How To Keep The Weight Off For Good
Many individuals who have lost a good deal of weight feel as though they have arrived. No longer do they need to watch what they eat or feel bad about the negative food choices they make. This would be a huge mistake though, as even though may have been a difficult journey down the road to weight loss, keeping the weight off for good can be equally as difficult!
It’s important that once you reach your ideal weight to remain vigilant and maintain healthy eating habits to ensure the weight stays off for good! It’s a terrible feeling to go through the toils of weight loss to then finally reach your goal, and then to slowly watch it all slip away as the number on the scale slowly creeps back up!
Work Out Regularly
Maintaining a regular fitness routine is one of the best things individuals can do for not only weight loss but their overall health! Individuals need to either burn as much or more calories than they consume to lose weight and keep it off. Exercise makes it easier to keep these numbers in balance. When you exercise, your body starts burning off extra calories from fat or the food you consumed throughout the day for energy, which results in less excess calories being stored as fat or even better, stored fat being burned!
When you work out, your metabolism temporarily increases, so to maximize the weight loss benefits try to work out regularly, ideally in the morning. By working out earlier in the day, you ensure your body spends the most amount of time possible in a state of heightened metabolism to realize the greatest weight loss effects.
Try Eating Whole Foods
By sticking to eating only quality whole foods, weight loss and in turn, keeping the weight off, becomes much easier. By avoiding processed foods and sticking with whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, and legumes, you’ll be much healthier, and you’ll feel fuller for longer with a considerable dip in calories consumed. Whole foods are typically much higher in fiber and other benefit micro and macronutrients such as protein and vitamins which make them much more filling and pack a healthy punch of other beneficial side effects.
When you eat fast or processed foods, they usually end up only providing satiety for a little while before your body bounces back and your back to feeling ravenous again, thus repeating the cycle which often results in unwanted weight gain. So if you eat whole foods from now on, you’ll find keeping the weight off ends up being much less of a monumental task.
Cut Out As Much Sugar As Possible
Losing weight and making sure it stays off is made much easier if you watch your sugar intake! If you cut out as much sugar as possible from your diet, you’ll likely find the scale starts to trend downwards, making weight maintenance much easier. If you’re fond of carbohydrates, try to stick with complex sources such as whole oatmeal, brown rice, yams, sweet potatoes, and whole wheat bread.
Complex carbohydrates are digested much slower than simple carbs such as sugar, which means you’ll stay fuller and energized for longer. When you consume simple sugars in excess, your blood sugar spikes and the subsequent crash will make you feel even worse than before you ate. Avoiding these spikes is a great way to keep hunger and energy levels even throughout the day, which makes maintaining your weight a much easier task.
Journal Your Food, Exercise, And Weight Loss Goals
Studies have found individuals who log their food intake in a journal or calorie tracking application found it much easier to maintain or even lose weight. By keeping track of your daily food intake, you become much more aware of how much you’re actually eating in a given day and how it affects your feelings of well-being and the numbers on the scale. Additionally, those who monitor their weight are less likely to overeat, resulting in fewer calories consumed throughout the day. This all makes for a much easier time for individuals trying to lose weight.
In a recent study, the participants who weighed themselves six days a week consumed a significant amount less than those who weighed themselves less frequently. The average was around three hundred calories less per day consumed compared to those who didn’t weigh themselves! This goes to show tracking your weight and food intake can really benefit you when it comes to maintaining or losing weight.
Stay Hydrated
If you lost a lot of weight and want to make sure it stays off, staying hydrated is another step you can take to make things easier. There are quite a few different reasons for why hydration can help you maintain your weight. First of all, maintaining proper hydration promotes a feeling of satiety that will help keep your food intake within reason. Recent research observed individuals who drank some water before meals consumed thirteen percent fewer calories than those who didn’t drink water!
This may be because many individuals mistake their thirst for hunger, and, as a result, end up eating more when really all they needed was something to drink. So stay ahead of the hunger curve and stay hydrated throughout the day. You’ll notice you don’t get hungry quite so often and when you do, the urge to eat is not so strong. You’ll likely end up consuming less once you do eat, which all adds up to weight maintenance being a real breeze.