When it comes to getting fit, you want to lose weight naturally and in a healthy way. It’s no good chasing crash diets that leave you exhausted and more hungry than you originally were. Furthermore, when we talk about losing weight, what most of us really mean is losing fat. After all, you don’t want to be losing any precious muscle mass if you can help it. Thankfully, there are some habits for weight loss that you can deploy every day to help you reach your target weight and these are the things that helped me.
Weight loss can seem confusing. There’s always a crazy new soup diet or different coloured food diet that is being promoted to help you lose weight quickly. However, weight loss doesn’t need to be complicated but it doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time to lose weight naturally which is exactly what you want. If you lose weight too quickly, you don’t learn anything and usually don’t appreciate the process.
Your body works hard to hold on to your fat stores so you have to be clever and consistent with your weight loss habits if you want to see lasting change.
Last year I changed my diet and took up more regular exercise. After living that way consistently, I began to see good results. Did I have days where I ate a bunch of junk? Yes! but I didn’t make it every day…I simply got back on the horse the next day and carried on my journey.
In this post, we’ll go over my favourite simple 10 weight loss habits to help you lose weight naturally and safely. They’re my favourite tips because they are so simple and easy to implement. Of course, everyone is different so these may not work for you but even if they don’t I believe they are worth trying if you’re sick of fad diets that leave you starving.
1. Use cauliflower instead of rice
They say that losing weight is 80% diet and only 20% exercise and I believe this to be very true. One way to add more vegetables to your diet is to use cauliflower rice instead of white or brown rice. If you’re like me, you might find that rice bloats you and makes you gain weight quickly. A tasty and easy replacement is cauliflower rice.
You could buy this frozen but it’s better to make your own in a food processor. Simply chop up your cauliflower into big chunks and push it into your processor. Your cauliflower will come out looking like cous cous and once you’ve added sauces or herbs you’ll have a hard time tasting it or even remembering it’s not real rice!
The great part is, cauliflower ‘rice’ can is very versatile. Of course, you can use it to substitute real rice or you could use it to bulk out and thicken up most meals. It’s quite a dense vegetable so you’ll be left feeling full whilst vastly reducing your carbohydrate and calorie intake.
2. Eat two meals a day
For as far back as I can remember, I never used to feel like eating a typical breakfast. In fact, the thought of eating before school would always make me feel sick. There are plenty of studies and marketing pushes that tell us you should always eat breakfast because it’s the ‘most important meal of the day’ and at the same time, there are many people who completely disagree with this idea.
Eating three meals a day is what most of us are used to however I began to experiment with my own hunger and tried eating only when I felt hungry. I began to realise I only really felt hungry around 11.30 am and therefore would have my first meal at this time. I’d eat a big healthy meal which would keep me going until around 5 pm – 6 pm. If I wanted a small snack in between I found that I was okay feasting on some fruit.
Eating two main meals a day won’t be for everyone but if you make your meals large enough and full of proteins and vegetables, you may find that you stay satiated for longer.
3. Eat foods that don’t have barcodes
It’s often easier said than done (as even vegetables have barcodes if they’re in packets) but one of the best habits for natural weight loss is to eat as much food that is as close to its natural form as possible. That means staying away from boxed items, even if they claim to be healthy. Many food items claim to be healthy but it’s not until you look on the back of the box that you realise how much sugar is in them.
The reason why this is one of the best weight loss habits is that natural foods like grass-fed meat, fruits, seeds, nuts and vegetables have had little to no added preservatives and chemicals. Essentially, you’re only eating what nature offers whilst banishing foods that have had a lot of human interference. Many people swear by the Paleo diet, for example, because the Paleo diet preaches this idea – only eat naturally sourced food products that haven’t been heavily processed by man.
The more food is processed, the more chance you’re eating extra chemicals and calories that your body doesn’t like, you gain more weight and feel worse for it.
If you can make most of your diet based on natural foods, you’re bound to lose excess weight because your body will work more efficiently.
4. Stay away from sugar (as much as possible)
If you’re like me, you probably grew up on boxed fruit juice thinking you were taking the healthy option. However, these types of drinks are packed full of sugar. Sugar itself is found in many foods naturally but it’s also used by manufacturers to make processed foods taste better. The problem is, high levels of sugar intake raises the hormone insulin in our bodies, causing the sugar in our blood to be stored away in our muscle and fat cells.
