If you’re just getting started on the path to a healthier self, and you want a few simple tips, this is for you. As you steadily become more involved in losing weight, you’ll start to develop a more individual program that works for you. Losing weight can be one of the biggest challenges you’ll ever undertake. You’re gonna have to work hard and resist a world that wants to tempt you. Hopefully this advice will keep you sane in your first few months.
Make Breakfast The Biggest Meal Of Your Day.
It’s the most important meal of the day, and it’s the one that will keep you feeling full and refreshed while at work or out enjoying an active day off. We all start the day on an empty stomach with no fuel in the tank. If you think about it, the last time you ate was probably more than twelve hours ago!
I always make sure breakfast is the biggest meal of my day. I use it to load up on healthy carbohydrates like Oatmeal, or Kashi cereal. I also make sure I get some protein with 4 egg whites and some turkey bacon (the nitrate free kind from Trader Joe’s). By the time I’m done with breakfast, I feel stuffed, and that’s how it should be. You’ve got all day to burn it off.
You can never really skip breakfast anyway. Even if you do, you’ll just find yourself desperately searching for donuts in the breakroom in a few hours time. What’s better? Taking the time to make a great meal to start your day, or losing control and eating crap? If you want to lose weight, you’ve gotta eat breakfast.
Find Ways To Make Exercise Fun.
To shed the pounds, you’re gonna have to follow a workout program. That’s a given. But if you really want to lose weight, you’ll find ways to make your life more active and fun all around. Spend the weekend riding your bike or playing a sport you love. If you don’t have a sport, get into one. Trust me when I say it makes the whole process a lot more entertaining.
Just stop to think about how much our lives have changed in the last 150 odd years. Suddenly it makes sense why we’re all so fat. We spend most of our time indoors on our computers eating convenience food. For most of human history, we’ve had to work ourselves to the bone in the fields. Weight loss was never a concern back then because you had no choice but to be active. Your entire livelihood was tied up in it.
If you don’t have anything to do today, try to find a way to spend the entire day outside. Oftentimes, it’s as simple as taking on super long walk. I don’t care how you do it, but if you want your body to respond by shedding the pounds, you’ve gotta spend a lot more time outdoors.
Lift Weights. Lift Them Often.
Your body responds to weight bearing exercise in ways it doesn’t respond to other kinds of activity. In many ways, your body is always trying to adapt to whatever situations it faces most often. If you’re always lifting weights, and you eat enough protein, your body will grow to match the challenges you’re giving it every day.
Muscle also burns fat. It takes a lot of energy to rebuild your muscles after you work them out. This isn’t an excuse to eat much as you want, but it certainly does speed you toward your weight loss goals.
Sleep 8 To 9 Hours Every Night.
If you want to lose weight, sleeping well is just as important as eating a big breakfast. When you sleep, your body does all of the repairs and cell growth needed to keep you performing at your best during the day. When you cut sleep short, you lose almost all of the benefit from your workouts. How can you push it the next time you visit the gym if you’re feeling run down because you didn’t sleep?
Sleep also regulates appetite. Studies show that people who don’t sleep well often consume 200 more Calories per day than those who do. In short, people often try to compensate for their lack of sleep by eating more. When you’re well rested, you eat less and push it harder at the gym. That equals results.
Replace Juice And Soda With Water, Tea, Or Coffee.
There’s a lot of hidden sugar in juice and soda. So much that it adds up pretty fast. I can tell you from personal experience that the second my friends give up soda, they start shedding the pounds faster than ever. It makes a lot of sense. They’re getting the same hydration but They’ve suddenly stopped taking in a ton of extra calories from sugar every day.
Juice is about as bad as soda. Sure you’re getting some vitamins, but there’s so much sugar that it practically masks the benefit. I’m not saying you should never drink juice, but why not go with something like Shakeology instead? Just one Shakeology will replace an entire meal, keep you hydrated, and fill your daily nutrition needs. Plus, it doesn’t cost that much more than a bottle of juice or a can of soda anyway.
The Takeaway.
If I could condense all of this advice into a single sentence, it would go something like this. Find ways to be more active while taking in less pointless calories. Run more, play some sports, and when you’re thirsty, go for a big glass of water instead of a can of soda. Losing weight doesn’t have to be hard. Find something you enjoy doing, and you’ll forget you were even trying.
