So you’ve decided to lose weight — but this time, it will be for good, right?
Because the truth of the matter is you’ve lost weight a number of times but haven’t been successful in keeping it off for the long term, despite going on multiple diets and exercising on a daily basis.
Well, what you’re about to read may help you to understand why dieting and over-exercising isn’t the answer.
How to lose weight permanently
#1 Reduce Stress
Chronic stress is a MASSIVE stumbling block to permanent weight loss. No matter how ‘clean’ your diet is, or how many calories you burn, if you’re stressed, you’ll struggle to lose weight. This is because:
- Stress can increase your appetite and cravings for unhealthy foods
- Stress releases a hormone called cortisol which promotes body fat and makes it harder to lose weight, especially around the stomach
- Chronic stress causes inflammation in the body, which is a key cause of chronic disease. Inflammation also makes it difficult for you to lose weight
- When you’re stressed your sleep suffers, which leads to higher levels of hormones that cause you to feel hungry even if you don’t need to eat.
- And of course, many people use food or alcohol to try to soothe their stress, which only leads to more weight gain.
We all know that gaining weight makes you feel bad about yourself, which also causes more stress!
Learning how to deal with stress, and how you can reduce the amount of stress you’re under, will help with weight loss.
#2 Get more sleep
Sleep deprivation can change the hormones that regulate hunger and appetite. This can increase your appetite and lead you to eat, even if your body doesn’t need the food. In addition, lack of sleep creates more intense cravings for foods high in fat and sugar. And we all know that when we’re tired, we’re more likely to reach for the easiest thing — think fast food or that 3pm chocolate bar.
Stress and sleep also work hand in hand. Stress leads to poorer sleep and not enough sleep causes you to feel stressed. By tackling these two things head on, you’ll go a long way to helping your body get to a state where it will want to burn fat.
#3 Reduce alcohol
Alcohol consumption can also make weight loss difficult. Not only is alcohol high in calories, but it also increases your appetite. Studies have shown that even just 2 or 3 drinks can increase your food consumption by 30%! Alcohol can also impair your ability to develop muscle and recover from exercise. If that’s not enough to get you to put that drink down, alcohol also interferes with your sleep — and remember how we said that lack of sleep, and the stress this puts your body under, will also slow down your results?
#4 Move more
No, we don’t mean exercise more. We mean move more. That means increasing the amount of movement in your day, mostly from incidental exercise or low-intensity activities.
Incidental exercise is movement you get throughout your day. Think about walking up the stairs instead of taking the escalator; getting off the bus a stop earlier and walking the rest of the way; or hanging out the washing instead of putting it in the dryer. While these may seem like small things, they will add up over the day.
In addition, focus on doing more low-intensity activities such as going for a walk, swimming, riding a bike, playing golf, going bowling, playing with the kids or any other activity that doesn’t seem like ‘hard work’. Low-intensity activity can help you recover from training sessions and can even help relieve stress. And we know how bad stress is, don’t we!?
If you weren’t aware of how much stress, sleep deprivation, alcohol consumption and lack of movement impact your weight loss efforts, hopefully the above has helped shed some light.
But if you’re among those who know they need to improve the four areas mentioned above, ask yourself why you’re not doing it?
Is it because you don’t know how? You don’t have time? Or perhaps you don’t have any accountability?
#5 Accountability
Being accountable is the 5th thing you need to start doing if you want to lose weight permanently. It doesn’t matter how much you know about the correct way to lose weight, you’ll never ‘get around’ to doing what you need to do, unless you have someone to be accountable to.
Accountability is one of the most powerful tools you can use when you want to achieve anything. It’s why even the most successful business people, or the best athletes use coaches.
If you’ve been successful in losing weight in the past, but not successful in keeping it off, maybe accountability is the tool that you lacked.
At Imani Tribe we provide structured accountability for all our clients, so they can continue to do the things they need to do to achieve permanent weight loss, without being overwhelmed or confused. This means that they always know the next step they need to take in order for them to keep progressing.
Adding accountability into your weight loss efforts means that you’ll not only have someone pushing and supporting you as you work towards your goals, but you’ll never get caught up focusing on the wrong things, or making the same mistakes over and over again.
Many people are afraid to make themselves accountable, but accountability will bring the results and freedom that you’re currently craving.
If you’re ready to be accountable for your weight loss efforts this time, why not join us?
