Weight loss is perhaps the biggest topic in the health world. It’s a multifaceted process within your body that, when healthfully done, should mean that your body is detoxifying and decreasing its fat mass.
Knowledge of your own body is key in successfully losing weight. That said, a lack of body awareness, knowledge about food and understanding of how daily habits effect weight loss can ultimately sabotage your big plan to lose weight.
Many of these things you may be doing idadvertently, unaware of the repercussions. Luckily, you can morph these bad habits into healthy eating habits for weight loss. Thus, you will optimize the rate at which you shed pounds the healthy way.
1. Not Getting Enough Sleep
Sleep is your body’s time to rejuvenate, recuperate, revive and heal itself. You’ve likely heard it a million times: get more sleep. It’s repeated often for a reason. It’s crucial to your health and overall well being–especially for weight loss.
Sleep deprivation is a huge contributor to a slow metabolism. Since metabolism (the sum of all your body’s processes) is responsible for weight loss, this is a big deal. When you aren’t adequately rested, your body goes into “preservation mode”, in which it’s desperate to hang onto all necessary energy needed to function properly throughout the day. When this happens, your body puts weight loss on the backburner, so to speak. When this happens, it’s much harder to lose weight.
To solve this, make sleep a priority. Going to bed an hour earlier every night is an effective, small way to become more rested.
2. Eating All The Time
There is a multitude of conflicting arguments on how often you should eat during the day. What’s certain is that every time you eat, your blood sugar elevates and so do your insulin levels. Doing this too frequently can create imbalance in your body.
Every body is different and may require different approaches to make a weight loss plan successful. Try experimenting with a different number of meals during the day. You may find that keeping it to 3 meals a day will cause your body to rely on fat when it needs energy. Pay attention to how your body feels when you eat 6 small meals a day. Do you feel sluggish? Do you feel revitalized? Gauging how your own body responds to food can help you create the eating approach that works best for you.
If you feel that implementing the 3-meal-a-day approach feels best for you, this will help solve your constant spikes in blood sugar. Weight loss may be a bit easier for you that way.
This approach means that you will only be eating when you’re truly hungry–with minimal snacking. Also, your meals should be big enough that you are satisfied for several hours.
3. Eating Too Much Fruit
Nature’s sweet treat, fruit, can be all too enticing when you need a quick snack. It’s certainly a viable option when you’re on-the-go. Eating a variety of different fruits will help you take advantage of each unique nutrient profile that each type of fruit offers.
Though fruit can be described as a healthy snack option, it’s helpful to remember that you can overdo anything. Fruit is no exception. Fruit should not become the enemy, rather it should be consumed in moderation. Think balance.
A great way to take advantage of nature’s bounty of nutrients is to give vegetables a turn as well. Swap your banana for a bag of carrots, or your apple for cucumber slices. These simple changes will decrease the amount of sugar you’re consuming, while keeping it robust with nutrients.
4. Eating too much processed dairy and grains
So many suffer from food intolerances. These foods, when consumed, often cause digestive issues and inflammation within the body. Processed dairy and grains are two very common food allergens.
Cow’s milks and unmanipulated grains are hearty, nutrient rich foods that (in a perfect world) would be great options. Unfortunately, what most have access to today is milk that has been heated, injected with hormones and combined with synthetics vitamins and minerals.
The vitamins and minerals that are naturally occurring in raw milk are denatured and stripped through pasteurization and processing–then replaced with artificial, cheaper alternatives that reduce the cost of producing and bottling the milk. Commercial grains go through processes as well that make them not as readily digestible to your body.
With that, know that your body likely reacts to commercially pasteurized & processed milk and grains because they are not in their raw and natural state. So, unless you have access to raw milk (it’s not sold in most states), then look to make your own plant-based milk from almonds or coconuts. Store-bought almond or coconut milk works, but note that many of these (even organic) contain preservatives and other agents like carrageenan to increase the shelf life and manipulate its viscosity.
5. Skipping Your Veggies
With the increasing awareness and buzz about juicing and healthy eating, there’s no excuse to not be eating or drinking your vegetables. Eating a few portions of vegetables every day is one of the best weight loss habits.
Vegetables, especially greens like spinach, kale, chard and spirulina, are amongst the most nutrient dense foods you can possibly get your hands on. Foods like this are a dream for those who want to lose weight.
The list of benefits that these (and most other vegetables) offer is expansive and impressive. All you need to do is get them into your system. These foods will help detoxify your system, ease digestion and make your body more alkaline. Having your body’s internal pH more alkaline than acidic will help ward off disease, as an acidic body is a breeding ground for illness.
Integrating vegetables in your daily diet will help keep you healthy and lose weight more easily. Vegetables help make weight loss more efficient because they insure your body is in good working order and is properly nourished (not in preservation mode).
Be creative with how you prepare them to prevent boredom with your routine. Raw is best, but if you need or want to cook your veggies, that is better than not eating them in the first place.
Being mindful of these 5 things and making these changes will allow you to achieve greater success with your weight loss program. Most importantly, you will get to know your body better and enhance your body’s overall health in the process.
Written by Jesica Salyer
Read the published article here.
