When you’re trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you can often feel overwhelmed by a never ending list of what you should or shouldn’t do. Here’s a quick guide of our do’s and don’ts of healthy weight loss:
Do’s
- Eat a variety of food groups or use a balanced, nutritious meal plan designed by a dietitian
- Engage in professional support and monitoring
- Place as much effort on maintaining your weight loss when you reach your goal weight
- Use a food and exercise diary such as written or digital app
- Focus on areas of your lifestyle that need adjusting, other than just calories in and calories out
- Seek medical supervision if seeking weight loss above 10kg and if you have any medical history or medications
- Plan your food and exercise for the week in advance
- Get 7-8hrs of sleep minimum per night
- Ensure you enjoy at least two days with no alcohol in your system, ideally building up to five days out of seven
- Implement coping mechanisms for stress other than food
- Engage a holistic approach with psychology, exercise physiology, dietetics and medical supervision to do weight loss the correct way
- Look at body fat changes and measurements lost rather than purely weight on the scales
- Think long term, generally 1-2kg per month can be a healthy weight loss for some individuals
- Stay positive throughout your weight loss journey
Don’t
- Weigh yourself daily if it creates stress or encourages binge eating or skipping meals
- Avoid a follow up with a dietitian if you have drifted off track with your food intake
- Skip meals or under eat one day because of a higher intake the previous day
- Avoid carbs totally or sugars
- Avoid fats totally
- Avoid gluten, dairy, soy or eggs unless otherwise professionally recommended to you by a dietitian
- Simply buy a product online or in a pharmacy without seeing a professional to monitor you with weight loss
- Fast or detox
- Give up after one day or even week because you have not lost weight
- Decrease your water intake because you believe it will increase your weight on the scale
- Avoid all social events
- Read magazines or google to get your own advice, seek scientific based research
- Think all or nothing
