When you think about losing weight, extreme diets and lots of cardio may come to mind, but is that really the right strategy for healthy weight loss?
The answer is no. You might lose weight if you go on a fad diet or spend hours on the treadmill, but odds are good those pounds will come sneaking back.
The key to healthy weight loss—the kind that sticks around for the long-term—is to build healthy habits you can sustain over time.
What Healthy Weight Loss Looks Like
If you ever watched “The Biggest Loser” or a similar TV show, you saw what we’d describe as unhealthy weight loss. Participants on those shows take drastic measures to lose weight, including significant calorie restrictions and hours of strenuous exercise every day. If you look up many of the participants of those shows online, you will find that a good number of them regained most of the weight they lost.
That’s because losing weight using those drastic measures is unsustainable over time. Not only that, but it can also put you at risk of injuries and other medical issues.
“Slow and steady” is the recipe for healthy weight loss. According to health experts, losing 1 to 2 pounds each week is a good plan for building new healthy habits and achieving sustainable weight loss.
In order to engage in healthy weight loss while maintaining good health, it’s important to build healthy habits that you can live with for a long time.
Your Path to Healthy Weight Loss
If a lose-weight-quick plan isn’t the best strategy, what works? These basics are a good place to begin:
1. Be ”SMART” with Your Goals
When setting health goals, you want to make them “SMART,” which stands for:
- S = Specific
- M = Measurable
- A = Achievable
- R = Relevant
- T = Time Bound
Big dreams are important in life, but you need your goals to be achievable. It’s OK to have a “pie in the sky” vision for how much weight you’ll lose in the long run, just make sure you create small, actionable goals to get you there.
A healthy diet and regular exercise are two keys to healthy weight loss. According to the American Heart Association, 98% of people who maintained weight loss made changes to their eating habits, while 94% became more physically active.
Start with small changes to your habits and build up over time. Habits that at the least disruptive to your schedule at the beginning of making changes have a higher chance of sticking around in the long run. Plan for a 10-minute brisk walk after dinner instead of a two-hour gym session right off the bat.
2. Make a Date With Exercise
When you have a meeting at work or your child has a medical appointment, you jot it down on the calendar. Those are scheduled appointments that you don’t miss. Treat your exercise the same way.
It’s easy to put off a workout after a long day. To make physical activity a sustained habit, schedule it on your calendar and treat it like any other appointment. Don’t cancel on yourself!
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes of strenuous physical activity each week to support healthy weight loss. If you’re aiming for moderate activity, like that brisk walk we mentioned earlier, that’s just a little more than 20 minutes per day.
Experiment with different types of exercise until you find one or more that you enjoy. You may find that you don’t like running but love dance aerobics, or that you can’t stick with workouts in the gym but enjoy playing tennis. Finding what you like will keep you coming back for more.
3. Fill Your Plate Strategically
If you’re going to be exercising more, you need to fuel your movement with healthy foods. What does that look like? The USDA’s MyPlate guidelines offer a helpful visual.
At meals, fill half of your plate with fruits and vegetables, which are packed with antioxidants, minerals, fiber and vitamins. The other half of the plate should be divided in two: Half should contain a whole grain, while the last segment should contain a lean protein, such as chicken, turkey, tofu, beans or eggs.
Think that healthy foods automatically taste bland? You don’t have to sacrifice flavor to achieve healthy weight loss. Experiment with new ingredients and recipes that pack a nutritional punch and please your taste buds.
4. Choose Fewer Processed Foods
Wondering what to buy at the grocery store? When you’re trying to lose weight, you may find yourself gravitating toward foods with “low-fat” or “low-sugar” on the food label. That’s not always the best strategy.
Many of those foods are found in the middle of the grocery store, where the packaged foods live. They’re often heavily processed to give them a longer shelf-life, and they contain additives, including added sugar, increased sodium and unhealthy saturated fat.
That can make choosing foods a little tricky. If you pick up a food advertised as low in sugar, for example, you may find that it contains more fat than other options. The low-fat version is probably higher in sugar.
To fill your plate in the healthiest way possible, choose less-processed foods when you can. That means whole foods—foods that are in their natural state—whenever possible and lightly processed foods in other cases. When you’re comparing options, look for foods that contain a small number of recognizable ingredients.
5. Make Sure You’re Eating Enough
This tip is a bit counterintuitive, but not eating enough can actually backfire when it comes to losing weight. In order to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit, meaning you eat fewer calories than you burn, but you also need enough calories and nutrients to fuel your body. If you adjust how much you’re eating and find you’re hungry more often than not, you may need to eat more.
You’re probably familiar with those fad diets that restrict you to a very low number of calories each day. That’s not sustainable, and not eating enough can leave you hungry and angry (or “hangry”) and can also lead to engaging in the restriction-binge cycle. In this cycle, people tend to restrict food intake (i.e., not eating enough) and then may want to reward themselves for their “good” behavior. The reward may be less nutritious food (e.g., soda, chips, fast food) and then may experience emotions or thoughts such as frustration or feeling guilty for making less nutritious food choice, which can then lead to overeating. People can be stuck in this cycle for years, which can get in the way of healthy weight loss.
6. Think ‘Progress,’ Not ‘Perfection’
If you try to hold yourself to strict standards all the time, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Self-compassion is something can help during your weight management journey. Self-compassion says to give yourself some grace through this process–to be kind to yourself and remember you are doing to best you can right now to improve your health.
Scroll back up to the first tip above. Set SMART goals for yourself—and give yourself wiggle room. That means eating healthy 80% of the time and allowing for indulgences the other 20%, or aiming for five days of exercise and two rest days each week.
Healthy weight loss isn’t a pass or fail proposition. Every healthy choice you make is a step in the right direction.
Looking to achieve healthy weight loss? Start with a visit with your primary care provider. Your provider can offer you personalized advice about what weight loss strategies might work best for you, which may include a visit with a dietitian, an exercise specialist or a behavioral health clinician. Find a provider here.
Community Resources
We are also taking steps to address community needs within Bexar County. This is why we are excited to offer resources for everyone, whether you receive care from us or not. Visit our Institute for Public Health for fitness and nutrition-related resources.
