Whether you’re obese or just want to get rid of the extra pounds and tone up your body, losing extra body weight can be exhausting and intimidating. Sometimes the extra fat will refuse to budge no matter how regularly you exercise and make dietary changes.
At that point, you’re likely to lose hope and surrender to fate if nothing changes. But before you throw in the towel, here are the 9 best ways to kick-start weight loss so that you can start seeing real changes.
Why You Need to Lose Weight
Having a few extra pounds of body weight is normal, but if the extra weight stops you from performing ordinary tasks and living a healthy life, you should find ways to get rid of it immediately. Too much body weight is unhealthy and can lead to severe complications, including death.
Even if your excess body weight doesn’t cause health concerns, it can affect you physically and socially. Here are the main reasons why you should lose weight.
1. Enjoying a Good Night’s Sleep
What you eat has a direct effect on the quality of your sleep. So, if you’re used to staying awake throughout the night and waking up in the morning feeling exhausted and confused, you need to check your diet first. Also, your diet is directly related to your overall fitness.
If you’re used to consuming too many carbohydrates without working out, the excess starch is stored in your body as fat, causing your weight to increase. The excess body fat will prevent the circulation of fluids in your body and cause you to sweat excessively at night. All these complications will prevent you from falling asleep, leave alone enjoying your sleep.
Losing weight will reverse this and improve the quality of your sleep. When fluid circulation in your body improves, you’re able to relax and fall asleep easily. You’ll also feel well-rested when you wake up.
2. Minimizing Joint Pain
Those extra pounds put a lot of pressure on your joints, causing frequent joint injuries and inflammations. Your knees and ankles are the first casualties because you use them to stand, walk, and perform other important activities like sports.
So, if you’re overweight, your knees and ankles will always be under immense pressure, leaving them susceptible to injuries. Losing the excess weight will reduce the risk of joint inflammation and pain thus improving your performance.
3. Improving Your Productivity
Lack of quality sleep affects all other aspects of your life, including your productivity at work. So, you could be getting so many warnings from your boss for poor performance just because you’re not getting enough sleep at night due to excess body weight. If that’s the case, get rid of the excess weight and watch your productivity shoot back up again.
4. Boosting Your Health and Well-Being
Your excess body weight could be the reason why you fall sick easily and always feel gloomy. When your body stacks up too much fat, it creates a domino effect that negatively affects every other area of your life, including your physical and psychological well-being.
Therefore, losing the extra pounds will automatically improve your immunity, allowing your body to fight off opportunistic infections and chronic illnesses more effectively.
5. Improving Your Social Life
Many people struggling with excess body weight have low self-esteem and don’t like to socialize because they feel like they’re being judged. It’s so embarrassing to be the only one soaked in sweat at a wedding reception, family get-together, graduation party, or any other type of social gathering.
Getting rid of the extra fat in your body can reduce sweating, allowing you to socialize without feeling like you’re the odd one out.
6. Boosting Your Confidence
Are you always embarrassed to stand in front of people because of your protruding belly and layers of love handles? If so, the best way to win your confidence back is to get rid of the fat. When you shed off the excess weight and get back your youthful contour, your poise to stand in front of people will automatically increase.
7. Improving Your Memory
When you’re overweight, you’ll find yourself forgetting even the simplest things like names and numbers. The excess weight weighs down not just your physical body, but your mind too. Studies have shown that sugary foods and drinks disrupt how your brain creates new pathways when learning new things and experiences.
So, when you cut down on your sugar intake, your brain cells become more active and can easily create more fresh pathways for new experiences and memories.
9 Best Ways to Kick Start Weight Loss
For so long, people have been made to believe that working out regularly is the only effective way to lose weight. However, modern research has revealed that exercise is just one of the many effective ways to lose weight. Here are the 9 best ways to advance your weight loss journey.
1. Eat Your Breakfast
Some people think they’ll lose weight by skipping their breakfast. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. So, eat your breakfast before you go to work or start your day.
A full, well-balanced breakfast is one of the most important meals. But this doesn’t mean that intermittent fasting and an early morning cardio routine on an empty stomach don’t work. In short, you shouldn’t start your day on an empty stomach if you’re not fasting.
