Five Weight Loss Strategies

Looking for strategies for weight loss? Read this blog below! We serve patients from Laurel MD, Maryland City MD, South Laurel MD, Ammendale MD, Savage MD, and surrounding areas.

There are thousands of fad diets, hundreds of weight loss programs, and outlandish scams promising quick and easy ways to lose weight. Despite the gimmicks, the the basis of successful weight loss remains a slow and steady, healthy, calorie-controlled diet, along with increased physical activity and changes in unhealthy behaviors. Making small lifestyle changes and adopting healthy habits will catapult success and build confidence during your weight loss journey. The question is, how do I go about making those long-term changes? In this article, we’ll discuss five powerful strategies that you can follow to achieve your weight loss goals successfully.

1. Be Committed

It takes a lot of time and effort before you reach your long-term weight loss goals. What is important is your readiness to make permanent changes and also ensure that you are doing it for the right reasons. Prior to your commitment to lose weight, you need to be focused. A lot of physical and mental energy is required to change your habits; therefore, when planning new lifestyle changes associated with losing weight, it’s important to establish a plan to manage other stress in your life, such as financial problems or relationship conflicts. While these tensions never wholly disappear, managing them should improve your ability to focus on a healthier lifestyle. Once you are ready to start your weight loss plan, set a start date, and then begin.

2. Monitoring Your Diet and Exercise

In the event that you have decided to lose weight, taking note of what you eat and drink on a daily basis is very important. One of the best ways to achieve this is by recording all the items you consume; you can make use of a journal or an online food tracker. In 2017, researchers revealed that about 3.7 billion health applications were downloaded at the end of the year. Among the most popular of the apps were apps for diet, exercise, and weight loss. There is a good reason for doing this, and this is due to the fact that tracking physical activity and monitoring weight loss progress is an effective approach to weight management. A few of our favorites monitoring apps are Fitbit and My Fitness Pal.

3. Eat Mindfully

The benefit of mindful eating is that it helps to control those habits that can make you consume extra calories – for example, eating snacks in front of your computer, nibbling on your child’s half-eaten meal, or hitting the bottom of a popcorn bag while watching television. One simple strategy for mindful eating is: slow down. Do not rush, use enough time to chew your food thoroughly, and also try to put your fork down between meals. The benefit associated with this is that it will assist you in enjoying your meal and also increase the feeling of nourishment and satisfaction.

4. Set Realistic Goals

The fact is that setting a realistic goal towards weight loss will decrease the likelihood of failure. The question then becomes what is “realistic?” as you continue with your weight loss program, the best thing is to aim for losing one to two pounds (0.5 to 1 kilogram) per week. Generally, before you can lose one to two pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1000 more calories than you consume every day, this can be achieved through a lower calorie diet and regular physical activity.

It has been found that a 5%-10% weight loss can have significant health benefits. This range of weight loss can help reduce the risk of life-threatening health problems, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. For example, if you weigh 180 pounds (82 kilograms), 9 pounds (4 kilograms) of weight loss could make a significant difference in improving your health.

When you are setting goals, it is important to take note of two parts, which are the process and outcome goals. An excellent example of a process goal is walking every day for 20 minutes. While losing five pounds is an example of an outcome goal. It doesn’t matter what you have as an outcome goal; making your process goal leads to changing habits and is a vital part to losing weight.

5. Eat Lots of Fiber

Consuming lots of fiber can increase your sense of fullness, potentially leading to weight loss. Dietary fiber are food substances obtained from carbohydrates which are of plant origin; fiber cannot be digested in the small intestine, unlike sugar and starch. Some good examples of foods that contain a significant amount of fiber include:

– Fruits and vegetable
– Peas, beans and legumes
– Nuts and seeds (like flax and chia seeds)

At Custom Made Weight Loss we believe strongly that prevention is better than cure. We have been in this practice for years, and the experience we have gathered shows that weight loss is a key source of disease prevention. Being overweight can lead to life-threatening health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, and many other illnesses. By changing how we adapt to our lifestyle, many of these diseases can be prevented, controlled, or completely eliminated. Weight management can be a huge source of frustration. Dealing with failed diets, repeated weight gain, and weight loss year after year is enough to make one want to give up.

That’s why we are in the best position to help you. We have a team of experienced professionals that can provide a complete and customized weight loss program, with a holistic approach, designed to help you achieve your weight loss goals. Our program will help alleviate your frustration! Some of our services include weight loss medical advice, comprehensive health assessments, meal planning, physical activity strategies, weight management medications, B-12 injections, and more! To find out more about our personalized plans and how we can help you get back on track schedule your initial consultation below.

Live well!
The CM Weight Loss Family