If you can make avoiding sugar one of your top weight loss habits, you’ll be much better off with just this habit alone. One way to do this is to follow tip number three. If you make your diet largely based around natural foods, you’ll limit most of the sugar you eat anyway. If you do eat foods like fruits that are high in natural sugar, you’ll also be eating the fibre that comes with them which is a good thing for your weight loss journey.
The obvious sugar-packed items to avoid are candies, soft drinks and sauces. If you do buy many boxed foods, always read the labels so you can see how much sugar is in them before you purchase them.
5. Pack your diet with fibre
Another simple habit to lose weight is to add more soluble fibre to your diet. Fibre is not only helpful in weight loss but it’s also great for your heart health. As a society, we don’t eat enough fibre with most people only eating 20g a day rather than the recommended 30g.
Fibre helps you to feel fuller for longer and is such an easy nutrient to get hold of. You can find soluble fibre in many foods including; flaxseeds, sweet potatoes, legumes and oatmeal.
Soluble fibre interacts with water in the body and helps flush everything out. There are so many tasty options out there that have lots of fibre so this simple weight loss habit shouldn’t be one you pass up. Of course, there are many supplements out there but you can certainly find enough of this nutrient in real foods easily so save your money and get it from your food.
6. Drink more water
It’s recommended that we drink 3.7 litres of water a day. Think about how much water you drink right now. Water actually increases your metabolism slightly which means it can help you lose weight naturally by helping you to burn more calories for longer. It goes without saying that the human body needs water to perform properly but it’s also a way to fill your hunger.
In fact, many people confuse hunger for food with the need to drink water. The next time you feel very hungry, drink a large glass of water first. It will physically stretch your stomach, making you feel full. Of course, if you really do feel hunger for solid food and need to eat, you may just find that you eat less than you would have if you didn’t drink a glass of water first.
This is such a simple habit for weight loss and even if it doesn’t help you lose weight personally, there are no drawbacks to adding more water to your diet!
6. Eat mindfully
Mindless eating can make you gain weight. We’ve all had days where our hunger skyrockets, we reach for a large bag of chips and sit down to eat the whole thing as we watch our favourite Netflix show. This is typical mindless eating. Instead of grabbing the bag of chips and chomping through them in a mad hurry, consider eating them mindfully.
To eat your food mindfully, take a moment to observe your hunger. Are you feeling super hungry or could you also be thirsty for water? When you eat your food, take your time, chewing fully. As you swallow your food, observe the feeling as your food flows down to your stomach. Notice how full you become as you continue to eat your food. Ask yourself if you are actually full at any point and if you need to continue eating for the sake of hunger or if it’s down to your tastebuds.
The more in tune with your body and your hunger responses you can get, the better decisions you will make when it comes to eating.
7. Aim for nourishment, not calories
How many times have you started a diet, made a spreadsheet and spent hours tracking how many calories you’ve eaten each day? Calories can count but you should get into a habit of focusing on nourishing your body with healthy, healing foods, not the amount you’re eating. The problem with counting calories is that not all calories are equal. As we mentioned, some calories derived from sugar will cause more weight gain thanks to insulin production and energy retention than others.
You can eat far more vegetables and nuts to reach 500 calories than you can candy. Furthermore, eating calories from processed foods can leave you feeling hungry sooner than real food can causing more food consumption over the space of a day.
Diets focus on calories and how much you eat but when you eat a vast amount of micronutrient-dense foods, you can eat a lot of them and feel just as full as you would devouring a burger and fries from your local fast-food restaurant. Of course, focusing on nourishment will have the added benefits of all the natural vitamins and minerals you’ll be getting than if you ate a diet rich in processed food.
8. Get regular good sleep
Another one of the best habits to lose weight is to focus on your sleep. A lack of sleep can wreak havoc on your life in many different aspects. One of the big ones is weight gain.
Sleep is when your body heals and performs many important functions and a lack of it has been shown to increase your BMI and cause you to gain weight.
This may seem like a simple habit for weight loss but for many, sleep is a struggle. It’s often quite hard to get a good night’s sleep whether you’re a shift worker or you’re up late with the children. If you have trouble sleeping, consider starting all the habits to lose weight on this list as they will all have a positive impact on your quality of sleep.
