It’s great to want to be healthy and in shape, but there’s often a lot of confusion and uncertainty about how to reach your weight loss goals the right way. It can be frustrating when you feel stuck and aren’t making any progress, or maybe you’ve even taken a few steps in the wrong direction.
In this blog, we’ll tackle two main topics that have a significant impact on how to reach your health and weight loss goals.
Manage Your Eating Habits
Are you working hard at managing your weight but not seeing the results you’re expecting? Take a closer look at your eating habits. Often times, exercise and proper nutrition work hand-in-hand to help you accomplish your weight loss goals. To make yourself more aware of your eating habits, it can be useful to count your calories. This process could help you realize your daily calorie consumption is too high, or maybe you’re eating too much of a certain type of food, such as foods with high amounts of fat or sodium. To help you begin, we’ll cover how to determine your recommended calorie intake and then some counting calories Dos and Don’ts.
Determine Your Recommended Calorie Allowance
When deciding to count your calories, the first step is to determine just how many calories you are consuming per day. Then you can find out what your calorie target should be, and compare the results. An easy way to determine your optimal calorie intake is to use an online calorie calculator. When using an online calorie calculator, it’s important to keep in mind your results are estimates. Your diet history and metabolism play a role in determining calorie expenditure. To ensure you’re eating enough to sustain a healthy lifestyle, be sure to consult a registered dietitian or health care provider. Sun Health Wellness offers various nutritional services and assessments to help guide you in the right direction and determine your appropriate calorie intake.
Count Your Calories: Dos and Don’ts
Counting your daily calories isn’t just a great way to manage your eating habits and improve weight loss, but it also gives you great insight into what you’re eating, how much you’re eating and how it makes you feel. You’ll have a better understanding of the composition of the foods you’re eating such as the amount of carbs, fat, sugar, sodium, etc. When counting your calories, it’s important to do it the right way.
Here are some helpful tips and tricks to get you started:
Do consult with a physician or dietitian if you’re planning on starting a very low calorie diet
As a general rule, women should not consume less than 1,200 calories per day and men should not consume less than 1,500 calories per day. However, it’s always best to consult your physician or a dietitian if you’re planning on limiting calories beyond those recommendations.
Don’t limit counting to just calories
It’s important you don’t focus only on the calories you are consuming. Be sure to also pay attention to the amount of protein, fiber, sodium and added sugars in your meals. These nutritional components are especially important to pay attention to when trying to maintain good health while losing weight. You can consult with a dietitian to determine your personal nutrient needs.
Do enlist the help from a tracking app or device
It can be hard to get in the groove of tracking calories, that’s why it can be very helpful to utilize a calorie tracking app or device. These apps can also help break your consumption down to keep you aware of how much protein, sugar, fiber, fat, sodium, etc. you’re consuming, helping make sure you’re not lacking nutrients.
Of course, if you prefer to write everything down manually, that’s perfectly fine as well – just make sure you’re paying attention to other important nutrition elements.
Don’t forget to record everything!
Counting your calories only works if you track everything you’re eating. It can be easy to overlook small snacks, but those also count towards your calories for the day. Not only does this help with your calorie intake, but this also helps you stay consistent and true to your weight loss goals.
Don’t be too hard on yourself
Always remember that it’s perfectly reasonable to eat a few extra calories one day and a few less the next. It’s important to keep a healthy balance and to always listen to what your body is telling you.
Switch Up Your Exercise Routine
It can be easy to get in the habit of doing the same exercise routine every day. Switch it up every few months when you feel your progress is starting to slow down, or when you’re feeling bored of your workouts and want to try something new. Our bodies are smart, and they eventually adapt to the same workout routine. When they adapt, you might notice less progress known as the weight-loss plateau.
Combining both calorie restriction and physical activity tend to be most beneficial for weight loss rather than just calorie restriction or just physical activity. Try some of the following training styles to switch up your workout routine and keep your progress moving forward:
Flexibility Training
This type of training is beneficial for any age group, but it’s especially helpful for adults 65 and older. As we age, our bodies tend to tense and tighten up, leading to more injuries, bad posture and poor balance. Incorporating flexibility training like traditional yoga, chair yoga and general stretching will help you feel less pain by loosening your muscles, as well as improving posture and balance with a greater range of motion. Increasing your flexibility also makes you less prone to injuries.
Strength Training
Strength training is essential to prevent loss of muscle mass while losing weight. As we age, our bodies tend to lose muscle mass and bone density, leaving us at a higher risk for developing osteoporosis or sarcopenia. Strength training will help maintain or increase muscle mass, strengthen your bones and burn more calories. In addition to strength training, it is equally important to consume enough protein throughout the day.
Cardio
Cardio is another great form of exercise that is beneficial for all age groups and key for weight management. The general physical activity guidelines for Americans recommend aiming for 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity aerobic exercise. People who want to lose a substantial amount of weight (more than 5 percent of body weight) and people who are trying to keep a significant amount of weight off once it has been lost may need to do more than 300 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week to meet weight-control goals. The US Department of Health & Human Services recommends that adults over the age of 65 should incorporate a minimum of 3 days of cardio a week into their exercise routine. This could include walking, hiking, jogging, bicycling and even some mild yard work, such as pushing a lawn mower. Adding cardio to your routine will help increase your lung capacity, improve heart function, boost your immune system, strengthen bones and make you feel more energized.
How long will it take me to reach my goals?
Simple answer: Everyone is different and healthy weight loss takes time.
If you try to push your body’s limits too far, too fast, you could see your progress going the opposite direction. Always listen to your body and make sure to consult with a dietitian about your weight loss goals and strategy.
Set a Reachable Goal
Another factor to reaching your goals is to make sure you’re setting a realistic goal for yourself. For example, losing 5% of your current weight is a reasonable goal to start with. Even if you’d ultimately like to lose more than that, starting with a smaller goal makes it more likely that you’ll reach it with healthy lifestyle changes instead of unsustainable crash diets.
Sun Health Wellness Health & Wellbeing
Our team of experts, including licensed physiologists and dietitians, are here to help you accomplish your weight loss goals. Explore Sun Health Wellness and some of our most popular Healthy Living classes, which are covered under most insurance providers or have a low out-of-pocket-cost.
