The Ultimate Weight Loss Guide for Overweight and Obese People

Whether you have a few pounds to lose before your summer holiday or your weight issues seem insurmountable and impossible to overcome, you are reading this because you’ve made a conscious decision to do something about your weight concerns!

Demi and I want to show you that it’s possible to lose weight naturally and healthily; and through our Ultimate Guide to Losing Weight, you’ll begin to shift the pounds, change your attitude to food and fall in love with your body.

This guide, and our ethos, is all about losing weight the right way… Healthily! There really are no gimmicks, quick fixes or magic pills that are going to make you lose weight quickly or keep that weight off over a long period of time

We are here to show you that you can lose the weight you want to lose and then happily and healthily keep that weight off for the rest of your life.

Here’s the thing. Losing weight doesn’t need to be difficult and it shouldn’t be but for some it just is! And it usually is because we make it so, and that’s annoying frustrating and self-sabotaging in achieving your weight loss goals!

However, there is ONE PERSON that will stop you from negative thoughts and self-sabotage, and guess what? That person is YOU!

You are the only person that can get you where you want to be. Demi and I are here to give you the resources, we will guide and direct you, but you are the only person that can make the dream happen.

Sometimes life can get hard and it’s easy to let go. But remember, following the tips and tricks within this weight loss guide will help you to start feeling better about yourself again and motivate you to keep shedding those pounds.

Honestly, there is no better present than somebody telling you how good you’re looking and what fantastic shape you’re in!

So if you’re okay with that then let’s dive in.

We just wanted to add that when designing this guide we didn’t want to go too deep into the science of weight loss, instead we wanted to teach you what you need to know to take action and start losing weight pronto.

Things to know before you start losing weight with our weight loss guide

Losing weight is a journey that can be a long process and take time and effort. If you’ve only a few pounds to lose then a ‘fast fix’ is fine. However, if you have much more weight to lose here are a few considerations to keep you focused and motivated along the way.

1. Everyone is different. What worked for your friend Heather won’t necessarily work for you. Discover what does work for you and stick with it. It has to be something you can see yourself succeeding at long into the future.

2. Exercise isn’t a given. Focus more on your diet and when you feel ready to start exercising then begin to build it into your daily routine. The chances are that as soon as you change and improve your diet you’ll begin to feel more active. Exercise is a great way to accelerate the weight loss process and build a healthy body, but only when you’re ready to include it in your routine.

3. Be prepared for weight loss fluctuations. As you progress through your journey there will be times when your weight may increase or stay the same. And when you weigh yourself there may not be the dramatic loss you had been expecting or hoping for; also bear in mind, if you are female, your monthly cycle will affect your weight.

So please don’t panic or overstress about it. Many factors contribute to why, for example, one week you can lose 3lbs and the following week gain a pound in weight. If you do choose to weigh yourself daily or weekly understand that your weight will not necessarily have dropped every time you step on the scales.

As long as you are on a downward trend over the months then you know you are on to a winner.

4. Commitment, discipline, and consistency. These are going to take you far. Motivation will help at the beginning but it only lasts so long. 

Know that you will have highs and lows but as long as you can pick yourself up and keep on track then everything will be just fine.

Make the diet and exercise routine you put in place become your habit through a commitment to changing your diet, having the discipline to that change, and consistently working towards your weight loss goals

• Related – How To Lose 50 Pounds Fast

How your body loses and gains weight

It is really important to understand how your body works so you are better equipped to manage your weight in everyday life.

In a nutshell, to lose weight you need to burn more energy over a given period than the energy your body needs. Typically it’s calories in vs. calories out that determines if you lose or gain weight.

Calories in = food and drinks

Calories out = the major players are physical activity and your BMR (Basal Metabolic rate), or the minimum rate at which your body uses energy at rest to continue existing.

At the end of the day, week, month or year if you are in a calorie surplus you will gain weight. If you are in a deficit you will lose weight.

Notice how I said day, week, month, year. That’s because it’s important to look at the bigger picture and not be overly concerned by the small gains or losses you make day by day.

Assuming you are losing just fat, there are 3500 calories in one pound of fat, Each week you consume a surplus of just 500 calories through over eating, if you multiply that by 52, you have a yearly surplus of 26000 calories, which works out to 7.4 pounds of fat gained!

