By Fat loss tips have been the most popular topics for years on end. There are multiple sources of information available. I can understand why it’s so hard to pin point the actual wins when it comes to weight loss.
Because I’ve been on this journey for many years, I have developed somewhat of a library of best practices I use regularly, for weight loss and management.
What you need to do is realise that losing weight and maintaining it is most certainly a work in progress. There is a beginning, but no end to this journey. What we all need to do is embrace this fact of life, and do what we can with the resources we know about. Sometimes professional help may be necessary when reaching sticking points.
Hopefully the following tips will help you as much as they have changed my own life and longevity.
5 weight loss tips that actually work to maintain weight loss for life
- Intermittent fasting. This method alone has done wonders for me on a physical and spiritual level. I have diminished the constant inflammation that was occurring in my body, and feel lighter, physically look a lot more strong and toned, as well as experiencing laser clear focus when taking on complex tasks or under stressful environments. This is the result of fasting on a daily basis, alternating between 12–20 hour fasting periods. There is no right or wrong here, it’s whatever suits your lifestyle and can be manageable for you long term. You want to make sure you give yourself the best possible chances of success with this method. Some people also find it beneficial to fast for 3–4 days per week. I personally have not tried this, and am unsure of how helpful it can be for me. I’m quite content alternating feeding and fasting periods on a daily basis. Try both and see what works best for you.
- Eliminate toxic animal products. Just because a packet in the supermarket indicates an animal is raised on a pasture field, eating organic food and freely roaming, doesn’t mean it hasn’t ingested chemicals. Namely antibiotics, or even fed doses of corn, soy and grains. You are what the thing you ate, ate! If you have gut issues or problems with allergies, this could have a profound effect on your weight and health. Poor gut health leads to disease as well as inflammation, and many other health issues. I took control of the way I was feeling on a daily basis, which was not being at my best in any way, eliminating all beef, chicken, pork and all cold cuts to see if this would have any effect. Not only did my inflammation cease, but brain fog disappeared and the constant bloating and uncomfortable symptoms my gut experienced finally stopped happening as often. It blows me away at just how hard this was to pinpoint, and how much of a difference this made to my quality of health.
- Eat an abundance of cruciferous veggies. These veggies should be part of every meal you have, and in large amounts. Give yourself 2–3 cup fulls of these wonderful veggies. Use broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, spinach, cauliflower and cabbage. Of course, there are many more options, so please do have a search online for options available via the season you are currently in.
- Don’t dismiss low impact walking, use it daily. I prefer to walk rather than use public transport, or a car. Walking is such a great tool to use within your daily energy expenditure, because it is easy, low impact and can be done by anyone of any age. Decide now that you will choose to walk to work, take a walk on your lunch break, or even take the stairs instead of the lift. It’s these little things we can do daily, even if it’s a few minutes here and there, that add up to our total energy expenditure during the day. When you want to lose weight, this will give you that small push you need to get there faster. Don’t forget, that you should still work out regularly, and eat well in order for all of these to have a compound effect in the long run.
- Strength train – focus on conditioning with compound movements.These movements include squats, deadlifts, bench presses, lunges and pull ups. These exercises recruit the largest number of muscle fibres, therefore increasing caloric burn and your potential to increase strength and muscle mass. You will get the best conditioning results with these exercises. Make these the main component of your training program at all times.
Split your compound movements according to what body part you are training in a particular day. For instance, use squats on leg day, and adding in lunges to your workout. Legs are the biggest muscle group, requiring huge amounts of energy. Use this to your advantage for weight loss results. The potential for an after-burn is magnified significantly, compared to your biceps and triceps session. Weight training 4 times a week is very manageable.
- Eliminate stressful exercise for good. It’s unnecessary and bad for our health. I was a cardio bunny for years on end. This method of training, although sometimes does give you a ‘ripped look’ it also leaves you feeling depleted, exhausted and wastes away your precious muscle building efforts. Whilst some people are lucky enough not to have to take this road, when trying to lose body fat, most of us have to suffer through a bit of it to eliminate those few extra bits that have been hanging around. Unfortunately, the more we do cardio, the more we have to increase our intensity, in order to expend the same amount of calories. This leads to complete overtraining and possibly just giving up.
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