The Best Lifestyle Changes For Weight Loss Shared By 80 Fitness And Nutrition Experts

The best lifestyle changes for weight loss are the ones that you can hold on to all the time, not only when you are trying to lose weight.

Most people have an idea about what they do to lose weight, but they are still struggling to achieve their goals due to unhealthy diets which oftentimes feels like they are starving themselves and inconsistent or incorrect workout plans.

To avoid all these issues, you must adopt healthy habits that you can integrate into your daily routine.

We reached out to 80 fitness and nutrition experts and asked them to share their insights regarding this topic.

The question we asked them was:

What are the best lifestyle changes for weight loss?

We asked:

Michelle Thielen – Yoga Faith

The best lifestyle changes for weight loss are to move more and consume less. Begin to think of food as fuel. Only consume the fuel that your body is going to use. If you’re not going to burn the fuel, don’t consume it.

Have a sweet tooth? Replace unhealthy treats with healthier options such as tea or a mint (my go-to is Black Chai Tea).

Hydration is key. Fill up a gallon jug in the morning to measure how much water you are drinking. Aim to drink a gallon of water per day. Oftentimes your hunger is only dehydration.

Make getting out in nature nonnegotiable. Unplugging from all gadgets and breathing in fresh air is good for your soul. Notice your surroundings each time (no earbuds or air pods), enjoy the sounds of nature and the colors all around.

Declutter physically, mentally, and relationally. Declutter your car, home, and other spaces so that your mind, body, and spirit can also lighten up. Do you have any toxic relationships? You’ll want to remove those as well.

Schedule a treat day or meal. Have a treat on Sunday afternoon to practice moderation and not depriving yourself of your favorites.

Meditation. Allow time to connect spiritually and check in with your internal landscape daily, even if for 5 minutes each morning.

Ted Kallmyer – Healthy Eater

The single, best lifestyle change that you can make to lose weight is to get in the habit of tracking your food intake.

Most people eat without thinking about what and how much they are putting into their mouths each day.

If they get hungry, they eat and keep eating even when they feel full. All this mindless eating leads to weight gain and often out of balanced nutrition.

By getting in the habit of tracking your food, you begin to become aware of exactly how much you are eating and how those foods are contributing to your overall balanced nutrition.

When many of my clients begin to track, they are amazed at how much they have been eating without even realizing it. Especially calories in liquid form.

This awareness is one of the first steps in taking control of your diet, establishing a safe calorie deficit, and losing weight in a way that’s sustainable.

Luckily, our modern technology has made food tracking so simple. There are many great smartphone apps that you can use to start making food tracking at habit.

Most of the time it’s a matter of just scanning the barcode of the food you’re about to eat and the app will automatically retrieve its nutrition and enter it into your food log.

Once you get in the habit of tracking you can then set some nutrition goals to follow each day so that your body will start to tap into its fat reserves for the extra energy it requires.

No, you will not have to track food the rest of your life, but just long enough to make you a better intuitive eater.

Food tracking will train your brain to be a better judge of food portions and how much you should be eating for your body type.

Overall, being aware of what you are eating is so powerful and will start making you think about the food you are putting into your body. Food tracking is a method that will increase this awareness fast!

Summer Yule

Honestly, the best lifestyle changes for weight loss tend to be the simplest.

Try to get more physical activity into your day and figure out the pattern of nutritious foods that help you feel full longer while maintaining a calorie deficit.

For many of us with a goal of fat loss, meals should be based around lean protein and non-starchy veggies.

You don’t necessarily have to give up starches and high-carb fruit to meet a weight loss goal, though some do well with low-carb diets.

It’s important to remember that you won’t necessarily get the same results simply copying the strategy someone else is using to lose weight.

The best changes for you might not be what is best for someone else.

Robert Herbst – Weight Lifter

Changing your lifestyle to lose weight and become healthier need not be a burdensome and horrible experience. Rather, there are simple things you can do and you will actually feel better as you do it.

Especially, during the pandemic and with the prevalence of Zoom meetings, many people sit the whole workday.

Sitting more than eight hours a day has been found to be as much a morbidity factor as smoking and changes the metabolism so that it is easy to put on the pounds.

The cure for sitting too much is to add standing and moving into your day. Stand during phone calls–in fact, I refuse to do meetings over Zoom and instead talk on speakerphone so that I can pace around.

If you are tied to your computer, get a standing desk or a slow treadmill one If you must sit, set the alarm on your phone or computer and stand and stretch for five minutes every hour.

You should also drink more water. This will make you feel full so you will not munch on junk and empty calories.

It will also prevent you from being dehydrated from spending the day in heated or air-conditioned buildings which have low relative humidity.

Speaking of drinking, watch things at your favorite premium coffee shops. Some of their drinks have as many calories as eating 10 Oreo cookies. Instead of a venti frappuccino, try an exotic tea with lemon instead.

Finally, get some sleep. You should get seven and a half hours of sleep a night. Sleep helps your body to recuperate from exercise and prevents obesity. It may even protect the brain and prevent you from suffering dementia down the line.

Tommy Vekhayn

The best lifestyle changes for weight loss, in my opinion, is to actually get involved with extracurricular activities like sports, clubs, or even just hanging out with friends.

This may sound strange but – hear me out. When you sign up for a local kickball group (which is actually surprisingly common) you’re going to be getting a great workout 2-3 hours a few days a week.

And during that time, not only are you burning a ton of calories, you aren’t eating.

The most COMMON problem across all of my clients that are trying to lose weight is that they all eat just because they are bored. I used to do it too.

It’s super easy to put on something on Netflix or YouTube and just eat because you have nothing else to do- and that’s normal. That’s how our body works!

Your body wants you to eat when you are resting and watching TV, it’s a part of our parasympathetic nervous system.

This is because when you aren’t actively exercising, it’s a great time for your body to use energy to repair muscles and repair general damage that happens every day in your body.

It’s a crucial part of our survival, we humans used to not have such a surplus of food- so our body wants any food it can possibly get to increase our chances of living.

So, now we need to take this part out of the equation- boredom.

When you add an activity into that window, there is less time for you to just be boredom eating, and furthermore- it will have you burning more calories for later.

After I get done with my bodybuilding, work, and MMA class, I can eat roughly 3,000 calories and still LOSE WEIGHT! That’s right, I need to eat SO MUCH MORE than normal people do just to LOSE WEIGHT!

I know many of my clients would absolutely love for something like that, to not have to eat less than usual and still lose weight. The truth is, you can do it too- just sign up for some fun recreational sports league and start watching the pounds fly off.

Lastly, it’s not just the weight loss that makes this so awesome. You’ll be making new friendships, you’ll be having a ton of fun, and you’ll be way happier.

So, sometimes the best way to lose weight is just actually by having fun and screwing around for a few hours playing some sports with some friends a few days a week. Sounds great- doesn’t it?

Keep reading to see what the experts had to say.

Original post on expert roundup: https://becomeapersonaltrainer.org/best-lifestyle-changes-for-weight-loss by