You can then see how just having a slight surplus over time can add up to a big weight gain. Or flip it and reduce your calorie intake and you have a great loss.

7 pounds might not seem a lot now but it will when you’ve gained it and wished you were a stone lighter had you reduced your weekly calorie intake by 500.

Make that a 500-calorie-a-day deficit and that’s about 50 pounds a year. Reduce your intake by 500 calories a day and that’s about 50lbs a year! Make that a 500-calorie-a-day deficit and that’s about 50 pounds a year.

So if you struggle to maintain your calorie intake every day don’t get stressed about it. Recover and make sure that the next week or month is a good one and that, overall, you consistently maintain a calorie deficit.

Getting stressed will only make you gain more weight as you’ll see in a moment.

In this post – how many calories a day you need to eat based on how active you are and we showed you the calculations needed to discover what your calorie intake should be. This gives you a good idea of how many calories you burn a day so all you need to do is eat less than that.

Simple. Err NO, if it was the case then nobody would be asking how to lose weight.

The truth is, we are not robots and our bodies aren’t machines. We have emotions and life stresses that make us do things we sometimes can’t control….SO

Why you might not be losing weight

There are metabolic issues that could be afoot that are hindering your weight loss results.

For the case of this weight loss guide, we will assume you are generally in good health and will only touch on a few of the more common issues that could be affecting your weight loss, especially if you have been overweight or obese for a while and struggle to lose weight.

Hormones

Maybe you’ve heard this before, or maybe you haven’t, hormones play a huge role within our body by telling it to do certain things.

Insulin

Insulin helps to keep your blood sugar at a safe level. It allows cells to store sugar in your muscles, liver and fat for later use.

Insulin is very important, without it cells will begin to malfunction.  

You may have heard of insulin resistance, this is a term for when your body no longer responds to the insulin hormone.

Your body can still create insulin however the cells in the muscles and liver are no longer being as responsive to it. This leads to increased fat storage as the sugars have nowhere else to go. So insulin shunts sugar to fat.

Over time insulin resistance can lead to pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes (1).

The current view of type 2 diabetes is;

1. you overeat
2. you gain weight
3. you become insulin-resistant
4. you struggle to lose weight and subsequently gain more  weight
5. over time this develops into type 2 diabetes

Source ourpath.co.uk

So what can you do to tackle this problem? It seems to lie in weight gain, simply by losing weight should do the trick and we go one step further it is most likely that sugars found in carbohydrates need to be reduced or swapped for healthier choices.

For example, choosing a carbohydrate with a low Glycemic index such as lentils or beans would certainly be gentler on your insulin levels than a high Glycemic index food such as potatoes or white bread.

Stats taken from International Tables of Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Values: 2008

Leptin

This one is a beast of a problem. Leptin is the hormone that when you eat it tells your brain you feel satisfied and full, you’re not hungry anymore, stop eating.  

The problem is, that it’s produced by fat cells.

In itself, that isn’t an issue. Being overweight means you have lots and lots of the hormone Leptin being produced but why are you not feeling full?

It’s believed that you either become Leptin resistant or raised insulin levels (which is common in overweight insulin-resistant people) is blocking the Leptin signals to the brain.

As a result, you feel hungry, crappy and just want to eat more, you feel low on energy because your body thinks you need energy so you don’t exercise and you laze about.

It’s a horrible place to be.  This could be the reason you struggle to lose weight.

What can you do about it? Something!

Don’t let that be an excuse not to set things right. Stick to a long term healthy and balanced eating regime. Including fitness or generically being more active. This will over time help tackle your body’s hormone imbalance.  

• Related – Exercises To Lost Belly Fat Fast

How to lose weight

I’m going to tell you that to lose weight you need to eat healthy and be more active, just as the doctor said.

It’s mainly about changing or making changes to your lifestyle to give you the best shot at reaching your goal. Always think about where you want to be and how you’ll get there.

A quick fix will help you get started but your main goal is to plan ahead so you are living the lifestyle needed to always be at a healthy weight. At the end of the day, all we want is to be healthy and happy with our body.

Below is your guide to ways you can make that happen.

