Heather's Hard Learned Tips on How to Lose Weight (Part 2)
So you've decided to lose weight and maybe try keto. Are you eating 20g of carbs a day and finding yourself at a stall? Here are some more tips to get your weight loss back on track.
8) Know your why. You need a deep and meaningful answer to "why am I doing this?" Dieting is going to be very uncomfortable, sometimes physically and emotionally painful. There will be days that you think you cannot go on and want to cheat and go back to your old ways. Go back to your why.
9) Track your food in some journal. Make sure you are achieving a caloric deficit. Write down everything and don't lie. Weigh and measure. Find a few meals you can eat regularly and just bang that out repeatedly.
I like to use MyFitness Pal but keep in mind there is some bad user uploaded data in there so be careful. The US National Weight Loss Registry is a database of individuals who have sustained significant weight loss. Almost all of them keep a food diary.
I personally have had a hard time accepting that I need to write down my food, but it's a chore I am willing to undertake if it means I can avoid becoming obese again.
10) Manage your food environment so that off-plan food is not at your house/office. It's very difficult to eat X in moderation for most people. Food that combines multiple features of fat/starch/sweet/protein/salt are highly addictive.
Don't beat yourself up for not having the willpower to resist, instead don't have it around. The longer you abstain from addictive food, the less you want it. Some good reading on this is the work of Stephen Guyenet on and his book, The Hungry Brain
The same goes for unsupportive people. You may have to reduce your exposure to unsupportive people or ones who try to enable you to overeat or make poor choices.
11) Butt in chair and food on plate. Eat like a normal person and don't do that squirrel eating.
12) Find some other way to calm down and cope with stress, celebrate joy that doesn't involve food rituals.
9) Track your food in some journal. Make sure you are achieving a caloric deficit. Write down everything and don't lie. Weigh and measure. Find a few meals you can eat regularly and just bang that out repeatedly.
I like to use MyFitness Pal but keep in mind there is some bad user uploaded data in there so be careful. The US National Weight Loss Registry is a database of individuals who have sustained significant weight loss. Almost all of them keep a food diary.
I personally have had a hard time accepting that I need to write down my food, but it's a chore I am willing to undertake if it means I can avoid becoming obese again.
10) Manage your food environment so that off-plan food is not at your house/office. It's very difficult to eat X in moderation for most people. Food that combines multiple features of fat/starch/sweet/protein/salt are highly addictive.
Don't beat yourself up for not having the willpower to resist, instead don't have it around. The longer you abstain from addictive food, the less you want it. Some good reading on this is the work of Stephen Guyenet on and his book, The Hungry Brain
The same goes for unsupportive people. You may have to reduce your exposure to unsupportive people or ones who try to enable you to overeat or make poor choices.
11) Butt in chair and food on plate. Eat like a normal person and don't do that squirrel eating.
12) Find some other way to calm down and cope with stress, celebrate joy that doesn't involve food rituals.
13) If you think you have a binge eating disorder, please get some professional help around that. Up to 30% of people who struggle with obesity also have a binge eating disorder. I've heard good things about the book Brain Over Binge by Kathryn Hansen.
14) One of the best books I've read on dieting is The Diet Fix by Dr Yoni Freedhoff. He really lays out healthy habits you need to develop to recover from obesity -- home cooking, meal planning, learning maintenance calories, exercise, smart restaurant eating, planned treats and so on. He runs an obesity clinic in Canada and this book is the capstone of his research after years of trial and error. I listened to the audio book and he wraps it all up for you with 10 habits to learn and master.
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