Weight loss is actually very simple and is normally just a matter of making adjustments to your current lifestyle and routines in everyday life that can make a big impact on your weight and general health. I have put together the 10 most important tips I feel would suit anyone looking to lose weight or adopt a more healthy lifestyle.
Tips for a healthier lifestyle
Weight loss is blindingly simple, burn more than you intake and you WILL lose weight, adopt some or all of the tips below and you will be well on your way to becoming more healthy, achieving your ideal weight and looking and feeling great. All this without a Direct Debit at a gym, although a gym would of-course help us out, but not everyone likes the gym and these tips are much less expensive 🙂
Dan’s Top Ten Tips for Weight Loss & a Healthy Lifestyle
- Reduce or cut out alcohol consumption
- Snack every 2-3 hours
- Stay Hydrated
- Do 30 minutes of pulse raising activity 5 times a week
- Eat sensible portions
- Get your 5 a-day
- Eat breakfast
- Step it up with a pedometer
- Get food swapping
- Exercise with a friend
1. Reduce or cut out alcohol consumption
OK, so we all like drink now and then but when looking to become healthier and lose some weight, any alcohol is excessive to our daily requirements, it’s surplus to what we actually need and it’s a luxury and is full of unnecessary calories. Therefore if you are in the minority of people that are happy to go T-Total and cut out all alcohol from your diet, then yes this would be the best way to eliminate these extra calories, however, it is much more reasonable to consider reducing the amount of alcohol we drink on a daily basis, when and how much.
As a start try to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed by half of what you might normally drink in a week.
Don’t binge drink!, this means drinking to excess at one time.
Consider a swap, i.e. Lager for wine (see the food swap tip no 9 for more examples).
Drink in moderation, ideally with a meal.
The government has set out a recommended daily consumption of alcohol units of no more than 2-3 for both men and women, this is what is considered safe and does not mean they can be added together for a Saturday night binge of 21+ units.
Some examples of drinking at recommended limits & Calories Consumed
Drinking 2-3 units a-day of lager
There is between 2 and 2.5 units in a pint of lager (depending on the brand) and the calories will depending on the brand range from 190 to 350.
So in one week that’s 350 (maximum) x 7 = 2450 kcal
Drinking 2-3 units a-day of Cider
There is between 2 and 2.5 units in a pint of cider (depending on the brand) and the calories will depending on the brand range from 190 to 250.
So in one week that’s 250 (maximum) x 7 = 1750 kcal
Drinking 2-3 units a-day of White Wine
There is between 2 and 2.5 units in a standard size glass of wine (175ml), again this depends on the brand and the calories range from 100 to 150.
So in one week that’s 150 (maximum) x 7 = 1050 kcal
Want to easily find out how many units are in your alcoholic drink?
So we can see, by only drinking recommended government limits of alcohol, over a week it is practically 1 days total recommended calorie intake, therefore in conclusion of this tip.
Reduce and/or swap your alcoholic weekly drinks consumption to achieve better health, reach and maintain an ideal weight.
Alcohol, Drinking & Health Links
- Recommended Limits from the NHS
- NHS Alcohol Information Website
- DrinkAware.co.uk Information Site on Alcohol & Drinking
Source for calorie calculation
2. Snack Every 2-3 Hours!
Snacking is a great way to keep your metabolism rolling along through the day, snacking will keep your metabolism alive and will provide a near continuous source of energy for your body. However, a snack is a piece of fruit, a yoghurt or a cereal bar etc. Chocolate as a snack is not always ideal as it gives your body a sudden energy boosts which is normally followed by an energy come down.
Benefits of snacking include:
- Stops you from over eating during your main meals
- keeps your metabolism fired up thorough the day
If you heard or thought that snacking to lose weight was bad, it’s not true. Providing the snack is a not full of sugar it will be beneficial to weight loss and maintaining a healthy diet.
Eat a light snack every 2 to 4 hours and ensure your metabolism is always fired up.
3. Stay Hydrated
Water! Do we drink enough? No, in-fact most of us actually live in a state of dehydration which ultimately is bad for your health, body, cells and bodily functions. Remember, our bodies are 60-70% water, we can go for a month or more without food but more than a couple of days without water and we are in serious trouble.