We’ve split the ultimate guide to weight loss into sections to help you better digest the information. Click each section if you want to jump straight to it.

• Eating and Food Tips to Lose Weight
• Exercise and Activity Tips to Lose Weight
• Physiological and Social Tips
• Action Steps

12 Eating and Food tips to lose weight

What should a beginner do to lose weight? Diet may be the easiest place to begin.

These are some tips to help you make better choices when deciding what to eat to lose weight. Most of your success, if not all, is through eating better.

Use these tips to help guide you.

1. Diet products

Such as sugar-free drinks, yes, they are zero calories, however, they are still full of toxins.

The artificial sweeteners used in such products can lead to blood sugar metabolism issues. Sure they taste good, I won’t lie but, do you really want to put these toxic chemicals into your body.

For faster weight loss why we recommend that you begin switching your sugar-free drinks over to water. Your body and skin will thank you.

2. Fat-free products to lose weight

Fat-free products sound great but what you may not know is that fat isn’t the enemy.

Fat helps you feel fuller. Healthy fats are good for you. Eating whole healthy fats found in avocado, olive oil, nuts, and oily fish. It will help you lose weight.

A lot of the “FAT-FREE” products are still full of sugars and artificial ingredients that should ideally be avoided. Sugar most definitely should be limited as this is one of the biggest contributors to weight gain and insulin resistance.

• Related – How To Quit Sugar For Good

3. Whole natural foods for fat loss

Natural whole foods help you feel more satisfied and less full. Sugary processed foods do the

 Opposite as they are metabolized faster by the body.

It’s also quite difficult to overeat when eating natural food which is always a bonus if you have feeling like you are starving yourself.

This means making your own meals, no ready meals, no fast food no crappy food. Just whole foods made at home or mom where you know everything that went into it.

4. Calories in Drinks

I still have to tell my clients about this one. Calories drunk add the pounds faster than you think some drinks actually are in fact higher in sugar than many more commonly known “treats” like cookies and chocolate bars. The food you know is bad for you.

I hear you, water is boring it doesn’t taste nice or it doesn’t quench your thirst.

Listen, it’s just because you are not used to it. When you start drinking water all day every day you’ll notice your taste buds change, you will start to like water, not as much as Coca-Cola but you won’t mind it.

You can always try adding slices of lemon or cucumber to it to make it taste nicer.

5. Alcohol

While we are talking about drinking calories I thought I’d mention alcohol.

Alcohol isn’t calorie-free, while there are low-calorie options as we discussed here in our low-calorie skinny cocktail guide, alcohol has more than one effect.

Apart from temporarily making you feel relaxed or content, alcohol also stops the metabolism of certain nutrients in the body including fat!

Alcohol as you may have experienced usually leads you to food. As you get slightly merrier your inhibitions go out of the window and you say to hell with it if I want chips I will have chips.

As you can see alcohol isn’t great for helping to lose weight, in fact, it could be the reason you are not losing weight.

6. Snacks

This goes two ways, when you get too hungry you are tempted to reach for a quick fix, something like a chocolate bar or junk food.

So be sure to avoid getting hungry by carrying around healthy snacks with you. Something to get you through to your next meal.

7. Eating frequency

Eating frequency is a topic we have a love-hate relationship with. What works for one person doesn’t always work for the next.

We promote 5 to 6 meals a day for optimal performance for both fat loss and aiding your fitness goals.

Eating every 2-3 hours helps to reduce your hunger between meals as you know you have all your meals and snacks prepared which stops you from reaching for something bad that could ruin your day.

Too many times my clients have said they ate a piece of cake at work and that threw them for the whole day (bad mentality to be in). Being hungry and knowing that in an hour you have a snack ready to eat will help you avoid eating badly.  

• Related – How Often Should You Eat For Weight Loss

8. Carbohydrates

We are okay with carbohydrates but there is a huge possibility that is what made you gain weight over the past months/years.  Whether it’s from refined sugars or general overeating reducing your sugar content is always a great place to start when trying to lose weight.

You want your body to burn more fat for energy and the best way to do that is by drastically reducing carbs.  You don’t have to cut them right out unless you want to.

Some people can cope without them whereas others just can’t live without them, if this is you then start by reducing them day by day and see how you get on.

