There is no end to the fad diets and diet products that promise quick and easy weight loss, particularly around this time of year. Diets don’t work for permanent weight loss. 

For successful, long-term weight loss, you must make permanent changes in your lifestyle and health habits.

How do you make those permanent changes? Here are my top five strategies for weight-loss success.

1. Find your inner motivation

What’s going to give you the burning drive to stick to your weight-loss goals? Make a list of what’s important to you to help stay motivated and focused, whether it’s better overall health or feeling comfortable in your clothing. Then find a way to make sure that you can call on your intrinsic motivation during challenging times. 

While you have to take responsibility for your own behavior for successful weight loss, it helps to have support.  Find people to support you who will encourage you in positive ways, without shame, embarrassment or sabotage. Ideally, find people who will listen to your concerns and feelings, spend time exercising with you or creating healthy menus, and who will share the priority you’ve placed on developing a healthier lifestyle. Your support system can also offer accountability, which can be a strong motivator to help you stick to your weight-loss goals. 

2. Set realistic goals

It may seem obvious to set realistic weight-loss goals. But do you really know what’s realistic? Over the long term, it’s best to aim for losing 1 to 2 pounds a week. To lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day. This can be done by eating foods that keep you feeling full without a lot of calories, like a whole food plant based diet. And don’t forget to move your body!

When you’re setting goals, think about both process and outcome goals. “Exercise regularly” is an example of a process goal, while “Lose 30 pounds” is an example of an outcome goal. It isn’t essential that you have an outcome goal, but you should set process goals because changing your processes, i.e., your habits — is a key to weight loss. Also make sure that your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-limited. An example of a SMART goal is aiming to walk for 30 minutes a day — Monday  though Friday —on the treadmill before work.

3. Enjoy healthier foods

Adopting a new eating style that promotes weight loss does not mean giving up taste, satisfaction or even ease of meal preparation. One way you can eat more while enjoying fewer calories is by eating more plant-based foods — foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Strive for variety to help you achieve your goals without giving up taste or nutrition.

Aim to eat ten servings of vegetables and fruits a day. And yes, you should be eating fat. You need fat to help keep you satiated; eat healthy fats, such as olive oil, avocado oil, nut butters and wild salmon. In addition, cut back on added sugars.

4. Get active, stay active

The key to weight loss is burning more calories than you consume. Because 3,500 calories equals about 1 pound (0.5 kilogram) of fat, you need to burn 3,500 calories more than you take in to lose 1 pound. So if you cut 500 calories from your typical diet each day, you’d lose about 1 pound a week (500 calories x 7 days = 3,500 calories).

While you can lose weight without exercise, exercise plus a healthy diet can help give you the weight-loss edge.  Exercise also offers numerous health benefits, including boosting your mood, strengthening your cardiovascular system and reducing your blood pressure. Exercise can also help in maintaining weight loss. Studies show that people who maintain their weight loss over the long term get regular physical activity.

Lifestyle activities may be easier to fit into your day. Think about ways you can increase your physical activity throughout the day if you can’t fit in formal exercise on a given day. For example, make several trips up and down stairs instead of using the elevator, or park at the far end of the lot when shopping.

5. Change your perspective

It’s not enough to eat healthy foods and exercise for only a few weeks or even months if you want long-term, successful weight loss. These habits must become a way of life.

Lifestyle changes start with taking an honest look at your eating patterns and daily routine. After assessing your personal challenges to weight loss, try working out a strategy to gradually change habits and attitudes that have sabotaged your past efforts.

And you have to move beyond simply recognizing your challenges — you have to plan for how you’ll deal with them if you’re going to succeed in losing weight once and for all.

You likely will have an occasional setback. But instead of giving up entirely after a setback, hit the reset button the next day. Remember the bigger picture – you’re focused on changing your lifestyle. Small changes add up. Stick to your healthy lifestyle and the results will be worth it.

Getting Support

These are just some of the issues I help my clients with through my holistic lifestyle and nutrition coaching.

I offer private one-on-one coaching programs that help you to create a plan and practice these skills with the focus and consistency you need in order to reach your health, wellness and weight management goals.

Click here for your complimentary consultation