The Weight loss journey and you
I’ve bee asked by tell-me-its-love to write a little something about tips and tricks of loosing weight to help people who just started or are starting their weight loss journey.
Warning: First of all, what I’m going to say now are only things that work out for me. There will be people there who have different opinions on some of the topics and that is fine. I’ll only tell you what works for me and what I do to loose weight and live a healthier life.
The three things I build everything on are Motivation, Exercising and Food.
About food / healthy eating
The most important thing about eating is that you never should think about it as something that will end. If you really want to loose weight, get healthier and be fit, you have to change your eating habits forever. There is no going back. If you do a diet and than go back to chips and cola, you’re gonna gain weight back again. And because of that I work with something that is called food traffic light. This system puts all the foods into three categories. Green, Yellow and Red. Your daily diet should be build on foods that are mostly in the green category and one or two from the yellow category. Everything red is only for cheat days or special occasions.
Green: Food with up to 150 calories per 100 gramm
Yellow Food between 150-200 calories per 100 gramm
Red: Food above 200 calories per 100 gramm
Apart from that I also have foods I don’t eat even if they are in the green or yellow section. Mostly I’m talking about high carb foods. No bread, No noodles, no rice. Potatoes only now and then.
Normally your diet should consist of vegetables, fruits, milkproducts, lean meat (I advice chicken or turkey), fish
one of my personal yellow-redish food favorits to spice it up is feta cheese. Once in a while it’s okay to have something with high calorie amounts.
When talking about food you need to talk about Calories. The easiest way to loose weight is to cut calories. There is a simple rule. If you eat less calories than you burn, you loose weight. Forget all those fancy diets, most of them don’t work anyways. This is the holy grail of weight loss. It’s simple math. A woman burns between 1800-2400 calories a day, men tend to burn 200 calories more. It’s different for every person. If you want to loose weight the maximum of calories you should take in are about 1000. Never go under 500 or your body will go into starvation mood which is contra productive. Everyone had to decide for themselves. I had weeks were I was only taking in 500, it’s not actually healthy but sometimes I couldn’t help my self to get over plateau or something.
In short: Only eat food from the Green and Yellow part of the Food traffic light and never eat more than 1000 calories.
At least a little bit about cheat days. I mentioned it somewhere but personally I do not believe in cheat days. Basically the cheat day allows you one day to eat whatever you want and between us, that one day can destroy your whole weeks progress. I get the idea, yes, but it’s not productive in my opinion.
The easiest way to keep yourself happy and prevent cravings are to find a low calorie solution for them.
For example my two problem foods are chocolate and fatty meat. I tend to crave them a lot when I have a high dieting phase. That’s why I found myself some alternatives. For my chocolate craving I eat small cups of a german brand of chocolate jogurt and for the meat I found a brand of wiener (sausages) that are made completely of chicken but still can still that need for fat. (of course you don’t eat tons of it. But whenever the cravings get to strong, that’s where you should go)
Of course everyone has to find there craving foods themselves. This was just an example.
When you stop dieting excessively it’s okay to go back to your normally calorie intake. You should never go over the amount your body need and it’s important to keep eating healthy. Going back to your old ways will destroy any progress.
About drinks / healthy drinking
Something a lot of people don’t realize is that what and how much you drink has a massiv impact on your weight. For example if someone is a heavy beer drinker and just stops for a few month, they often drop a lot of weight in a short time. Drinks can be liquid calories.
If you wanna be on the safe side there is only one things I can advice you to drink: Water. Water is the only drink without any calories and it’s also exactly what your body needs. You should drink around 3 liters of water every day.
A second drink I advice you to consider is green tea. Green tea is not only good for your digestion (which can slow down to nothing when you’re dieting) but also has a positiv effect on your metabolism. The max. should be 4-5 cups a day. Do not sweeten the tea, or the effect is gone!
If drinking only water and tea is making you go crazy go with fruit juice. I have a simple rule. Never drink a full glass of juice. Always mix it. 1/3 Juice 2/3 Water. I personally just don’t like the taste of pure juice so I always mix it, but from a dieting perspective: Same taste, less calories. Also always use water with gas for a juice mix, otherwise it takes like crap. (I’m not joking, it’s disgusting in my opinion)
Any kind of soda is absolutely forbidden! Those are calorie traps. Just google the calorie amount of one liter of cola and you know what I mean. (It’s around 400 calories) And anyone who comes with ‘light or zero’ products, turn around and never come back. Yes they have less calories but that doesn’t mean they are healthy. They are as bad as their full calorie counterparts.
Still if you go out and want to enjoy a little soda I advice you to go and try ginger Ale. It’s not as sweet as the big brands, tasts good and the calorie amounts aren’t that high. once in a while something like that is okay.
Exercising / Move your ass
I know what everyone says: Weight loss is done in the kitchen but without exercise you are gonna be standing a long, long time in that kitchen. The two things you need to loose weight, get fit and maybe tone up are Cardio and Muscle strengthening.
Let’s talk about cardio first. There a few different ways to get your cardio done but the easiest is and will always be: running. Running is as much loved as it is hates and for someone starting to get fit those are probably the most horrible minutes of their whole day. It’s exhausting it hurts and you want to give up. Don’t. If you fight through the first 4-8 weeks it’s getting better and you might even enjoy it. Start with a pace you can easily do at least 30 minutes every day. If that means you are gonna be walking instead of running that’s fine, you always can increase your speed.