As a general rule, you should only be having them with your main meals, that’s breakfast lunch, and dinner. Snacks should be nearly carb-free.

Our free 7-day food plan here is a great place to start to see what that diet plan would look like.

9. Protein

As you may have noticed people are finally starting to pay more attention to protein.

Partly because everyone is telling you to reduce your carbs so what else is left, protein and fat.

Protein helps your body grow and repair cells and in particular muscles, it’s an essential nutrient. If you are exercising you want to produce muscles that are really efficient at burning energy. Doing exercises and workouts that encourage this. As a result, you need to feed them protein to help them grow and become more efficient.

Protein also takes time to digest which makes you feel full, and if you’ve cut your carbs you’ll need something to help you feel full.

10. Intermittent fasting

I’m hoping this isn’t totally new to you, if it is we have a great post on it here called Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss.

There are many people that rave about how powerful intermittent fasting can be for helping you lose weight. In a nutshell, you fast for a set amount of hours and then have an eating window. There are various ways to do it but one of the most popular ways is the 16/8 fast. You fast for 16 hours and then eat within an 8-hour window.

This would look like this, start fast at 8pm end fast at 12pm, and eat between 12pm and 8pm.

The science behind fasting suggests that those extra hours in the morning help produce more fat-burning growth hormone, put you in a fat-burning ketogenic state, and increase brain function among many more.

Whether these positive effects are that effective is something you will have to find out for yourself. In our opinion, intermittent fasting is a great way to control how much food you eat.

If you can eat for only 8 hours compared to the usual 12-16 hours which most people do in a typical day you stand a much much higher chance of simply eating less.

I am guilty of eating out of boredom, when I do intermittent fasting I hardly ever eat out of boredom, I’m not hungry and I naturally eat less.

So just for that reason, it’s worth doing.

11. Specific diets

Keto or The Ketogenic Diet is huge at the moment. It works wonders for many people. The problem is whether or not it has longevity.

The aim of the Keto diet is to put your body into a ketogenic state to burn fat, its great but doing it for a long time can be harmful. This is particularly bad if you have diabetes as it can trigger s condition called ketoacidosis. Left untreated and this can be fatal. So always ask your doctor first!

It doesn’t teach you healthy eating habits either with meals laced with cream and fats. To the untrained meals consist of meat and fat, yes some recipes do include veg but the emphasis isn’t on that it’s on the fat and meat. They ignore the fact that you need vegetables for vital vitamins and minerals not to mention fiber.  No fiber equals Keto diarrhea.

Long term, people can’t sustain it and when they do fall off the Keto train they go back to carbs and guess what, the weight piles back on.

Diets like this that restrict carbs are good for up to about 6 – 8 weeks and then you switch onto a healthy balanced diet.

We are all up for cutting the carbs for some fast weight loss. So if you have weight to lose, Keto or something low carb in nature is good in the short term and then after 6 weeks begin to introduce carbs back into your diet. It doesn’t have to be much and make sure you still eat plenty of vegetables.

This will give you a better shot at long term weight loss and then maintaining that weight long into your old age.

12. Prepare your meals

It goes without saying that if you fail to prepare you will ultimately fail in your quest to lose weight over and over again in the long run.

It starts with you taking the time to find out the meals you enjoy that are good for you. What we mean by that is, are they healthy, are they made with all-natural ingredients with a good macronutrient makeup that you would be looking for.

Pinterest is an amazing place to start, we’ve actually got multiple boards with plenty of meal ideas for you that you can see here plus the following posts detailing a few breakfast, dinner and snack ideas to get you started.

• 7 Clean Eating Breakfast Ideas For The Week
• 8 Healthy Dinners To Help You Lose Weight
• 14 On The Go Snacks

Once you have discovered or decided on meals for the week ahead it’s time to write them all down, go grocery shopping, and then make the choice to make ahead or make as you go.

One of the main benefits of planning ahead is that it takes away any temptation for you to skip that meal and go for the meal you really want but know you shouldn’t but do anyway because that’s just how you feel at that moment.

Having your lunch already prepared will make you less likely to make that bad choice.

