Everyone who is new to losing weight and even some people who have tried before tend to make losing weight so much harder and punishing than it needs to be. Going at it with an all or nothing approach, saying they are going to train five days a week when they do zero to one days now, or saying they are going to eat healthy food only and throwing their favourite foods out of the window making
them feel miserable. This is the worst approach to take, yes you will get great results to begin with but is this achievable long term? No, is it enjoyable? No. You will soon burn yourself out from trying to change too much at once, because you have gone naught to one hundred from the start. How do you plan on increasing the intensity a month or two down the line once your body has adapted? This is when people throw in the towel and give up because they are drained from crazy amounts of exercise and sick of broccoli. Another reason people tend to fail is because they become sick and deflated from eating healthy food, they grab their favourite treat, a doughnut which is around five hundred calories for example. Because of this they already think they have failed so the give up and then binge. In reality, a doughnut here and there is perfectly okay, all you need to do for the rest of your week is lower your daily food intake to make up for these extra calories. By lowering your diet by one hundred and twenty-five calories a day over the next four days you are back on track and happier due to rewarding yourself with your favourite treat. Look to only make one to two changes a time when starting your fitness journey for instance I suggest the first thing you do is to download a calorie counter app, set yourself up into a calorie deficit for your height, weight and daily activity levels. If you do no exercise at all another change to start off making at first is to go out just for a five to ten minutes power walk every day, helping yourself get into a routine. From doing this you will start getting used to winning by meeting your two goals, not losing by trying to go gym five times a week when you struggle to even do it twice. Its simple changes like these that really make the big difference and make things much more sustainable in the long term. You can still enjoy your favourite foods without sabotaging your diet by making it fit into your daily calories. For instance, the other night I really fancied some breaded cod but two pieces alone where nearly six hundred calories!! and I only had seven hundred calories left for the day and that’s before I added any vegetables or carbohydrates, but I really wanted them. All I had to do was leave out any carbohydrates I was going to have and just added some mushrooms to the meal. And this is how I came up with the idea for this blog, I could have beat myself up about it like people do and just thought screw it I’ve haven’t stuck to my chicken, rice and vegetables today I might as well eat what I like and start over again tomorrow. But all I needed to do was remove some calories from that day and I am still on track and enjoyed the meal I wanted.
So, there you have it, losing weight doesn’t need to be as punishing and as gruelling as you think, just think smart and make small changes as the weeks go on and you will see weight reduction. Once you stop seeing results decrease the calories and increase your training intensity and you will be back on track once again. I hope this has been helpful and makes achieving your goals simpler and more enjoyable.
Thanks for reading, eat and train smart 😊