How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off in 9 Steps?

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

Losing weight is challenging, but once you get the hang of it, the results of your hard work are rewarding.

However, a large percentage of people that go on a weight loss diet eventually end up regaining weight a few years down the line.

It could be due to failure to maintain restrictive diets or depending entirely on weight loss diet plans without working out.

Another reason is that our bodies react differently to various diets based on heredity and other health issues. Weight loss diet plans are not a one-size-fits-all remedy.

Whatever works for one individual might not always work for another.

9 Ways to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

You can lose weight and keep it off for as long as you can. All you need is commitment, patience, self-love, exercise, and eating the right diet.  

Here is what you should do to lose weight and keep it off permanently.

1. Eat a Nutritious, Well-Balanced Diet

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off – Eat a Nutritious, Well-Balanced Diet

Minding what you should and should not eat must be the first thing to consider about maintaining your weight loss.

One of the main reasons many people gain weight after a successful run is that they follow a weight loss diet for a specific period, and after the end of the diet plan, they go back to fad eating.

Even after a 30-day weight-loss diet plan, you should continue restricting your diet to certain foods.

The foods to avoid or limit are:

Carbs and Sugars

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

Carbs and Sugars

Though you can occasionally treat yourself to your favorite carbs and sugars, ensure that they do not become part of your daily meal plan.

Carbs and sugars contain hundreds of calories that quickly add back to your weight. Moreover, eating high-carbohydrate meals leads to insulin release into the bloodstream. 

Insulin restricts fat cells from releasing fat for the body to burn as fuel resulting in weight gain.

Unhealthy Fats

Dietary fat is vital for maintaining good health. It provides you with energy and aids in the absorption of vitamins by your body.

However, certain forms of fat may contribute to the progression of cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, unhealthy saturated fat contains many calories that might contribute to weight gain.

What You Should Eat

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

What You Should Eat

If you want to maintain your weight loss, you should instead replace carbs, sugars, and unhealthy fats with fiber-rich foods such as non-starchy veggies, fruits, whole grains, and beans.

Some weight-loss diets such as the Whole30 Diet and the Mediterranean Diet, can also help you choose the right foods to help maintain your new weight.

2. Start Your Day with a Healthy Breakfast

Start Your Day with a Healthy Breakfast

 Starting your day with a fruit and cereal breakfast helps keep hunger pangs at bay, improve your metabolism, and give you energy.

You can also make a veggie soup or salad. Leaving you filled means that you will not have any food cravings before lunch, thus helping to maintain your new weight.

3. Eat Small Portions of Food

The trick to eating smaller food portions is by serving in small cups and plates to make your food portions appear larger. If you use large bowls, you might have difficulty assessing the amount of food you are putting into your system.

4. Exercise

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off – Exercise

Eating healthy is not enough to maintain your weight loss unless you also work out to burn any extra fat.

Besides burning fat, workouts help to improve your new look and metabolism. You do not even need an hour for exercise. 10-20 minutes a day are enough to make you physically active to maintain your weight loss.

5. Get a Weight-Loss Partner

You will never go wrong with a cheering squad to remind you why you chose to lose weight in the first place.

A cheering squad or partner helps keep you on the right track if you veer off. Support can come from friends, a weight loss support group, or family.

6. Get Enough Sleep

Sleep deprivation increases your appetite, causing you to crave more food than you would normally do.

It also prevents you from feeling content, causing you to need more food because there is nothing else to do.

Lack of sleep can also harm your drive, so try to get at least eight hours of decent sleep every night.

Always eat your meals a few hours before going to bed because going to bed when you are filling too full might lead to sleep deprivation and indigestion.

7. Weigh Yourself Regularly

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off

How to Lose Weight and Keep It Off – Weigh Yourself Regularly

If you are trying to lose weight without losing your mind, the weighing scale should not be your friend.

However, if you are trying to maintain your new weight, a regular check on the scales will help you to know if you are on the right track or you are receding.

8. Sustain From Emotional Eating

Sometimes we eat not because we are hungry but because we are upset or stressed about something. Emotional eating derails every diet plan you have set up for weight loss.

If you feel anxious and want to snack in between meals, do something else, like reading a book, exercising, or watching your favorite movie.

Once you recognize your emotional triggers and avoid them, you will be in a better position to keep your new weight.

9. Love Yourself

Love Yourself

Self-love is very important when you are on a weight loss journey. First, you need to live up to your objectives or the reasons you started the journey in the first place.

Find something that motivates you so you can forget about your weight. More importantly, remember that you are also doing it for your health, and you should eat what your body needs to lose the extra pounds.

Final Thoughts

Losing weight and keeping it is challenging for many people. Many give up after a while and slowly go back to where they started.

You need to change your diet and maintain it for the longest time possible.

You also need to do away with foods that trigger weight gain, such as high carbs, unhealthy fats, and processed foods, among others.

Most important, you need to keep reminding yourself why you started the weight loss journey in the first place.

See Also

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