg, because I so strongly associate them to feeling and looking good. I LOVE feeling sore after exercise, because I know I’ve done something really good to my body. That’ll make me healthier and stronger, and live longer.
To life!
