A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Weight and Gaining Health
(This post is a few years old, but needed updated links and a “Read More” break)
Congratulations on making the decision to change your life for the better! As you begin your journey to health and fitness, there are a few things you should remember:
o     This is not a race. You are not in a competition with anyone else. Allow your body to work at its own pace. Ignore all of the weight loss ads you see that claim you can “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days!” You can’t. It won’t happen. And if you try, you’ll end up hurting yourself. What you need to do is be patient and adopt a new lifestyle that will enable you to lose weight healthily and keep it off in the long term.
o     Food is fuel. Many people who join the fitness community with the goal of losing weight have struggled with disordered eating in the past. Whether you’ve been formally diagnosed with an eating disorder or not, you MUST understand that the food you eat will be the key to your success. Food is not a hindrance to your goals. Losing weight in a healthy, effective way requires you to eat good food and eat enough of it!
o     You will get off track. Things do not always go according to plan, and that’s okay. Life happens. The ONLY thing that matters is that you always start again and continue to move forward. I, myself, have restarted this process three separate times. Don’t give up.
o     Find your motivation. I receive messages all the time from people asking me to motivate them to get back on track. That is not something that I can do. Motivation ultimately comes from within yourself. Joining a community like fitblr is great motivation. Sometimes all you need to do is click through a few before and after pictures and you’re all fired up! But it all starts and ends with YOU. Identify why you want to make a change. What goals have you set for yourself? Are they realistic? How are you going to reach those goals? What new things will you be able to do once those goals are met? All of those questions are things you should ask yourself when you’re losing motivation during your journey.
o     Everything in moderation. Balance is the key. You should NEVER feel guilty about eating anything. Food and guilt do not go together. If you didn’t eat according to your goals one day, that’s okay. You can do better the next day. There will ALWAYS be another chance. You can eat ANYTHING you want in balance with your other healthy choices. It doesn’t matter what it is. You do not need to eat healthy 100% of the time in order to lose weight. In fact, it’s impossible for you to do so, and setting that expectation sets you up for guaranteed failure. Use the 80/20 rule: 80% of your diet should be clean/healthy/whole/unprocessed foods, 20% can be whatever you want. You can aim for this balance daily, weekly or monthly depending on your schedule. Sometimes people find it easier to eat super clean/healthy during the week and then let loose during the weekend. Or you can spread your treats throughout the entire week, having a donut one day, a piece of pizza another, etc. Do whatever works for you and makes you feel like you aren’t on a restrictive diet.
o     The scale is not the only way to measure your progress. Take progress pictures (once a month or so) to compare and use a measuring tape to take measurements of different parts of your body. No change on the scale doesn’t mean you haven’t made progress. The number on the scale is meaningless, it describes your body’s relationship with gravity, nothing more. What if you had your dream body and the scale said you weighed 25 pounds more than your “goal weight”? It wouldn’t matter, right? What you ultimately care about is how you look and feel, the number on the scale is arbitrary. There’s really no reason to weigh yourself more than once a week (and remember that the best time to weigh yourself is in the morning, naked, after you wake up and go to the bathroom). Your weight fluctuates by the hour depending on what you eat, retained fluid, and whether or not you need to go to the bathroom just to name a few reasons. Don’t tie your emotions to the scale. If needed, throw it out.
Here are the keys to getting healthy and losing weight:
