For many people, dieting is hard because although they might know what they want to achieve and what the process generally entails, it remains an abstract concept with no clear, actionable steps to follow. They’re unsure of where to begin and what to primarily focus on. If this is a problem you’re having, I’ve compiled five habits to lose weight that you should implement in your daily routine right away.
Of course, this isn’t an overnight process that will have you seeing instant weight loss. Many of these habits sound simple, but they can take a while to fully integrate into your life. Don’t force yourself to adopt all of these to their full extent right away, as that can be very overwhelming and disruptive. Instead, gradually layer these habits into your routine, and if done so correctly, they’ll make losing weight a lot easier and more achievable.
1. Counting Calories
As much as counting calories can be annoying and burdensome, the truth is that it’s vital to weight loss. It’s not something you necessarily need if you’re just trying to eat healthier or improve your eating habits, but if you specifically want to burn fat, there’s no effective method that doesn’t involve keeping track of your calorie intake with some degree of accuracy.
Your body can only lose weight if you consistently achieve a calorie deficit for an extended period of time, but becomes extremely difficult if you’re only going off of how you’re feeling without actually knowing how many calories you’re consuming. How full you are throughout the day isn’t a reliable measure of how much you’re eating and whether or not you’re on track to achieve a calorie deficit, so if you’re consuming varying amounts of calories every day and not always staying in a deficit, the harsh reality is that you’re not going to see any meaningful weight loss.
2. Planning Your Meals
Given that being aware of your calorie intake is a necessity when it comes to losing fat, I strongly recommend that you plan out your day’s meals in advance, or at least have a general idea of what you’ll be consuming for every meal. This can help you better manage your calorie intake throughout the day and set your expectations for what you need to do in order to stay in a deficit. Otherwise, if you don’t have a plan for where your calories will be coming from, you’ll be more likely to overeat during meals and snack too much between meals, all of which can easily contribute to weight gain.
Meal prepping is a great way to plan and prepare your meals ahead of time so you can meet your dietary goals, but even something as simple as knowing in advance that you’re going out for dinner with friends can help you reduce your calorie intake from the rest of your day so you can enjoy yourself while still meeting your dietary goals.
3. Not Eating After a Certain Time
One of the hardest parts of dieting is dealing with late-night cravings and urges to snack right before bed. Even if you’re on track to stay in a deficit for the day up until the evening, giving into these urges can make all of your effort go to waste by ultimately putting you in a calorie surplus.
To prevent this, set a time in the night after which you’ll commit to not eating anything. Once this time starts, don’t let yourself consume any more calories for the rest of the day. It’ll likely be grueling to fight off those inevitable cravings in the beginning, so check out some of the best tricks and tactics I like to employ.
On top of that, I’d also recommend going to bed earlier. More sleep is always beneficial, but as it specifically relates to this context, sleeping earlier in the night as opposed to staying up late means those cravings will have less of an opportunity to come around, or at the least, you can reduce the amount of time you have to deal with them.
4. Eating Breakfast
It’s a common practice for people who are trying to lose weight to skip breakfast and implement an intermittent fasting routine. I’ve previously discussed why intermittent fasting isn’t always an effective approach for achieving weight loss, and in general, I don’t recommend skipping breakfast when you’re on a diet.
If you’re properly sticking to a calorie deficit, then you’ll likely be pretty hungry in the mornings. By not having breakfast and letting this hunger continue to build, not only are you more likely to overeat throughout the rest of the day, but it can be a severe distraction and impairment to your productivity.
As long as you have a plan that allows you to stay within a calorie deficit, you should be eating consistent meals throughout the day, including breakfast.
5. Weighing Yourself Consistently
Because weight loss occurs so gradually, it’s very hard to gauge your progress simply by staring at yourself in the mirror. Therefore, you should weigh yourself on a consistent basis, whether that’s every day, every few days, or even just once a week. Doing so will help you determine if your approach is working or if you need to tweak certain aspects of your routine so you can stay on track to meet your weight loss goals.
There’s no need to obsess over the scale reading, since day-to-day changes in weight aren’t necessarily directly related to changes in body fat. However, if you’re doing the right things and effectively burning fat, your weight will generally trend downwards over time.
To give you an idea of what you should expect, a healthy rate of weight loss is about 1-2 pounds per week. Even if your weight isn’t consistently dropping every day, which it most likely won’t, as long as this seems to be the overall trend from week to week, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.
Still Finding It Hard to Lose Weight?
This post hopefully gives you an idea of what’s actually required on day-to-day basis to achieve weight loss, and provides you with concrete steps so you can start making meaningful progress in this regard. Having said that, even if you know what to do, fat loss can still be a tricky process to navigate, as you might not always get the results you were hoping for or expecting.
If you’re finding yourself in a situation in which despite seemingly doing the right things, you’re still not getting great results, check out a recent post in which I discuss why you might be struggling to lose weight.
