Many different diets claim to have the secrets to losing weight and keeping it off. But the reality is that healthy weight loss comes down to making permanent changes in your habits and lifestyle.
Start with one or two small changes, like eliminating regular soda and adding in 10 minutes of walking every day. Gradual, steady weight loss will help you stay motivated and prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.
Exercise
Exercise is an important component of a weight loss plan. However, it is often oversold. Many people believe that they can lose a lot of weight simply through exercise alone. However, most studies show that exercise is not effective for significant weight loss without reducing caloric intake. However, exercise does provide a wide array of other health benefits including sharper thinking, better mood, lower anxiety and depression, stronger bones and muscles and reduced risk for heart disease, diabetes and cancers.
Exercise is important for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and is essential to keeping excess weight off once you have lost it. It can also be a great way to relax, reduce stress and improve sleep. Ideally, exercise should be fun and something that you enjoy so that you will stick with it over the long term. Some great exercises to try include walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming and yoga. These exercises burn calories but are low impact and good for those with injuries or joint problems.
Healthy Diet
A healthy diet is one of the most important pieces of a healthy lifestyle. It should be high in whole foods and low in processed foods (anything that comes out of a box), sugars, salt and unhealthy fats. It should also provide adequate amounts of protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, including the “good fats” found in fish, olive oil and nuts. It should allow for occasional treats and be balanced so that you are eating a variety of food. It does not have to be restrictive or boring, but it does need to include a good amount of exercise and stress management. Talk to a registered dietitian for specific recommendations on diet for health.
For example, for breakfast, you could eat bran flakes with strawberries and walnuts and nonfat milk or wholemeal toast with sliced avocado.
Stress Management
Stress is a normal part of life, but too much can be a problem. When it comes to weight loss, excessive stress can make it difficult to lose weight or keep it off. This is because of the impact of high cortisol levels on metabolism and appetite, as well as poor eating habits, such as skipping meals and binge eating when stressed.
Stress can also interfere with sleep, which is critical for maintaining a healthy weight. This can lead to a vicious cycle of not getting enough sleep, which then makes it harder to resist junk food cravings and unhealthy eating behaviors.
Stress-relief strategies that include exercise and mindfulness practices can help lower cortisol and improve self-control over unhealthy foods. If these are not effective, psychotherapy can teach coping skills that promote long-term stress management and healthy weight loss.
Sleep
Modern medicine’s understanding of sleep is like a partially assembled jigsaw puzzle. It’s known that you need to sleep, that your body conserves and stores energy while you’re asleep, and that short sleep duration increases your risk of obesity and metabolic problems such as Type 2 diabetes.
Studies show that sleep deprivation affects the balance of appetite and satiety signaling hormones by increasing leptin and ghrelin while suppressing orexins, which help control hunger. This imbalance results in cravings for ultra-palatable foods, excessive calorie consumption and weight gain.
In a recent study, 80 adults who received sleep hygiene counseling and went to bed an hour earlier each night consumed 270 fewer calories a day than they did when they continued their normal habits. This daily decrease in calorie intake is significant enough to cause a significant amount of weight loss over time. In addition, the people who slept more burned more fat and less muscle while dieting, which is ideal for maintaining a healthy weight.Viktminskning
