I really dislike the word "diet". I think that most people who want to lose weight break out into a cold sweat when they hear the word. It conjures up fears of being hungry all the time and feeling deprived. Not a great strategy for long term and sustainable weight loss.
When I talk to clients about losing weight, I tell them that they will lose weight without dieting. How's that possible? Doesn't weight loss and crazy fad diets go together? Maybe for short-term weight loss it does. But weight loss that is long-term and sustainable is done with subtle changes to lifestyle.
Here are 3 strategies for losing weight without dieting:
1. Eat Slowly:
This strategy is so simple that you may find it hard to believe. You can lose all of the weight you want if you did this one thing every day.
Here is the way it works - It takes about 20 minutes for your gut to communicate with your brain that you are full. That's a long time, considering the average meal-time for folks is about 6 minutes. Think about all of the food you can eat before your brain says that you are full!! This is the main reason why so many of us OVEREAT.
So the fix for this is to eat slowly. In fact, you should shoot for taking 15 to 20 minutes to complete your meal. The best way to do this is to take a bite of food and put your fork down. Talk to the other people at the table. Take a drink of water. Listen to the conversation of others. Then go ahead and take another bites.
The longer it takes you to eat, the more full you will feel. Done correctly, you should feel full before you finish your meal.
2. Stop Eating When You No Longer "Feel" Hungry:
This is a big one. How many times have you had a meal where you felt full, but the food was SOO GOOD that you could not resist and you ate until you felt like your stomach was going to burst. Because we live in an age of abundance, food is readily available. Se we eat more for pleasure and entertainment than for sustenance.
Try this - Stop eating when you feel like you are about 80% full. What does this feel like? It is a feeling of "not being hungry". In other words, when your hunger is satisfied, stop eating. Even if you have food still on your plate, stop eating and put it into a piece of Tupperware.
This is going to do a few things. First, it will enhance your mind/body connection. Secondly, it will shrink your stomach. When you eat more slowly and stop when you are no longer hungry, your stomach will shrink. This is a lot less expensive than gastric by-pass surgery. Once your stomach has shrunk a bit, it will be very easy to reduce your portion sizes.
3. Cut Your Portion Sizes by 25% to 50%:
If you are a "big eater", this one will sound impossible. But, if you slow down and stop eating when you are 80% full, then you will naturally eat less full. This will shrink your stomach and pretty soon you will feel totally satisfied on ½ of what you would normally eat.
So think about what would happen to your waistline if you cut your food intake by 50%. By the way, this is without changing the foods you eat normally. In other words, losing weight without dieting.
I have a client who lost 65 pounds in 5 months by following these 3 strategies. He did not change his diet, just how much he was eating. Once he lost the weight, he then started focusing on the nutrition end and introduced foods with a higher nutritional value. He wanted more "nutritional" bang for his "caloric" buck. That allowed him to not only lose more weight, but significantly increase his energy.
So if you have tried dieting in the past and nothing has worked, give these 3 strategies a try and see if you don't start seeing some results.
About The Author
Mike Christie is a certified personal trainer, functional movement specialist, and nutritional counselor. He invites you to visit https://goo.gl/7k7sbX for more fitness and nutrition articles like this one along with free tips and advice. You can also check out his blog at http://mikechristiepersonaltrainer.com/ for more awesome original content.
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