You might consider weight loss or just improving your health as one of your top aspirations.
But what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your last attempt at healthy living or weight loss? If the first word that comes to mind is “failure”, let’s start to change that.
If you can only maintain your healthy regimen for a week or two, you might just need to make some small adjustments to achieve success. Here are 10 Daily Practices for Health and Weight Loss. Apply these regularly along with a sensible diet and lifestyle to create habits that will make a big difference in your long-term success.
Have a clear understanding of why you’re improving your life –
When you start a new health journey, you’re full of motivation. But that motivation can wane at times. Before you go to bed at night, write down why you are making these positive changes. Then read what you wrote upon waking in the morning. Being clear of the rewards in change will help you keep your promise to yourself throughout the day.
Find your source of relaxation –
You need to handle stress to achieve weight loss. Excess stress hormones can be integral to helping your body stay in fat storing mode. Develop a meditation practice, take a yoga class or write in a journal while taking a bubble bath (Just don’t drop your journal into the water!) Do what you need to do to keep your stress level down.
Drink lots of water –
Being properly hydrated can help you with health and weight loss in multiple ways. First, thirst is often confused with hunger which leads to overeating. Second, dehydration creates inflammation in the body which will make weight loss impossible. How much water should you drink a day? Divide your weight in pounds by 2. That number is the number of ounces you should drink daily.
Find a partner in crime –
A group is always stronger than its individuals members. And for weight loss, getting advice from others can be invaluable. Hit a roadblock? Need a great diet approved recipe? Advice from someone who has successfully gotten through that same obstacle can be helpful. You can also find support in online forums, so take advantage of those if you’re missing your own partner in crime.
Think like a turtle thinks –
It feels great to drop 5 or 6 pounds in a week. But not only isn’t that healthy, the results usually don’t last. Slow and steady is the way to go. Weight lost quickly compromises health and creates a stress induced imbalance that leads to weight gain. If you want results to last, exercise patience. Lose a pound or two a week and those pounds are much more likely to be lost forever.
Create ways to enjoy the journey –
You can think of creating a healthy lifestyle as work. Or you can look at it as an opportunity. This is a time in your life where you get to focus on you. It is a time to nurture yourself in new ways. Take time to focus on your hopes and dreams. Without food to camouflage your feelings, you can discover what you find really valuable.
Eat regularly and nourish your body –
Calorie counting is so 1995. If you want permanent weight loss, your attitude should be to nourish, not to deprive. There should be no saving your calories for the evening or skipping meals. When you wake in the morning, have a plan for when you’ll be eating during the day. Skipping meals can make your blood sugar plunge which will often be followed by a night time binge.
Find a new hobby –
Does the thought of going to the gym make you want to run into your bed and hide? Then you’re thinking of exercise all wrong. Working out doesn’t have to mean running on a treadmill or repetitions of weights. Try ice skating lessons at the community college. Or enjoy a tai chi class from Youtube. Perhaps you’ve always secretly wanted to tap dance. Find something you enjoy and you’ll stick with your exercise routine.
Throw out your scale –
The scale is one of the worst thing for those trying to lose weight. It doesn’t distinguish between fat, muscle, and even water weight. And while it’s super exciting to see that you’ve lost 5 pounds, it can be equally discouraging to see you’ve gained a single pound. And that extra pound can derail you if you’re easily discouraged. So put the scale away and focus on how your clothes fit, and more importantly, how you feel.
Understand your real hunger –
You won’t find a healthy regimen that will help if you have an unresolved emotional hunger. If you’re eating the wrong foods to help comfort uncomfortable feelings, it might surprise you that your real problem isn’t your diet but those unresolved feelings. Work through them with a psychologist, a minister or even a trusted friend. This is one of the most important daily steps for your journey towards a healthy future.
