At Dr. Joya Women’s Healthcare, we work closely with each patient on lifestyle changes that will enable sustainable weight loss over time. At our center, these lifestyle adjustments include eating healthily, restricting carbs intake, lifting weights regularly and staying hydrated; staying hydrated; receiving adequate restful sleep and avoiding emotional eating as part of our plan to help sustain long-term weight loss.
Dieting to successfully lose weight requires creating a caloric deficit, meaning eating nutritious whole-food diet and getting sufficient sleep.
1. Eat a Balanced Diet
Diet changes that gradually shift your habits are the best way to sustainably shed pounds and shed inches off over time. Instead of turning to quick fix diets that promise quick success, prioritize sustainable strategies like cutting calories from meals you prepare at home and cutting out empty ones altogether.
Making healthier, satisfying meals doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply replace high-calorie junk foods with fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins instead. If it is impossible for you to eliminate all processed food completely from your diet, try creating healthier versions of your favorite dishes such as baking them instead of frying or breading them – for example if your favorite recipe calls for frying fish or breading chicken
Reduce your caloric intake by ditching sugary beverages like soda and sweet tea for low-cal beverages like water and sparkling water infused with fruit for a refreshing low-calorie alternative. When it comes time to eating, take your time sitting down and focusing on each bite, which will help you feel full more quickly, avoid overeating and have time to truly appreciate every mouthful! It is also essential that you eat a variety of foods because your body requires various vitamins and nutrients in order to remain at its optimal state of health.
2. Exercise Regularly
Many people make resolutions to get more exercise, only for these resolutions to fall by the wayside by March. If they truly wish to successfully lose weight and keep it off for good, making exercise part of daily life must become part of their lives and their plans.
An effective approach to getting more physical activity may involve gradual changes and gradually adding more activity over weeks or months. Aim for at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity each week (such as walking) plus two strength-training sessions each week.
Exercise offers many other health advantages beyond helping with weight loss, including improved mood and reduced blood pressure, more energy and restful sleep. Plus, when exercising you burn lots of calories – just as when dieting it’s important to count both sets – so if you walk briskly for one hour you could expect to burn around 100!
3. Get Enough Sleep
Sleep is just as critical to weight loss as eating healthily and exercising regularly, since skipping it can set off a chain reaction of poor nutrition choices, emotional eating and increased caloric intake and weight gain. Furthermore, chronically low levels of sleep may cause the brain to produce less leptin than usual and more ghrelin instead – making it harder to feel full and control your appetite.
Studies show that people who don’t get enough rest tend to crave sweet, salty and fatty foods more frequently due to a decrease in activity in the frontal lobe which plays a part in decision-making and impulse control. Lack of sleep also causes your body to produce more ghrelin and less insulin leading to fat storage in your cells.
Researchers discovered in one study that when sleep was denied for four nights, participants produced higher amounts of hunger-inducing ghrelin and consumed more calories from sugary, salty and fatty food compared to those sleeping 8 1/2 hours per night. Furthermore, those deprived also lost more muscle mass than sleepers did.
4. Avoid Emotional Eating
Emotional eating occurs when food becomes a means to manage uncomfortable emotions. While occasional use as a pick-me-up or reward can be fine, when food becomes your primary way of responding when feeling upset, stressed out, sad, angry, lonely or fatigued it becomes problematic. Eating as an automatic response makes controlling it even harder.
Emotional eating often stems from feelings of powerlessness and an inability to control urges or negative body image issues, with participants of one study reporting high levels of concern that emotional eating could lead to other problem behaviors like drug and alcohol use for comfort or emotional regulation.
Locating the source of your emotional hunger can help break the cycle and stop feeding your feelings. A great place to start is keeping a food and mood diary; record everything you eat, how it makes you feel before and after, as well as any triggers for cravings. Next, practice using other coping mechanisms as opposed to food when feeling down; for example writing, talking with friends, or going for a walk may all help relieve feelings more effectively than eating alone.
5. Stay Positive
Maintaining positivity when struggling to lose weight can be challenging. Tracking any factors obstructing your success and devising plans to overcome them may help, such as tracking stress-induced eating or skipping workouts which leads you to bingeing or other triggers which lead you down an unhelpful path – identifying and controlling these can help make weight loss more achievable!
Readjusting your mindset is also essential in maintaining a healthy diet and exercise regime. Recognize that your worth does not depend on body size; accept that all forms of beauty exist and love yourself no matter the form you take. Though changing body image takes time, taking small steps and celebrating progress along the way will keep your motivation up for the journey ahead.
Staying focused and patient when making sustainable lifestyle changes requires patience, not instant results. Enlist the support of friends or family who know about your weight loss goals as this can serve as an accountability partner and offer comfort during times when things may get challenging.
