Going through a weight loss journey is hard enough by itself and that’s one of the reasons why not everybody succeeds in doing so. If you take being in a caloric deficit, feeling hungry, not seeing results every other day, not knowing if you’re doing the right thing, not eating the right foods, a stressful work day, a stressful home life, a break up and all the other random but stressful life situations into a count, it doesn’t make things a lot easier. What will make it easier? realizing that some if not all of these things are bound to happen. Being prepared for life and uncertainty to hit you will make your chances of being successful a lot higher. that’s where we’ll start this off.

Tip 1: ”Life will happen, be ready”

The best diet or nutrition guide is the one that you can stick to whenever life inevitably happens, while also supporting your goals at the same time. If you can only stick to your nutrition whenever life goes well, it will only be a matter of time before you cheat on yourself, take a time-out, or worse, give up. All of these things won’t bring you any closer to your nutrition goals, being prepared will. What does that look like? Finding the right foods and diet that you can stick to. Enjoying the specific foods and meals on a daily basis is a HUGE first step in being prepared for when life hits. I think we can all understand that it’s a lot easier to give-up when you don’t enjoy something in the first place.

Meal prepping will significantly improve your chances of being successful in your weight loss journey if you live a busy lifestyle. Regardless of the situation, you want to be in charge and control of your nutrition.

Tip 2: ”Cut down sugar”

This one is especially important for all the people that care about what their body looks like after they have lost the weight. It might sound like common sense to some of you but if you losing weight while at the same time consuming an insane amount of sugar each day, your body is still not going to look the way you want it to. There’s a reason why no diet or nutrition guide tells you to use candy as your carbohydrate source or 2 pounds of bacon as your fat source.

This is where whole foods come in. They’re the most nutritious and un-processed foods available. Nutritious equals more micro-nutrients and un-processed means less sugar.

Tip 3: ”A slight deficit”

A slight deficit means anywhere between 5-15% of your ”maintenance calories”. It has proven and makes sense that a slight deficit is way more sustainable in the long run. It might take a little bit longer to accomplish your goal(s), but sustainable.

A slight deficit is great if you have the time. If you’re looking to lose weight fast because you have a wedding, school reunion or weight class cut coming up, a bigger deficit is needed to get that done.

With a small deficit also comes less room to slip up. A slight deficit might mean 100-200 calories and by simply eating an extra spoon of peanut butter that deficit becomes non-existent.

Tip 4: ”Up fat, protein and fiber intake”

For some people it’s tough to stick to a diet because they feel hungry all the time, that can be caused by one of two things. One, you’re not getting enough calories in or, you’re eating too many carbohydrates and not enough fats and protein. Fats offer us more calories per gram than protein and carbohydrates which means it will satisfy you more than the other 2 protein and carbs.

Both fat, protein and fiber take a lot more energy out of your body to digest your food, which is great for weight loss for 2 reasons. One, expending energy means expending calories, which is an obvious benefit. Two, expending energy also means that satisfaction will be higher. As we talked about, being hungry stops a lot of people from sticking with something, so anything you can do to avoid that will be a massive win.

Tip 5: ”Track your food, know what you’re getting in”

If you’re new to a diet or serious about your goals, tracking your food will be the best way to see results. As we talked about before, a slight deficit is easy to lose if you consume just a little bit more than you should. How can we avoid that? By ”simply” knowing exactly what you’re getting in throughout the day.

I have seen it plenty of times in other people (and myself as well), we usually overestimate what we do during the day and underestimate what we eat. Tracking is made super simple with all the apps nowadays (especially MyFitnessPal), which will give you the most accurate picture of the day. Knowledge is power, and that holds true for your calorie consumption. Being right on target with your calorie consumption is going to give you the best and most sustainable results.

If you like the content that I am bringing out 3 times a week, every week, I would appreciate if you could share and like this blog so I am able to reach more people.