Guidance suggests we should drink eight glasses of water a day amounting to about 2 to 2.5 litres of water, it is essential to take on water throughout the day to replace lost fluid from the body. Water is consumed in a variety of ways and a large part of our daily water requirement comes from the food we eat. Generally speaking water is best when it does not have caffeine or alcohol in it although to some degree these drinks would help keep you hydrated.
Staying hydrated is very important, it benefits nearly all bodily functions especially brain and kidney functions, ensuring all cells and organs have an adequate amount of water to run smoothly. Your urine should be straw coloured or paler, if it is darker then there is a good chance your are or are becoming dehydrated and taking on more water would certainly be beneficial.
Are you thirsty? If you are thirsty, you are already dehydrated and you have not consumed enough water to meet your bodies needs, at the point you feel thirsty it’s likely you would have already lost about 1% of your body weight in water, failure to meet your bodies needs at this point will cause impaired performance and increased body temperature.
The best way to stay hydrated is to drink little and often, if training then isotonic drinks with about 6% sugars will aid hydration and speed up water uptake by the body.
Do we need more water if we exercise? Exercising is demanding and consumes water supplies to cool the body assisting in temperature regulation and to meet the demand of increased organ functions etc, it’s important not only to stay hydrated while exercising but ensure you are rehydrated before you begin exercising, often if you are dehydrated when exercising this can cause nausea and headaches (your bodies way of saying ‘i don’t want to do this without more water’). As well as headaches and other symptoms it will almost certainly have an effect on your performance during exercise.
‘Drink water before during and after exercise’ Remember to drink little and often, although coffee and tea can arguably be considered water replacement it would be much better to drink fresh water or an isotonic sports drink especially during exercise that will also assist in the replacement of body salts and minerals etc.
Another good reason for taking on water at regular intervals during the day is that sometimes when we feel hungry, the signals are very similar to when you feel thirsty and therefore might prompt you to eat a snack when really your body was just thirsty and you just needed a glass of water.
4. Do 30 minutes of pulse raising activity 5 times a week
A small amount of exercise each day is all you need to encourage and maintain a healthy lifestyle, you don’t need to get to the gym, unless you want to of course. 30 minutes of exercise can come in a variety of forms. Basically anything that raises your heart rate, gets you working and maybe even a little sweat, whether its maintaining your garden, taking the dog for a walk or walking to the local shop in the morning instead of driving.
30 minutes 5 times a week at a moderate intensity is recommended for the average adult, while for children up to 60 minutes of moderate activity is encouraged 5 time a week. Alternatively working at a higher intensity for 20 minutes 3 times a week would also be as effective for an adult.
These recommendations are to encourage and maintain a healthy lifestyle. If you were wanting to actually lose and maintain weight loss, between 60 and 90 minutes of moderate activity would be required 5 times per week.
Break it down! Don’t have time for 30 minutes of a continuous activity? Well good news! The 30 recommended minutes of activity can be completed in short bursts lasting a minimum of 10 minutes to be accumulated over the day to achieve the recommended minimum activity time.
Is more better? These guideline are most definitely minimum recommendations, therefore any additional activity and exercise you can fit in would indeed enhance a healthy lifestyle and if required, reach goals of weight loss and weight management.
References and useful links
- ACSM – American College of Sports Medicine recommended activity guidelines
- In the News! from the BBC
5. Eat sensible portions
One of the main reasons people take on too many calories and more calories than they actually need is because of the size of their portions. The body is great at telling you when you are hungry but it’s not so great at letting you know when you are full. The body is slow in realizing you are full and by this time you were likely full some time ago and thus have over eaten. A good way to control the amount you eat and stop you over eating is to ensure you follow tip no 2; snacking. This will ensure your body has a constant stream of energy to pull upon and will stop the urge to over eat during your next main meal.
Eating sensible portions is sometimes not easy and keeping a food diary is a good idea to help monitor your portion size as well as what you eat, having a food diary also makes you more conscious of the type of food and drink you have and how much you have, there are many diet companies such as Tesco E-diets where you can keep a food diary to monitor your calorie intake or the very popular Weight watchers programme, whether you choose to use one of these or another similar dieting programe. Any programme or diet related eating plan that aims to keep you eating healthily while reducing the calories is going to be a good thing, as at the very least it is encouraging you to think about what you eat, when and how often and most importantly, the portion size.
6. Get your 5 a-day
Government rubbish or does it actually make sense?