2. Regulate Your Meals
A study by the NHS has revealed that eating regular meals helps to burn more calories. So, plan your meals and avoid snacking. For instance, if you take three meals a day, stick to that schedule and avoid snacks in between. This gives your body enough time to burn calories.
3. Eat a Lot of Low-Calorie Foods
Since your goal is to lose excess body weight, you have to reduce your calorie intake by adding more low-calorie foods like vegetables and fruits to your diet.
4. Adopt an Active Lifestyle
It’s very difficult to lose body weight if you spend most of your time sitting down or lying down. You need to be active to keep your heart rate high. An active lifestyle also boosts metabolism, enabling your body to burn more calories.
Being active doesn’t necessarily mean spending hours in the gym; instead, it could mean walking for 30 minutes every day, taking the stairs instead of using the elevator, jogging in the morning, or any other form of physical activity that raises your heart rate.
5. Stay Hydrated
If you aren’t keen, it’s very easy to mistake thirst for hunger. So, before you grab a snack when hunger bites, start with a glass of water. You might be surprised to learn that the glass of water was all you needed. So, drink enough water to keep your stomach full and avoid consuming excess calories when you’re hungry.
6. Add Fiber to Your Diet
High-fiber foods like fruits, vegetables, and unprocessed carbs take longer to digest thus keeping your stomach full for a long time. That way, you won’t have to eat snacks in between your meals. The fewer snacks you eat, the less weight you’ll gain.
7. Avoid Processed Sugar
Processed sugar is one of the main causes of obesity in the world today. Unfortunately, most packaged foods have processed sugar. That’s why you should never purchase any food items from the store before you read what’s on their labels.
8. Avoid Junk Foods
You have to quit junk food if you want to lose weight. There are no two ways about it. Most of these foods are made with processed sugars, carbs, and other high-calorie ingredients, and are usually deep-fried and sweetened. Replace them with healthier options like fruits, salads, rice cakes, oat cakes, juices, etc.
9. Reduce Alcohol Intake
Alcohol contains large amounts of processed sugar, which causes rapid weight gain. So, if you want your weight loss journey to bear fruit, cut down on alcohol.
How to Find Inspiration to Lose Weight
Gaining weight is easy but losing it is an uphill task full of pain and disappointments. But with consistency and determination, you’ll get the results you desire. Here are tips on how to stay motivated.
1. Make It Your Everyday Purpose
Start by establishing concrete reasons why you have to lose weight. Then make those reasons your daily motivation. It’s easy to get up and hit the gym when you clearly understand why you’re doing it.
2. Keep Your Expectations Realistic
Sometimes those extra pounds around your waist might prove to be stubborn even after doing everything right. This can be demoralizing, especially if you’ve spent a lot of time and money on special workout and dietary plans. To avoid disappointments, have realistic expectations.
For instance, start by losing 1-2 pounds a week. Then increase your weight loss targets as you progress. It’s unrealistic to expect to lose 10 pounds in one week.
3. Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome
It’s very easy to lose hope when you pay too much attention to the outcome instead of the process. For instance, if you want to lose 10 pounds in two weeks, you’ll feel demoralized when you realize that you’ve only lost 2 pounds in the first week. So, instead of focusing on the number of pounds you’ve lost, you should focus on what you need to do to lose those extra pounds.
4. Choose a Weight Loss Plan That Suits You
Although there are so many simple and effective weight loss plans out there, not all of them suit your lifestyle. It’s very difficult to achieve your desired result with the wrong plan. So, if you’re using a diet weight loss plan, talk to a nutritionist for advice on the best plan for your lifestyle.
5. Celebrate Your Small Wins
Always monitor your progress so that you can know if you’re making progress. Record your progress and find time to celebrate the achievements no matter how trivial they may seem. This will motivate you to keep going.
6. Get Social Support
The weight loss journey is full of highs and lows that can leave you demoralized. So, you need to identify a reliable source of social support. Positive comments and words of encouragement from your family, friends, and colleagues will keep you motivated to achieve your weight loss goals.