And believe me, you will be tempted to eat badly along your journey. remember these three points Commitment, consistency, and discipline? They are what will carry you through to achieving your goals. Eating the right food at the right time will help you do just that.

You should check out our post “how to meal prep” if you haven’t done it before.

3 Exercise and Activity tips to lose weight

It goes without saying that working out is a major contributor to you losing weight, but how you go about that will be different for everyone.

I know it sounds silly but you don’t have to go crazy out of your way to be more active.

Can you do some squats while you brush your teeth in the morning and evening (you’d better be brushing both morning and evening)? 

Can you take the stairs rather than the elevator? You get the idea.

1. Cardio

Cardio or cardiovascular activity is a good idea if you are new to exercise and are generally unfit as it will help increase your aerobic fitness, making your heart and lungs stronger.

From a weight-loss perspective, cardio is a good way to also burn extra calories from fat and carbohydrates and get that calorie surplus down.

On top of generally being more active in your day-to-day activities, can you dedicate 45 minutes a day to run, walk, cycle or swim, whatever, for solely to doing that?

If you can it will help burn lots of extra calories and put you in a better place both mentally and physically.

2. Resistance training

Lifting weights.

Can you just lift weights and lose weight? Yes of course you can, it just might be slower than doing something like circuits or HIIT.

Any movement requires calories or energy to make it happen. The more you lift the more calories you will burn to make it happen. That is why using weights during your workouts and always trying to lift heavier weights is important.

Another important reason to lift weights is that as you gain muscle and you will if you are a beginner (women, you will not pack it on like a dude unless you take steroids), your muscles will burn more calories while you rest. Bonus!

It’s also a nicer way to train, traditional weight training is more manageable and doesn’t make you feel like you are about to die, unless you are going for it on a heavy legs day.

If you are quite overweight, carry injuries, or don’t fancy jumping around then resistance training could be your best option.

If you do decide to go down this route aim for a minimum of 3 days a week combined with some cardio for the fastest results.

3. Do HIIT

If you really want to accelerate your fat loss then High-Intensity Interval Training or HIIT could be the to-go. Do HIIT 3-4 days a week to get rapid fat loss results. Assuming you don’t have any mobility issues.

It can be done in a short time, from 4 to 30 minutes, workouts are usually fun and fast-paced with an emphasis on compound moves that burn the most amount of calories.

We have a load of HIIT workouts here to suit all levels.

What are the considerations if you are severely overweight, or obese?

Being overweight naturally puts more stress on your joints and you have likely weak joints already, maybe your knees hurt, and maybe a lot of things hurt.

This is a sure sign that you need to lose weight, the last thing you want is to need surgery because your joints have worn away due to you being overweight.

If you do suffer from some joint pain or discomfort it’s always a good idea to check with your doctor before starting any vigorous exercise routine. If this is the case simply walking as much as you can would be a great starting point.

As the weight falls off, and it will once you get going, you will feel so much better. The pains will reduce and in some cases, they will go, you’ll become more mobile and in time start doing some fun home workouts or even in a gym and consider getting a trainer.

However, in our experience if you don’t have any mobility issues, your joints don’t hurt when you bend them, your back isn’t stiff and you generally feel good doing exercise then you should be okay doing some basic workouts like these here and then progress to harder workouts as you get fitter.

As much as we love fitness, it’s there to make you feel better and live a healthier life. If it’s causing you multiple injuries then find something different to do. Fitness covers so many different forms, there’s something for everyone.

Psychological and Social

As you will be well aware, losing weight isn’t just eat less but moving more. You have a brain, a life, a family and friends and this little devil that sits on your shoulder influencing certain decisions you make.

Life isn’t straight forward and there will be many times when something comes up that makes you eat bad or miss your workout. Our children are a great example. Our youngest sometimes crawls into our bed, some nights we sleep well others he’s a right pain.

Naturally, we don’t sleep as well, we are tired we don’t want to workout and we certainly don’t want to eat well. So we all have things in our lives that help or hinder our chances of losing weight.

Your job is to be aware of them and not let them get in the way too often.

Junk food rewards

Okay so you’ve had a good week and boy are you looking forward to that takeout at the end of the week as your reward for being so good?

Err, what, so here’s the thing. You need rewards for your little wins but can it be done differently and not with junk food?

