Maintaining a healthy weight whether that means gaining or losing a few pounds is something that many people have a difficult time doing. If you are on the track of trying to lose weight, it may seem as if everyone has a solution, but few of them work for you. Hacks, quick fixes and miracle supplements are touted as long-term cures to a problem you couldn’t possibly hope to solve on your own but what if sustainable weight loss came down to three simple keys that anyone could do.
Key 1 – Eat
Though possibly the most important key to weight loss, nutrition, is also the hardest to write about. That is because what you eat, when you eat and how you eat is heavily dependent on the individual. Among other things, Not everybody likes the same foods or feels comfortable eating at the same time today. This is why we suggest working with a nutritional specialist who is willing to work with you and your individual needs.
With that said, the first key to sustained guaranteed weight loss is following a sustainable meal plan. Create a rough framework of what kind of foods you need to eat, how much of those foods you need and different times of day you need to eat. This will allow you to plan ahead and work through that plan each day without to much added effort.
Top priorities when creating a meal plan include the foods you love to eat, a reasonable amount of protein (we recommend roughly 1g per 1lb of Bodyweight), balanced nutrition (fruits,veggies, etc.), calorie count, and hydration. Most importantly, these choices need to work for you and be sustainable long term.
Key 2 – Move
When talking about movement for weight loss, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is an image of a person sweating profusely as they toil away on a treadmill for infinite hours. The only problem with this image is that it is the wrong thing for most people who are actually trying to lose weight.
Instead, what we should be doing, is focusing on the parts of our body that burn the most calories, our muscles. By increasing the size and efficiency of our muscles, our body can burn through more calories in a day, even when sitting still. This is why Olympians can eat several thousands of calories a day while maintaining a low body fat.
Any exercise that results in a larger or more efficient muscle mass is then a greater value to someone trying to lose weight than any amount of sustained cardio exercise. Exercise like weightlifting, bodybuilding, and functional fitness have been effective means of growing and improving muscle mass for generations and should be the first step for anyone on a weight loss journey.
Key 3 – Repeat
Just like it says on the outside of the shampoo bottle, Repeat. Positive actions towards weight loss, when done once, have little to no affect. However, when those positive actions, small they may seem, are repeated over and over and over again across months to years; they can produce significant results. This is why it is so important to find things in Key 1 and Key 2 that you feel comfortable doing or that you would be willing to do every day.
Key 3 is also where many of the quick fixes and weight loss hacks that we see on social media and elsewhere fail. Things that are quick or fast acting are typically too aggressive, to be sustainable. So once we have reached the end of the fast acting phase and get closer to our goal(if it works at all), we have the urge to stop and that’s when much of the work that we put in is lost.
Instead, aim to hit your goals in Key 1 and Key 2 every day. If you have a plan that works for you then hitting those goals should be easily attainable and at least 80-90% of the time you will be successful. If you find yourself missing the mark more often then it is time to change the plan.
Sustainable weight loss does not need to be a mystery. With the right plan and a small amount of effort over time it can be attainable for everyone. If you can Eat, Move and Repeat in a way that works for you then all you need to do is give it time and watch it work.