The Simple Way To Weightloss

With all the crazy fads and intense workout routines that get thrown around nowadays, it can be difficult to know which way to turn. We lose ourselves in the deepest parts of the internet looking for that miracle that will help us shift those few extra pounds.

But the truth is many of us are missing the simple truth.

For many years I struggled with my weight, fluctuating from overweight to obese and back again - over and over again.

I was doing all the right things, eating healthy and exercising three to four times a week. I stuck to one coffee a day (which for a coffee addict like me was insane) and like a good girl I took all my multivitamins. But still, I was struggling.

Every time I plateaued in my weight loss, I’d give up and go back to eating all the fast food, takeaways and ice cream just to dull the pain of being overweight. Probably not the best idea in the world but it helped for a little while. And then I’d be right back on that horse again, eating healthy and half starving myself just to try and get somewhere.

Then one morning I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across an article about calorie counting. It was a few years ago now and I couldn’t find it even if I tried but I remember one thing: everybody’s body is different. We all need a different amount of calories.

I’d heard about calories before but at the time they were just those stupid numbers on the back of a packet that nobody ever really pays attention to. But when I looked deeper, I began to count the calories I’d been consuming and all that healthy food I’d been shovelling in just to feel full turned out not to be so good for me.

Sure, I was getting all of my veggies and eating enough protein. I was even careful not to eat ‘too many carbs’ but when I wrote it all down and looked at the calorie count, I realised that I was coming in at around 300-500 calories too many.

The second I realised this, I decided it was time to make a change. I began by googling a calorie counter, those magical things that take into account your weight and the weight you want to be along with your age, height and activity levels. My result came out at around 1700 calories a day.

At first, I thought that staying below that number was going to be majorly difficult. But when I looked closer at my diary I realised something, I was drinking over half of my calories. No wonder I was so hungry all of the time!

So there and then I made one simple change. I cut out every drink from smoothies to fruit juice, only leaving myself that one coffee a day, and switched to water.

Within six months I managed to drop 3 stone! That left me with only one more to go until I reached my ideal weight.

At the time I had been trying to have a baby for the last three years and doctors had told me it wouldn’t be possible until I managed to get my BMI (Body Mass Index) down to the ‘ideal’ scale. I was only half a stone off when I found out that I was pregnant!

Of course, at the time I could no longer focus on weight loss and I actually put half of the weight back on during my pregnancy. It was all about the baby and I wasn’t going to deprive them because I wanted my perfect body.

But as soon as I’d given birth and my body had taken a few months to heal, I got right back on that horse and began counting calories once more.

That single article that I found, by chance, taught me one important thing: the best way to success in weight loss is simply to be mindful of what goes into the body!