It’s natural to want to reward yourself with junk food, especially as you’ve been eating so well for the last 6 days. But you need to break that habit. Whether you can prolong it so it’s not so often, maybe it’s once a month or can you replace it entirely with something more healthy, or not food at all.

Can you tell yourself that once you’ve lost so many pounds you buy yourself a brand new pair of expensive jeans using the money you would have to spend each week on a takeout?

Can you put your “reward” meal money away in a jar until you’ve reached your goal weight or transformation to pay for a day out with the family?

Try to change the way you reward yourself so food isn’t the reward. Chances are it’s that bad relationship with food that got you here in the first place.

And I promise you after you fight the urge, you will have a better relationship with food.

Don’t starve yourself. It’s not a long-term sustainable way to lose weight. Your body will cling to fat so you don’t starve. It makes you hungry and more likely to binge. Focus on improving the quality of the food you eat.

Hunger

Knowing when you are hungry and when your brain is telling you that you are hungry are two different things.

A good way to control hunger is to plan your meals through the day so you know what’s coming and when. If you get hungry you just have to say no, my next meal or snack is at whatever time you’ve planned it and you just wait until then.

Over time your body will adjust to either not feeling as hungry or knowing when a meal is about to come.

Think logically sometimes, how can you be hungry you just ate and you’ve been sitting at your desk all morning. Not the most strenuous task.

Maybe you’re not hungry at all, maybe you’re just thirsty.

Feeling guilty for eating bad

You need to stop that bad relationship you have with food. It’s where part of the self-sabotage comes from. As I motioned earlier when I said one client ate cake at work and then it threw her off her diet for the rest of the day.

Don’t let that happen, sure you ate cake, big deal. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You can still do this it’s just one bad thing.  Just make sure the rest of your meals are good and we can brush it under the table. Nobody needs to know.

Turn something bad into something good. You ate something you think is bad for you, don’t feel guilty. Use that as motivation to make sure you eat well for the next few days.

Remember weight is gained over weeks, months and years. Don’t let one meal on one day get into your head and ruin the rest of your journey.

Stress

When you are stressed your body responds by going into what is often termed the fight or flight mode.  

It tries to survive therefore it puts important things such as Fat metabolism and muscle building on hold as it prioritizes the things you need to survive.

So if you are continually stressed your body will naturally become less efficient at burning fat.

Not only that but have you noticed that when you’re stressed you tend to make really bad meal decisions?

We are 100 percent guilty of that!

So try to control or manage your stress for more effective fat loss. Things such as meditation, yoga, or physical exercise are great ways to help you deal with and reduce your stress levels.

The fat hormone Cortisol can also increase fat storage over time around your middle. Not fun!

Block out the haters

Motivational speech time. Listen there will always be people that tell you, you can’t do something. And most of the time it’s the people that are closest to you.

Once you make that decision to lose weight, which you can, you need to protect that goal. No matter what you do don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t or won’t be able to do it.

Often it’s out of fear or jealousy, especially if they are overweight themselves. Sometimes is because they’ve heard it all before. Go out and prove them wrong. Or don’t tell them, just do it.

And you’ll get haters along the way, they’ll tell you you’ve lost to much weight, stop now you look great. Sometimes they might be right but you need to work that out for yourself. Usually, these people have seen you look one way your whole life and then when they see your start to change they see you differently. They might not mean anything by it, it’s just not what they are used to.

When you do get to a point where a lot of people are telling you you’ve lost too much then it might be time to listen. Because losing weight can get obsessive, I’ve seen it. 

Get support and be accountable

Losing weight can be a lonely path. There will be people who try to sabotage your progress including you.

To help you stand a better chance of succeeding open up to the people closest to you and tell them you have decided to lose weight. Go into detail if you need to say I’ve set a goal of x pounds.

To do this I need your help to make sure I reach that goal because I feel xyz about myself.

This will make you more accountable, and it helps them understand you are trying to lose weight and might need help along the way.

You could even go as far as joining online weight loss groups on social media or start a page for yourself to help yourself be accountable. This is also a great way to inspire others.

Creating healthy Habits

It’s all about creating healthy habits that you can do for the rest of your life. And that’s exactly how you will achieve your end transformation. Don’t think about it as a short-term thing think big.