Cardio is something you need to do every day. Not three times a week, not four times a week, Every freaking day. There are a variety of ways of running. easy run, long run, tempo duration. Give it a chance. If you stay strong you will see results in your fitness and your weight.
Once in a while you should change it up a little. Maybe take your bike for a ride instead of running, but let it be something you do additionally. I enjoy inline skating when the weather is good. But when I go out with my skates instead of doing a nice jog, I do it for at least 90 minutes. At the end of the day you work out to loose fat, right?
The second important thing is Muscle strengthening or easier weight lifting. I’m not talking about Bodybuilder like weight lifting, I talk about weightlifting to make sure your body get’s stronger. Cause here is the thing your body will not adjust so easily to changes, food, exercise etc. And it will start to burn the fat on your body, BUT before your body starts to battle that yellow glibber it will go to your muscles first because that is easier. To prevent that from happen you have to train your muscles. If you don’t you might loose weight but you won’t loose fat. Always remember a pound of muscles is only 1/3 of the size of one pound of fat.
You should do weight lifting at least 3 times a week, but not every day. To make sure your muscles stay the same size do 3x15 for every exercise. If you want to gain muscle mass you need at least 6x15 for every exercise.
Something I really advice you to do is getting a gym membership. Doesn’t have to be some fancy ass, expensive place. A simple gym is enough. There they will have the right equipment to make those weightlifting exercises without you having to get creative and make your own and the fact that you are paying money will motivate you to go more often. Trust me, it was one of the best decisions in my life! Just make sure that the people working there really know what they are doing and aren’t some bored, low paid students who would only give you dangerous and wrong advices.
Last thing to be set about exercising is: It get’s better. If you stay consequent and do it every day you will at some point don’t remember how life without exercise was even a possibility. Sure you will have lazy days. but it will become something fixed in your daily routine. Especially if you work out evey day around the same time.
Motivation is something that comes and goes. After a year of trying to get healthy you gonna be not as motivated as in the first few weeks. But if you managed to get to that one year mark you have something else: Determination.
The only advice I can give here is: Never give up. You might struggle, you might fail a few times, but always think were you wanna go and what you already achieved. You don’t want to go back.
Apart from that here are a few tips how I motivate myself
Set yourself a goal every month. How much you want to loose, how long you want to run, how often every week you want to the gym. Maybe even eating vegetarian for the next four weeks if you are not a vegetarian. It can be anything. Just make sure it’s a goal you can reach. (Loosing 20 pounds in four weeks is not a goal you can reach normally)
Throw out those old clothes. When you drop a few dress sizes go and get ride of those gigantic pants and buy yourself some that fits perfect. Looking good will make you feel happy. This goes for normal as well as cloth for exercising. If you feel cute/sexy/adorable etc, when you hit the gym, you will be motivated to do more. So go and buy those neon bright workout pants if that’s what you want.
Before-During-After Pictures. Everyone does them and there is a reason why. If you look back a few month and see how you used to look and how you look now, imagining how you could look in a few months will be easier. they will help you. You don’t have to share them with the rest of the world but if you don’t want to but look at them once in a while to remind you why you are doing this.
Go outside, get some sun. Being in the sun makes us happy (because of hormons but never mind). If you’re feeling good, you will be happier to do your chores every day.
Promise yourself to not step over a certain amount of weight again. I, for example swore to never weight 70 Kg / 154 Pounds again in my life and I’m holding that promise for a year now. Decide those weights for yourself. Mine are 70, 65 and 60. Think about it. The best is to make that promise every 5-10 kgs to yourself. It will motivate you not to slip back.
Weighting yourself / The scale aka your worst enemy
There is not really an advice I can give you about the scale. Everyone has their own preference. Some swear to weight once a week is perfect, some only weight themselves once a month. Personally I hate that. I have to be in control of my weight every day. I weight myself every morning after getting up and every evening before I go to bed. It makes me feel safe to know my weight and write it down in my calendar every day. I am in control that what.
What you need… well you have to figure that out on your own.
Slip ups / gaining instead of loosing
It will happen, I can promise you that. It always happens. People get comfortable and stop to be strict about their diets and eating habits. Hmm sometimes fries just look so good… and sometimes you really just want that pasta dish instead of a salad. Yeah, been there, done that. It happens, you will regret it and then you have to move on. If you don’t it’s the beginning of the end.
It’s okay to have slip ups. It’s not gonna destroy everything you worked for. It’s a slip up and if you are determined you will get over it and come out on top as the winner. Find your motivation, think about why you want to loose weight and go on.
After month, maybe years of sweat and blood and probably a lot of tears you reached the final goal. The question is: what now? You worked your ass off for this, you gave up on so much to be here and now?
Here is a truth you’re not gonna like. Not all your problems will be gone because you hit your goal weight. Nothing will change into a magic wonderland. Life will be life and you have to remind yourself why you did it in the first place. Loosing weight and changing your life is like a bit road trip. At the end you learned a lot and you might be a different person. Someone who decides to go this path, did that because they couldn’t be happy the way they were before. You have to except that you will have to look for your weight and your health for the rest of your life. Starting a weight loss journey is not something that will end, it will change your life forever. There is no going back or all the work will be destroyed in a few month.
If you accept that and you are ready to do one step after another reaching your final goal isn’t that scary anymore. You are still you, but now you are in control. You looks, your life and maybe your love too. Who knows. The world is yours, you just have to decide what you want to do. Make yourself happy now, cause you got all the tools you need to do so.
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