I gained 50lbs when I was pregnant with my son. Which felt like a lot at 5’1”. And this weight did not want to leave. After my son was born, a little of the weight came off easily and without much effort, but most of it stuck around. Even though I was working out and breastfeeding, I struggled with postpartum weight loss.
I started to get so nervous that I would never lose weight. I wondered how I could actually move the number of the scale.
The extra weight impacted my self-confidence, how my body felt when I moved, and I knew I wasn’t in a healthy place. I wanted to make a change. In addition, my husband and I were talking about having a second baby but I was afraid to get pregnant again. I didn’t want to add additional weight to the extra pounds I was already carrying.
So like most Americans, in January 2018, I made a goal to lose the rest of my baby weight. Not only did I want to lose weight, but I also wanted to create a healthy lifestyle. I wanted to be able to maintain my results and not yo-yo. Have you ever felt like you’re losing and gaining back the same 5 or 10 lbs over and over? Yeah, I wanted to avoid that. I wanted sustainable weight loss.
To meet my goals, I took small steps that became habits. These steps helped me to lose weight. Once the weight was off, I was able to keep it off without much effort—because the steps I had taken were now habits. I’m sharing these habits I developed on my weight loss journey in hopes that they help you along your journey.
Food Tracking
The first and most impactful, thing I did was to start tracking all of my food. This is a pretty common tip. Pick up any weight loss book and I’m sure you’ll see “track your food”. But I found it actually helps! I personally use MyFitnessPal, but you can use whatever app you like, or paper and pen. Amazon has a cute little notebook that I tried out for a couple of weeks. Ultimately, I found that I was most consistent with MyFitnessPal.
The reason why I wanted to track my food, was to truly see how much and what I was actually eating. This allowed me to see what foods I typically eat, what time of day I was eating the most/least, and to get a sense of where I could be more healthy.
For example, I quickly saw that I was drinking a lot of calories. Any tired person can tell you it is so hard to resist a delicious vanilla latte. A shot of coffee mixed with sugar always sounds great. But I could see that drink was adding an addition 250 calories to my day and over the course of a week adds up. So I switched to nonfat milk, cut down on the number of pumps of vanilla in my drink (you can ask your barista to do half) and sometimes got a non-flavored latte. I still got my coffee, but I adjusted it to save me a few calories.
Find a nutrition plan that you’ll stick to!
We can all name 10 different diet plans. I’m sure that each diet plan works and you probably know someone who has had success for each one. Then you’ll hear those people that say “This plan doesn’t work for me!”. I think what they are actually saying is that this plan is not a plan I can follow and stick to.
So the most important thing when deciding on a diet nutrition plan, is to find one that you’ll actually follow and can see yourself following for a long time. This can take some trial and error. I’ve tried several different plans until I found one that fit my lifestyle and that I was able to follow consistently.
Have patience in this process. We all want to lose weight overnight, but creating a lifestyle change that works and will last takes time. It might take a little bit to see results and find a good fit. But once you do, the nutrition part will feel a lot easier.
Find a workout routine — that you’ll actually do
Have you ever heard the phrase “the best workout is the one that you’ll actually do?”. I find this to be so true. When it comes to working out, it is the same concept as the nutrition plan. There are so many different workout plans, apps, classes, gyms, and approaches. Find something you enjoy doing. Maybe find a few different workouts that you enjoy doing so that you can switch it up. Keep trying things until you find something you like. If you like what you’re doing, you’re way more likely to continue to do it.
Once you’ve found something you like, get into a routine with the workouts. Figure out if working out 4 times a week is something you can do. Don’t be afraid to push yourself a little outside of your comfort zone. If you currently workout 3 times a week, try for 4 until that becomes routine. Then move up to 5 times. Over time, you’ll find a rhythm. The routine working out will fit into your weekly schedule like work, brushing your teeth or watching Game of Thrones.
Get immersed in health and fitness
Dive into a book about health and fitness. Check out a podcast related to some fitness topic. Subscribe to a health and fitness magazine
Not only will this help you learn more about health and fitness, but will also help you keep the goal of building a healthy lifestyle on your mind. I personally love listening to Jillian Michael’s podcast while I’m driving to work, and like to look at my husband’s Men’s Health magazine in the evenings from time to time. Both of these have interesting topics, help me to learn more about fitness, and remind me of the goals I’m working towards.
Build accountability
Accountability is a key component to many successful weightloss programs (think of Weight Watchers meetings having their members weigh in and attend community meetings). Having a community or partner is incredibly helpful. I find I’m much less likely to skip a workout if I know my friend is going to be there too. I’m less likely to snack on a bag of chips if at the end of the day I need to write a message to my sister letting her know how well I stuck to my nutrition for the day.
If you are looking for an accountability partner, try to connect with a close friend about your goals. Maybe you both agree to start going to spin class on Wednesdays. Consider reaching out to an online health coach. Or join an online accountability group. There are tons on Facebook and they can be helpful with building community and support for reaching your goals.
Focus on one thing at a time
It is so easy to want to try to implement all of these tips at once. That is exactly what I did at the beginning, and immediately felt overwhelmed. I found when I tried to focus in on building one habit at a time, it was much easier and turned into part of my lifestyle much quicker. It also made building other habits way easier.
Last, but certainly not least, you want to remember that weight loss is a process and most effective when it is a lifestyle change. I found that once I created healthy habits I was able to see real results and didn’t feel like I had to try as hard. Give yourself grace and patience as you go through the process. Build a network of support around you. You can do it!
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