Great post, Erica! This is really helpful. I like that you mentioned that if you don’t like going to the gym, find something else to do. I tend to get bored of workouts really easily so I have to change it, at least, every season. It helps me keep moving. I also have noticed that if I do conscious eating (which means for me to take several small bits and really chew and enjoy the food) it helps me stay present while I am eating. It also helps my stomach digest better too. =)
Sabrina, I think that is a great point about changing your workout when you get bored. If it isn’t fun anymore, find something else! There are so many options out there.
Great advice for losing weight. The one about finding sources of relaxation is important to me. It is too easy to turn to food when I get tired or stressed.
I’m glad you take time for relaxation, Donna. That is so important and so many of us look at free time as a luxury, not a necessity.
Great post, Erica. We all seem to battle with the bulge. I find that keeping healthy snacks close at hand and easily accessible is the key to my success. If it ain’t easy to access, my sweet drawer always is, and we know her that leads!
I’m the same way Doreen. If I don’t have healthy snacks available, I’ll make worse choices.
Fantastic post, Erica. It is especially important to stay focused on why you want to make these changes, what drives you, and how you can make it fun. You covered all the most important points!
Thanks Michele. I think that staying motivated is so important for any change.
Great tips!
I have dipped in and out of healthy eating fads over the years. They worked for the time and then I slipped off once I met my goal. I now use Nutracheck and log my calorie intake and my fat intake. I drink mainly water, no sugar in tea, I avoid carbohydrates with meals. Low carbing works for me – have not eaten bread in 5months!
That’s great that you’ve gone easy on the bread. That is a hard one for many to give up.
Erica, learned something new again. I never before heard about dividing your weight by 2 and that is how many ounces of water you should drink a day – for me that would be 58 ounces so a little over 7 cups. Interesting and it makes sense that I wouldn’t need as much water as a 200 lb. person to stay hydrated.
As I’m sure you know, Lenie, you also have to adjust for exercise, caffeine intake and alcohol intake. All of those are dehydrating. So you have to drink more water to compensate. They say that you need two glasses of water for every 1 glass of alcohol or coffee on top of your normal allowance.
I had a laugh at myself as I read this. I realized that almost everytime I read one of your blog posts it has some small immediate effect on me (even if it doesn’t always last). In this case, I started reading, then got up from my computer desk and went downstairs for a glass of water.
That made me laugh Ken. Honestly, I start drinking more water once I start writing about it too. It is just so easy to forget.
What a terrific post Erica! In particular, what I do is 2 of your tips here: I drink water – all day long. And I there was an online quiz I just took and discovered I am an emotional eater. For me, it was the validation of what I intuited. However, now having this confirmed has me on alert for the times I might THINK, “gee I need a snack.”
I think so many of us are emotional eaters, Patricia. It is great to be aware of it and stop yourself when you’re eating ONLY out of boredom. or an emotional need.
Great tips Erica. I am so bad when it comes to drinking water. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the benefits, it’s that I just don’t think about it. For example I’ve been working at my desk most of the day and there’s a jar of water sitting on the credenza right next to me and I haven’t taken a drink out of it yet. I need to come up with a trigger of some kind to remind myself to take a couple of gulps now and then. Thanks for the inspiration!
Marquita, you can set an alarm to go off in your phone every certain amount of time. That way you can give yourself reminders to drink water. I forget too when I get super busy.
Gradual weight less is definitely a more admirable goal than trying to lost five or more pounds a week. I watched my mom do that constantly as a kid and then be continually frustrated that the weight wasn’t staying off.
My mother was the same way. She always thought it was because she wasn’t a disciplined person. It is part of why I get so passionate about telling people that they don’t have a flaw, they were just on the wrong diet.
Erica I love your health post they really get to the core of loosing wt. Just this week I was telling my boss mot to deprive herself but to create balance…and that exactly what you speak about (Eat regularly and nourish your body – Calorie counting is so 1995. If you want permanent weight loss, your attitude should be to nourish, not to deprive.) I LOVE IT! WILL BE SHARING THIS with my boss.