Cutting unnecessary weight and KEEPING it off can seem like a constant uphill battle.
The biggest considerations to keep in mind when trying to cut weight off your body are:
Quality Foods:
Emphasis on QUALITY. Reducing the trans-fat, sugar, and salt in the traditional North American diet can often be our biggest ticket to seeing improvements in the mirror. Avoid microwave meals, fast-food, foods heavy in sauce, and salted foods.
Natural foods dense in nutrients are the meals our body craves! None more valuable than a regular source of cruciferous greens. Whether it's a quality greens powder in your smoothie each morning, or a daily salad/bowl/stir-fry loaded with Kale, Spinach, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower, Beet Greens, etc. this is a habit that needs to become a part of your routine!
Daily Activity:
Whether it's a regular workout schedule, a Body Architects Monthly Challenge, or an evening walk, getting the body moving DAILY will boost metabolism and burn calories at a higher rate throughout the day.
Building Muscle:
Incorporate strength training into your workouts. Muscle costs more energy than fat. When you are carrying more muscle on your frame your body will burn more calories.
Sleep:
We've heard it before. We hear it time and time again. We hear it so often we get used to ignoring it.
Sleep is VITAL.
When we don't sleep we gain weight, stress increases, mood plummets, sex drive drops, immune system is weakened, and our body fails to recover as it was intended to.
Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night.
Quality sleep tips:
- Dark bedroom
- Temperature between 18-20 degrees celsius
- Screen-time curfew of 9pm (latest)
Reduced Calories (but not TOO LOW):
While it is true that basic weight loss boils down to less calories consumed vs. calories burned, a very common mistake that many people make is to drop their calorie intake WAY too low!
The average healthy woman should be consuming between 1700-2300 quality calories each day, and the average healthy man should be between 2200-2700 quality calories each day (emphasis on quality calories).
When weight loss is our goal, we can reduce average daily calorie intake by 400-700 calories to see effective results. However, when we reduce quality calorie intake to the 900-1200 range for an extended period of time our bodies do not have the energy to perform basic functioning, so the LAST thing that will happen is burning of extra fuel storage (excess fat)! As a result, you will often experience brain fog, fatigue, sugar cravings, and weight GAIN!
At the end of the day it’s an Emphasis on quality. 100 calories from your glass of wine at the end of the day, or 500 calories from your Wendy's burger at lunch does not count toward this grand total. These are simply extra calories (and we don't want to add too many of these...)
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