8 Tips for Maximum Weight Loss

I try hard to make the challenge more about health than about just weight loss, but I also know that being at a healthy weight is a big part of feeling great! I hope the challenge will be a way for you to reach your healthy weight, the healthy way, and stay there by starting lasting habits. 🙂

According to experts, you can safely plan on losing 1-3 pounds a week. Often participants will lose a few more than this the first week or two and then have a few weeks where they lose less (averaging around 2-3 pounds per week). Remind yourself along the way that for lasting weight loss, it is better to lose slowly! Don’t push your body to lose a lot of weight quickly, or you’ll gain it back quickly too. 🙂

Having said that, I want to share my best tips for maximum weight loss {the healthy way}!

1. Eat Clean! 80% of how you look and feel comes from what you eat! Exercise is great, but you can’t erase unhealthy eating with exercise. Focus on eating a wide variety of plant based foods and healthy protein and avoid the junk.

2. Focus on Strength: I know it feels counterintuitive, because cardio burns more calories in the moment, but the best thing you can do to get that scale moving and to create lasting weight loss is build lean muscle! I do cardio (usually a DVD or eliptical) 2 days per week and strength training (I like Jillian Michaels DVDs) 3 days. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories your body will naturally burn during the day.

3. Do High Intensity Intervals: When you do cardio (walking, running, elliptical, etc), the best thing you can do for maximum calorie/fat burning is intervals. Basically this means alternating high intensity bursts of activity with less intense activity. According to one exercise expert. “High intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise.” Find out how to easily add intervals to your workouts {here}, {here}, or {here}.

4. Cook at Home: According to Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto{recommended reading!}, “Cooking is probably the most important thing you can do to improve your diet.” Commit to cooking and eating you meals at home and making healthy choices will be much easier. I hope my recipes can help too. 🙂

5. Don’t Skip Meals: It can be tempting to skip meals or save calories until later, but don’t do it! Doing so will slow down your metabolism and have the opposite effect.

6. Spread Out Your Calories: The best thing you can do for your metabolism and for your hunger level, is to eat 5-7 smaller meals throughout the day.

7. Move More: Set a goal to simply move more throughout the day. Park at the far end of the parking lot, take the stairs and even walk around the house while you talk on the phone. These little actions will add up to greater calorie burn every day. If it helps, get a Pedometer and set a goal to reach 10,000 steps each day or more.

8. Drink Mostly Water: Skip the soda and juice and drink your 64 ounces of water each day. Check out {this} study that proved that drinking water helps with weight loss.

I hope these tips help! If you feel like you are doing all of these and the scale is still stuck, email me and I’d love to help you find a solution! 🙂