We hear people talk about wanting to lose weight all the time. Never do we hear people say that they’d like to lose weight effectively. Effective weight loss means being able to lose the weight and keep it off! Everyone is usually looking for a quick fix, but little do they know, the journey continues even after you’ve achieved your goal weight.
What happens after you try one of those get thin quick diets and it works? But as soon as you stop, you gain back not only all of the weight that you’d dieted so hard to lose but a few extra pounds as well. Yikes! I know that’s never our intention. However, it happens more often than not.
Why do you gain the weight back after stopping a diet?
Good question: many things contribute to weight gain after a diet has subsided.
Listed below are three of the main reasons for weight gain after a quick diet.
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Binge Eating:
- This happens when we go long periods of time without eating because we don’t feel hungry. Then when you finally sit down to eat, it ends up being more than what your normal portions would have been had you have eaten sooner. Binge eating, put simple, means that you’re only eating when you’re hungry, and it causes you to overeat.
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Lack of physical activity:
- Physical activity helps to burn off the calories that you’ve packed on during the day, and if you are one that suffers in the physical activity department, this is a reason for the extra pounds that you can’t seem to get rid of or understand what’s causing the gain.
RELATED: Effective Ways To Build Your Metabolism: Calorie Burning Tips
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Reverting to pre-diet eating habits:
- This is one of the main reasons for putting weight back on after a diet. This happens because you aren’t as conscious of the things you’re putting into your body as you were when you were dieting.
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Inadequate amounts of sleep:
- When you don’t get enough sleep the stress levels in your body are higher. These stress levels, cortisol, are very closely related to fat and can be a contributing factor to an increase in your appetite. Believe it or not, rest is a part of the process.
If you have found yourself in any of the before mentioned situations, then you may just want to continue reading so that you’ll have a better understanding of effective weight loss and the things you can do to shed weight and keep it off!
- One of the most important things you can do when trying to lose weight and keep it off is eat! Yes you heard me right…EAT! Eating small and more frequent meals throughout the day has proven to be very effective. Only eating when you’re hungry or even going without eating for that matter seems to be more detrimental than anything else. Research has proven that when you only eat when you become hungry, you have the tendency to overeat. Versus having more frequent meals throughout the day, which helps to keep you fuller longer and most importantly it helps with speeding up your metabolism.
- Getting enough sleep and understanding that rest is a part of the process. Yes, I know that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that we think we need to do. But trust me, if you’re sleeping and getting the rest that you so desperately need, then you won’t have to worry about your cortisol levels shooting up and causing you to become hungry at night. That’s right, that means no more late night snacks and extra calories to just sit on your stomach overnight and contribute to both, stress and weight gain.
- The consumption of processed foods. A lot of career driven people that have lives outside of work, like me, don’t like to have to work long hours and then have to come home to cook. Instead, they go for the quick fix; whether that be a fast food restaurant on the way home, or simply popping a frozen dinner in the microwave. If we use one day a week to prep (healthy) meals, this will cut down on some of the unhealthy calories we consume during the week.
- Avoiding the scale is another way to help cut down on weight gain. If you don’t know what you weigh, then you don’t know where to improve. By seeing your numbers, knowing your numbers and being conscious of your weight will keep you on alert. This way if you notice yourself gaining then you can do something to nip it in the bud. A weekly weigh in is definitely recommended in order to keep yourself in check.
- Cutting things out of your diet that you may think are not good for you. This can do more harm than hurt. For example, carbs. Most people feel that cutting out carbohydrates will aid in keeping weight at bay. You need carbs in order for your brain and central nervous system to work properly. Restricting your body of carbs will also send your body into starvation mode and in turn, makes fat your body’s primary source of energy. Therefore, eating a healthy amount of good carbs is necessary.
- Lastly, exercising. Exercising is essential in being able to keep weight off because it helps to burn calories. Those more frequent yet smaller meals that we talked about earlier on will be key in the exercise process as well. Those meals will fuel your body will just enough food to keep you full during the day but at the same time provide you with enough energy to burn during your workouts. The goal is to burn more calories than you consume.
Hopefully, with the above pointers of do’s and don’ts, you’ll be able to keep your weight at bay by using some of these effective weight loss strategies while keeping in mind the things that don’t contribute to effective weight loss.
