12 Weight Loss Tips for Losing Weight and Keeping it Off

From the baby food diet to the blood type diet, diet fads come and go. There’s a constant turnover of dieters as they jump on a dieting bandwagon and then fall off somewhere around day seven. Dragging through the day due to low energy or struggling daily with physical limitations can lead to depression, eating disorders and other severe health issues.

We can’t offer you a get-slim-quick scheme, but we can offer twelve lifestyle strategies that have successfully helped many lose weight and keep it off for good.

12 Weight Loss Tips

1) Seek God’s Guidance

This often overlooked step is the most important of all. God, who created us and knows our deepest desires, is the one who can encourage, comfort and provide strength to persevere through the challenging days ahead. He can remind us we are fearfully and wonderfully made even when that truth feels a million miles away. He removes our shame and invites us to find true satisfaction in Him.

2) Aim at Small Wins

Measurable goals are important, but too many goals can become overwhelming. It’s vital to identify and achieve a “small win” at the beginning of your journey of becoming a healthier you. An example might be you are going to cut out processed sugar by the end of the week. Every day you can work to cut out a food or beverage from your diet that contains sugar.

3) Get Familiar With Food

Okay, so you might think you are a food expert. In fact, a good meal might be your love language. If you have not already done so, take a deeper look at nutrition and the dynamics of a healthy lifestyle. This doesn’t mean that you have to order every best-selling diet book from Amazon. When there are too many cooks in the kitchen, chaos and confusion ensue. The same happens when absorbing too many “expert” opinions.

You can’t go wrong starting with God’s “garden”, which always produces the healthiest options since fresh fruit and vegetables grow right out of the ground and are thus not pre-packaged, canned or processed.  You will also want to decrease the number of trips to the drive-through, opt for water over Dr. Pepper, and think twice before microwaving a frozen dinner.

4) Create a Plan That’s Perfect For You

Have you heard that popular saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” A plan helps you make it happen. Whatever your “it” might be. Craft an individual plan based on your own preferences. If you are disgusted by the taste of kale or gag at the idea of eating fish, there’s no need to force them into your diet.

Include foods and dishes that you actually like, and that reflect your personal nutritional philosophies and convictions. You can borrow from a variety of sources, but be sure that your plan makes sense to you. When it is a plan that you created based on your own preferences, you are more likely to stick with it.

5) Ditch The Scale

People that become obsessed with the scale transform it into an idol. Food or weight-loss shouldn’t be idols, but tools to become the healthiest version of yourself. Often, how you look in your clothes and feel in your body provides you with enough information.

Before you get out the scale, ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” The scale can often be a motivator, but it can also cause emotional instability if you hit your goal weight one day and jump three pounds the next. Putting on muscle will cause you to weigh more, making the scale an unreliable guide.

6) Make It Fun

Who said creating a healthy lifestyle had to be boring? If you don’t love what you are eating or the exercise you are doing, you will probably not have the desire to keep going with it. Consider creating a Pinterest Board or joining a Facebook group in which you can collect and share the recipes and meal ideas that you have tried, that taste amazing, and are good for you.

Look for recipes that create healthier versions of your all-time favorite dishes and comfort foods. When baking, substitute applesauce for sugar in the recipe. Get excited about trying new foods that could potentially become your next favorite meal.

7) Allow Your Taste Buds Time to Transform

Your taste buds have become accustomed to the flavor of modified foods, but that doesn’t mean they have to remain that way. Taste buds are known to regenerate every one to two weeks. This is why when you burn your tongue, you don’t lose those taste buds forever. It won’t take long to train your taste buds to enjoy a salad as much as a bag of potato chips.

When some people remove soft drinks from their diet and try one some months later, they wonder how they ever drank something that sweet. Super sweet, super salty, and genetically modified foods can overwhelm your taste buds and lead to an under-appreciation of the natural sweetness and saltiness of natural garden foods.

8) Use Seasoning Instead of Fat

You might be shocked how delicious food can taste when baked, boiled or steamed. Butter, oil, and frying may not be missed at all if the food is seasoned properly. This is a fun time to research which vegetables are better steamed, which are better boiled and then experiment with natural herbs as seasonings. It’s time to break out the spices!

9) Distract Yourself

Psychologist Walter Mishel created the marshmallow test, one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology, which is often cited as evidence of the importance of self-control or delayed gratification. Mishel tested the willpower of hundreds of four-year-olds by placing a cookie or marshmallow in front of them, telling them they could either eat the treat now or, if they waited until the researchers came back in 15 minutes, they could have two.

Mishel discovered that the children who were the most successful figured out a way to distract themselves by turning around, covering their eyes, or even kicking the desk.

In a second study, he placed two marshmallows in front of the children and offered three different options for the children to focus on. He told one group to imagine how much marshmallows are like clouds: round, white, and puffy. He instructed a control group, in contrast, to imagine how sweet and chewy and soft they were.

A third group he instructed to visualize the crunchiness and saltiness of pretzels. The children who visualized the qualities of the marshmallows as puffy and round waited almost three times longer than children who were instructed to imagine how delicious the marshmallows would taste.

Surprisingly, the children who visualized the unavailable pretzels were able to wait the longest. The mind is powerful when it comes to weight-loss victory. Training your brain to focus on something pleasurable instead of the chocolate cake your coworker brought to share can help you push through the immediate temptation.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. – Hebrews 12:11

10) Eat Intentionally

A strong, healthy body and a long life of service are useful to God for kingdom purposes. But there are also other reasons to be intentional about eating. Many diet fads include a “cheat day.”

Knowing there’s a break in the week to devour whatever you want makes the other six days more manageable for some people, but cheat days can be disastrous if it’s a day dedicated to indulging in every food you missed out on during the week and overeating.

Adjust your food consumption in order to make room for the chips and salsa. Plan to eat it rather than caving in, overeating, and feeling like a failure. As long as your dietary deviations are only occasional and minimal, there shouldn’t be any major repercussions.

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. – 1 Corinthians 10:31

11) Save Food for Later

It’s natural tendency to eat everything placed on your plate. Of course, wasting food is never recommended, so when facing an enormous portion of a dish at a restaurant, eat half and take the rest home for lunch the following day. You will save money and get to enjoy the meal twice. If you drink a glass of water before your meal arrives it will fill you up even more and splitting the food will be an easier choice.

12) Give It Away

Maybe your individual plan allows you to sample desserts at a holiday party, but you probably shouldn’t hoard the leftovers in your house.  Any leftovers can go either to the office, to your neighbors or to your friends. They will love the sweet gesture and it keeps the treats from tempting you.

Keeping a temptation in the house is asking for trouble. Set yourself up for success by removing the temptation before it becomes a threat to your health goals.

How Christian Counseling Can Help You on Your Weight Loss Journey

Whether you are an emotional eater, feel addicted to certain foods, or have struggled to lose weight your entire life, our Christian counselors are here to help you comb through your history to identify roadblocks that are keeping you from the health that God intends for you. We would love to help you overcome any obstacles in your way.  Start by making an appointment today!