Healthy Weight Loss

Does anyone deliberately set out to get sick, run down or bored while losing weight?  Of course not, but people who follow fad diets that promise unrealistic outcomes often end up worse off than when they started the diet.

What is Healthy Weight Loss?

A properly functioning digestive system requires digestion and absorption of nutrients and calories from food in to produce wastes out.  The system depends on enzymes to help digest the food, along with fluid, fibre, good bacteria and a healthy gut free from parasites, good oxygen and blood flow.  Things can go wrong with this system, and many of those things can contribute to your weight gain, or your inability to lose weight.

Healthy Weight Loss involves a healthy diet of real food, exercise and lifestyle to ensure steady losses over a realistic timeframe.  What you put into your body determines how successful you will be with your require weight loss.  You want to have energy while you lose weight and you don't want to feel deprived or bored.

What Steps Can I Take for Healthy Weight Loss?

  • Reduce the amount of saturated fats in your diet (from animal products) and replace with balanced 'good' omega-3 and omega-6 rich fats (from fish, nuts and oils)
  • Reduce the amount of refined and processed carbohydrates (such as cakes, biscuits, pasta, pizza) and fill up on fibrous vegetables
  • Reduce the amount of refined sugar (like sucrose, fructose corn syrup) and use whole fruits
  • Reduce the amount of alcohol in your diet, as it contains carbohydrates / sugar
  • Reduce fatty protein sources (like salami, sausages, bacon and other processed meat) and replace with lean protein sources, including vegetable sources
  • Eat small meals and snacks throughout the day to keep your metabolism ticking over and your digestive system coping better with nutrient absorption
  • Eat at a relaxed pace to allow the digestive enzymes to do their job.  Take probiotics to support good gut health
  • Supplement your food choices with a nutritional supplement to ensure you are meeting the daily recommended intake (RDI) for vitamins and minerals, and getting the benefits of anti-oxidants
  • Drink lots of water - when you wake up and between meals to keep hydrated.  If you wait until you feel thirsty, then it is already too late - dehydration has begun
  • Eat as much of your food raw as possible, where palatable.  This will give you live enzymes that are present in the food, and they take longer to eat.
  • Start walking every day, increasing how far and how long you walk each day
  • When you have more energy from your healthy diet and walking, introduce other exercise or sports several times a week

Prepare to lose weight slowly and steadily by following a healthy weight loss program.  Establish a meal plan and stick to it, ensuring you eat every two to three hours.  Keep a diary of your eating and exercise patterns.  This will help keep you on track.  Stop thinking about 'being on a diet' and start thinking about your healthy lifestyle that you have started and will continue.  Expect the occasional lapse, recognize you are human.  As long as most of what you are doing is following the list above, you will achieve a healthy weight loss.