If you’ve managed to lose a lot of pounds and hit your weight target, you have a lot to be proud of. It’s important not to let your guard down, however. Research has shown that as hard as it may be to lose weight, it’s often harder to keep it off. Only one in five of those who succeed in losing weight manage to keep their new figure.
The challenge in keeping lost weight off lies in the way your body reacts. For many people, their bodies fight back with greater food cravings and lower levels of metabolism. Majed Alhamad, an experienced trainer and nutritionist, knows that if you are to resist your body’s slide toward weight gain, you need to pay attention to a few tips.
Include plant-based foods in your diet
Fruits and vegetables tend to be composed mostly of fiber and water. They contain very few calories. This means that when you eat them, they help you quickly feel full without putting too many calories into your body. You need to think of how hard it would be if you tried to eat two whole apples or oranges, or an entire head of cabbage at one go — it’s hard to overeat when you indulge in fiber-rich foods. When you turn to a healthy, plant-based diet, it becomes easier to lower the number of calories that you consume and keep weight gain off.
Choose home-cooked meals over meals at restaurants
When you cook your meals, you get to pay close attention to the ingredients that you use, and the amount of fat that goes into your food. With the internet offering hundreds of healthy recipes, it’s easy to create delicious, nutritionally balanced meals at home. Since it can be much harder to ensure such nutritional balance when you eat out, you should strive to cook at home as often as possible.
Get more protein in your diet
Studies have indicated that high-protein diets help you fight weight gain. Proteins help you stay full for longer, and dull food cravings. If the strategy seems similar to others that you’ve heard recommended for weight loss, it’s no accident. The best weight-loss plans are lifestyle overhauls, after all. If you need to keep your weight off for life, you need to choose a healthy diet for life.
Stay away from liquid calories
Calorie-rich beverages such as lattes, sodas and packaged fruit juices put a lot of calories into your diet without the fiber that should go with them. Sweetened, fiber-free beverages pack in the calories without helping you feel full. You get to consume a great deal without realizing how many calories you are putting into your system. If you want to keep weight off you should focus on water to stay hydrated.
Keep your body’s population of gut bacteria healthy
The millions of healthy bacteria that live in your intestines promote your health in many ways. Studies have revealed that obese individuals have smaller populations of health-promoting bacteria than harmful ones, in their gut. The health of your gut bacteria population can have a significant impact on your ability to keep weight off. The best way to help your body’s population of bacteria is to eat plenty of fermented foods like yogurt and kimchi, and lots of fiber-rich fruits and vegetables that help feed the good bacteria.
Exercise is important when you need to maintain a healthy weight
When you try to lose weight, making changes to your diet can be the single most important thing that you can do. Once you lose weight, however, keeping it off requires that you shift focus to physical activity. The more you move, the easier it gets for you to maintain a healthy weight level.
Studies have indicated that people who lose weight and successfully manage to keep it off, no longer think about the weight loss rules that they need to live by. Instead, they internalize those rules and accept them as part of a new lifestyle. The best way to keep weight off is to alter the way you live your life. A healthy diet and healthy exercise routines should be your new life.
