3 Ways to Aid Your Weight Loss

If you've clicked on this article, you are probably like me, desperate to lose weight. Sadly, after years and years of bad eating habits and a pregnancy, I've piled on the pounds. But on the plus side, I've done all the trial and error work for you! I have successfully lost all of my baby weight and then some!

Now, just as a disclaimer, everybody is different and different things may work for you. Now with that out of the way, let's get to it!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there is no magic pill for weight loss! The first thing you need to do is realize that you need to make a lifestyle change. Losing weight is as simple as 80/20. 80% diet/nutrition and 20% exercise. First things first, clean up your diet. It is okay to indulge every once in a while, but limit yourself to smaller portions of your indulgence. And if you look hard enough, you can even find ways to make your indulgence foods healthier (@thebigmansworld on Instagram and Pinterest are the best for finding healthy "junk food" recipes).

Now let's talk about exercise. Exercise is great if you want to tone up while losing weight or aid your weight loss in going a bit quicker. But if I'm being honest, it is actually not 100% necessary for weight loss. For weight loss alone, you just need to be eating in a caloric deficit, which means you are eating less calories than your body burns. I will go more into depth on caloric deficit in the next paragraph. But for now, back to exercise. I will always recommend exercise to people who are able to do it. It is an amazing stress reliever and you don't have to go extremely hard to reap the benefits either. With just a 30 minute brisk paced walk every day, you will meet the American Heart Associations activity recommendations for a healthy adult per week!

The most important thing I will talk about in this article: caloric deficit! If you are not in caloric deficit, you will not, I repeat, WILL NOT lose weight. To put it simply, being in a caloric deficit means you are burning more calories than you are consuming. The best way to calculate your deficit would be to find out your resting metabolic rate. Resting metabolic rate is what your body would burn if you just say on the couch all day. You would be surprised that this number is actually pretty high! For example my resting metabolic rate is 1,203 calories per day, what?! Just go on Google and type "find out resting metabolic rate" and there will be a few calculators that pop up to help you find this out. When you have reached your goals, you can go calculate your maintenance caloric needs to maintain what you worked for.

When all is said and done, weight loss is a lifestyle change that you won't regret. A balanced diet and a healthy mind are the biggest musts while on this journey. Fad diets are just a quick fix and will do no good in the long run. If this article gets good feedback, I can go more in depth about my journey on the path to a healthier me!