Also, if you exercise, try and do your exercise in the evening. In my experience, it makes you nice and tired for bed whilst quieting your mind so you can doze off with ease.
9. Master your lunch box
As mentioned in the third tip of these habits to lose weight naturally, you should make your own meals so you know what is in them. One of the biggest changes I made was making my own cooked lunches to take out with me during the day.
If you eat breakfast, your early morning meal doesn’t have too many time constraints and neither does your dinner meal in the evening. However, lunch is a meal where we can overeat too easily. Maybe you feel starving whilst you’re at work, you’re feeling rushed and you just need to grab the first thing you see.
If you can master your lunch box, you can take hold of a daily meal that is often treated as a ‘free pass’ as such. Cook your own lunch with real, healthy foods including proteins, vegetables, nuts and seeds and be mindful of how you feel afterwards. You may not feel the same afternoon slump you may already feel eating a sandwich and potato chips, for example.
10. Do not drink processed drinks in excess
Another daily habit that can help you lose weight is to take your own thermos mug out with you whether you’re going to work or to an event. Many of us grab something like a Starbucks when we’re on the go, not knowing how much sugar and how many empty calories we’re pouring into our system each day.
For example, a Starbucks Caffe Latte can have up to 240 calories in it. Sure, it tastes amazing but that’s a huge amount of calories in such a small drink. Other drinks to avoid are quite obvious like excessive amounts of wine and beer. There are many studies stating that a glass of wine or two a day might be good for you but if you drink too much of these drinks you’re swallowing a whole bunch of weight-gaining calories without even noticing it.
Bonus habits to lose weight naturally
Of course, any good weight loss regime should include some kind of exercise and this will largely depend on your own physical state of fitness.
1. Get your daily steps in
One of the easiest habits to lose weight or at least help you on your way is to start moving about more by upping your daily steps. You may already know how many steps you walk each day because many phones will tell you and of course, there are many wearable straps that do the same job.
Many of us are too sedentary and need to do more walking. A good number to hit each day is 10,000. However, if you barely move at all, 5000 steps could be just as effective as double that. Whatever your average daily step count, try and do a little more.
2. Never hit twice
Everyone falls off track from time to time. I’d bet even the fittest people in the world eat a sugar-packed meal once in a while. After all, you have to have some fun at some point! Being disciplined is great but you don’t want to punish yourself. I believe it’s fine to have a ‘bad meal’ every once in a while.
The trick, however, is to not have two ‘bad meals’ in a row. If you do, you can quickly fall back into old habits. You have to jump right back on board when your next meal comes around. If you do eat some fried chicken and fries with a big dollop of gravy, it’s not going to set you back. If you keep doing it consistently, it certainly will.
3. Use extra virgin olive oil, not vegetable oils
Any oil you use to cook is going to punch a few calories, however, the quality of the calories definitely matters when it comes to oils. One of the biggest changes I made when I formed my habits to lose weight was to switch from vegetable oils to extra virgin olive oil.
Whilst vegetable oils have the word ‘vegetable’ in their name, they have only a trace amount of nutrients due to the amount of processing they undergo. Extra virgin olive oil on the other hand requires the smallest amount of processing to turn it into an oil and retains all of its nutrients and vitamins. When you eat vegetable oils, you’re consuming calories but due to the lack of nutrients, you’re not actually feeding your gut, leaving you more hungry later on.
Extra virgin olive oil has also been shown to have heart benefits and contains a large amount of anti-oxidants. Vegetable oils contain many pro-inflammatory compounds which are harmful to your cells.
This is such a simple switch to make and could help you to lose weight in the long run. Admittedly, extra virgin olive oil is more expensive but most bottles go a long way if you use it sparingly, plus, you can’t put a price on your health!
Super simple habits to lose weight
I believe these are all super simple habits to lose weight naturally. As mentioned, my own experience of weight loss has reminded me that it should be taken slowly and properly. There’s no healthy way of rushing it so you shouldn’t get disgruntled if you don’t see much progress in the first couple of weeks.
It takes a bit of time to make a difference but it’s those who trust the process that see results in the end. You have to be patient and consistent with your daily weight loss habits to see a big impact in the end. If these weight loss habits don’t work after a couple of months, try something new. Everyone is different and will respond to different things.
Above all else, enjoy trying new foods and recipes and make it as fun as possible. After all, you want to enjoy your new habits if they are going to stick!