A good way to ensure we get a good base of healthy and nutritious fruit and vegetables each day. This is based on recommendations from the world health organization that recommend 400g of fruit or vegetables per day in order to maintain health and prevent onset of many illnesses and diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
It’s a good tag time and might be hard to take seriously but getting your 5 a day will make a solid contribution to some essential vitamins, minerals and fibre that our diet sometimes lacks. Although fruit and vegetables are certainly good for you, it’s not always the case that more is better. Overdosing on fruit and vegetables is not ‘eating sensible portions’, tip 5 and fruit has a high fructose content which if not used for energy will be converted to fat.
References and useful links
7. Eat Breakfast
Do you skip breakfast? Well… alot of people do, especially within our busy schedules of modern life, rushing to work, getting up late and skipping breakfast to save time etc etc. I guess it seems that sometimes eating breakfast can be an inconvenience as we just need to get on, when in truth breakfast is by far the most important meal of the day.
How?
Well, we need to remember that we have not eaten for 8 hours or so while we have been sleeping, then when we get up if we still do not eat your body starts to get worried. This results in the body slowing down it’s metabolism and putting the body into a state of starvation, thus causing it to store anything you do eat as fat, as it does not know how frequently it will get energy.
Also, not eating breakfast is likely to lead to an increase in hunger which might result in you over eating at lunch or whenever your next meal is, which is likely to result in much of that excess energy intake being stored as fat.
However!
If we eat breakfast, and a good one at that, technically speaking breakfast should really be the biggest meal of the day full of slow release carbohydrates. Once your body gets some food in the morning it will fire up your bodies metabolism, using what you have eaten for instant energy and storing some for later in the day.
Kellogg’s have been saying it for years (namely to sell their cereals) but in-fact they are not wrong, breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. Make time for breakfast and fire up your metabolism for the day.
8. Step it up with a pedometer
Keeping an eye on the number of steps you accumulate throught the day is a great way of understanding your current activity level and a base for setting goals to increase activity, consume more calories and most importantly staying active and keeping healthy. Pedometers are not just for those that wish to lose weight but for anyone you wants to monitor their activity levels and ensure they are doing enough activity to stay healthy.
But how many steps?
There seems to be some debate on what is healthy and what is recommended for help etc, many resources recommend at least 1000’s steps a-day, others more and some less. The truth is it will depend on you and your lifestyle. My advice would be to wear a pedometer for a week and just have it on without deliberately trying step more or go widely outside your usual routine. Calculate the steps for each day, the week, days you work, your days off etc.
Once you have this information, you can use it to set yourself realistic goals to increase the step distance each day, it’s probably best to calculate for each day as each day might be different, especially compared to a day off.
Set your goals
Now time to set yourself a goal, ask yourself:
- Do you walk to work? can you walk to work?, if so great, allow some extra time and walk to work instead of taking the bus or driving.
- Can you take a walk at lunch time?
- Walk to shops in morning instead of car!
- Squeeze in a run during the week?
- Be a fan of the treadmill at the gym.
Ultimately there are many simple things you can do to increase your step count. Use your own data, record your steps each week and continue to set yourself extra goals, like finding a longer way to walk to work etc.
9. Get food swapping
Basically, this tip is not about following a diet, it’s about changing the bad for the good or at least some bad for good. This won’t be an exhausting list of bad for goods, merely a tip and advice on how to achieve it (there are plenty of resources available on the internet about food swapping, below). Eating habits, even some well structured diets are all over the place in terms of healthy food what might be called bad food, as long as there is a balance we can work towards being healthy. Swapping food is an active step to changing certain things you eat for healthy options that ultimately will be better for you, for example changing to wholemeal bread from white bread and changing red meat for white meat etc.
The reason I like this type of approach is, it’s achievable, it can be progressive and it does not completely change your current eating habits. Take a look at your diet and see what things you could change for the better, simple and small steps but very effective.
Food swap websites and information
10. Exercise with a friend
Grab a friend and get them involved with your fitness programme, it might be just a couple of laps running around where you live or perhaps an 8 mile run in the country. Working out and training with a friend is a great way to stay motivated with any activity or gym routine. You can help each other, spot for each other in the gym and keep each other motivated as well as being an excellent social opportunity.
These exercises do not have to be intense and could be very casual or maybe you are training with weights that you need help with in the gym, either way, it’s a sound way to form routine into your schedule while benefiting from exercise, keeping fit and staying healthy.