Make little changes that over time lead to you becoming this well-balanced person with healthy relationships with food, and a healthy weight that you are happy with and that will motivate you to keep on going.

So this week you could focus on removing refined carbohydrates, next week it’s swapping out your unhealthy snacks for healthier ones, and so on.

Sleep

Sleep is a killer, not literally but sleep deprivation is not fun.

As you are probably aware when you are tired you make bad choices. That’s because lack of sleep leads to all sorts of hormonal imbalances.

Leptin secretion is reduced when you are tired so it doesn’t matter if you are underweight or overweight you’ll just feel hungry all day.

The stress hormone Cortisol is also raised when you are feeling tired which stops you from burning fat and can cause you to store fat around your belly.

Diet products

Welcome to the world of late-night shopping escapades where fitness pills and fancy equipment promise miracles! But hold on, before you get too excited, let’s dive into the fine print, the small text that often whispers, “Typical results are achieved when following a specific diet and exercise plan.”

Picture this: A client once strolled in with a bottle of “diet” pills, curious if they were the magic solution. The label recommended taking two a day and, for optimal results, pairing it with a diet and exercise plan. Now, here’s the kicker – the real secret sauce was the diet and exercise plan, not the pills! It’s like telling someone a hat will make them lose weight, but only if they wear it while following a diet and exercise routine.

Enough with the gimmicks! Instead of squandering your time and money on the latest fads, why not stick to what you already know works – the timeless duo of healthy eating and regular exercise. Period. It’s not about the quick fixes; it’s about embracing a sustainable lifestyle that brings lasting results.

So, wave goodbye to the late-night allure of flashy promises and commit to the tried-and-true path of a balanced diet and consistent exercise. Your body will thank you!

Healthy eating and exercise. Period.

Action steps

So what can you do about all this and start losing some weight? Here are a few action steps you can take today to start losing weight and creating a better lifestyle where you finally achieve long-term weight management.

1. Start a Food diary

Initiate the habit of monitoring your food intake. Utilize a user-friendly app like MyFitnessPal or opt for the traditional method of journaling. This practice allows you to review your daily or weekly consumption, enabling you to pinpoint items that may hinder your weight loss journey.

Moreover, tracking your meals unveils positive patterns. In my coaching sessions, I encourage clients to maintain a food diary to observe weekly trends. If a particular week yields successful weight loss, I often suggest replicating the dietary choices from that period. This proactive approach ensures a constructive analysis of your eating habits, facilitating better-informed decisions on your journey to achieving weight loss goals.

Try our free template below.

2. Start planning your meals

Planning is the key to success, doing it on the fly will just stress you out and catch you off guard.

Plan your meals ahead of time whether it’s as simple as writing the meal/recipes down or going as far as making the meals ahead of time.

There will need to be some sort of meal preparation involved to give you the best chance of succeeding.

Use our meal prep for beginners guide here to get a head start and then take a look at our recipes and food area of the site here. O you can download our 7-day diet plan.

3. be more active

You can lose weight with diet alone. You can make it happen faster by being more active and it will make you a healthier person all around. They tend to go hand in hand.

When you exercise you want to eat healthier, generally or that’s where you want your mindset to be.

Make that decision now to add exercise to your daily life. Start by going out for a walk every day and try some of our home workouts.

We have a free plan called the 7-day challenge. Essentially it’s a kick-start to your weight loss journey but it comes with a 7-day food plan with recipes so you can see how to eat a balanced diet alongside our simple HIIT workout plan.

Whatever you do now just make sure you take some form of action. Reading and learning how to lose weight is great but make sure you put what you have learned to work. There is a lot of information and it can be confusing. Pick a path and go with it. They all tend to lead to the same goal.

Keto, clean eating, and balanced natural foods, they all lead to the same goal. Choose what you think you could do for the rest of your life and be happy. Intermittent fasting, use it or don’t use it it’s up to you. In the long run, it won’t matter because you chose a path, you stuck to it and you got to where you wanted to be.

Do nothing and 6 months to a year from now and you could be in a worse place than you are now.

So go away now and make it happen. Don’t start tomorrow start now. You can do it.

Luke

Lose weight faster with a plan!