Great Tips On Starting Your Weight Loss Journey

So you want to drop a dress size, lose a few inches around the tummy line, make those bingo wings extinct for good! You aren’t the only person wishing to change some aspect of their appearance. Body image is one of the main reasons people want to go on a diet. But even though you know what you want.. and that’s weight loss, but where do you start? It can be confusing in understanding what may work best for you or even what may work for the long term most importantly.

So lets start to break it down from the beginning. Firstly you’ve got to look at food as fuel, much like a car, when you’re awake and moving around you burn calories. For women, an estimated amount of 2,000kcals is averaged from government guidelines as the amount you need to eat per day to balance the amount you burn. For men it is estimated at 2,500kcals.

Now, remember these are only guidelines and so should not be looked at as hard evidence on the amount of kcals YOU should be consuming. Everybody is of different heights, ages, metabolic activity and conditions and so much more, which all change a persons daily need. So now this seems more confusing right? I bet you’re thinking well, now I might as well burn all my weight loss books and sit in the corner cradling myself back and fourth. Well, no.. it’s actually much more simple then what it seems and here’s why.

Most people today, consume far too many calories than what they burn, this is what leads to a steady increase in weight and before you know it, kg’s and stones have been wedged in left right and centre and you’re left scratching your head as to how this happened or where it even came from.

Firstly the best and easiest plan of action to take is to keep a diary, write down your foods and see how far to the recommended government guidelines you are? You can easily jot the foods down in a notepad and do the nutrition when you get home, or use something that can calculate it for you. From doing this for around 1 week, you’ll have a really good idea of the average amount you’re consuming.

Second step to take, once you’ve got a good idea of the amount of calories consumed, you can then start some body analysis tests. Now this doesn’t need to be complicated, simply getting yourself a measuring tape and measuring each area of the body, noting this down with the date and time or use scales (try to do the measurements upon waking and then try to retest at the same times, and wear the same clothes for the scales). Using both of these methods is great as it’ll give you two results to work with, one for your body weight, the other for the areas that change.

Once you’ve got these two, its time for step 3. Now step 3, involves a new food dairy, from this, if you are looking for weight loss, you may want to start to slowly decrease the amount of calories you consume per day by 300-500kcals. A top tip for this to be a little easier to monitor, rather then just writing down the foods and at the end you find out that you’ve done it again.. those snacks just tipped me over… damn.. NO! Instead, work out the amount in total (minus the 300-500kcals from the total number) and then look back at your food diary and check the main times you tend to eat (this is your body clock knowing when its food time). If it’s excessive with snacks and/or small random meals, then start to look deeper and find the main meals or main points you tend to snack, average that time if you need to i.e. I eat snacks from 1pm-3pm (add a 2pm slot for a snack). If you find that you snack a lot during the day change it for a healthy alternative or small meal replacement.

Then once you’ve worked out the main number of times you consume a meal during the given day, you can then divide the total amount of kcals you are NOW going to start consuming, into the amount of times you are going to eat. This is great as it will give you an average amount to eat (no meal will be dead on the average calories, so don’t worry if its slightly over or under. Remember we are still testing our bodies response to this new diet.

Step 4, So we have our first weeks diary with the average amount of meals we eat slotted in along with the average amount of calories to consume. Now to make this even more specific, you can breakdown the total calories into carbohydrates, protein, fats. We will talk about this in detail at a later point. But as a general guideline, it is stated that around 40-60% calories is from carbohydrates. 10-20% Protein and 30% Fat. Now this is a rough guide that has not changed for a while, so it’s validity is somewhat debatable. But it’s better to have some guideline then none.

Step 5, you will want to monitor your results once every 1-2 weeks. Healthy weight loss is around 2-4 pounds per week. Make a note of the weight. If your weight is not changing look at the foods you are consuming firstly, see what could be changed or mixed with a healthier alternative, you can do this at stage 4 too! If no change occurs, slowly start to decrease the calorie intake a little more and see how you feel and what changes. Now this guide is mainly for people who consume over their calorie amounts. Never restrict your calories below 1,200 per day! As a safety net, I personally would not go below 1,500 calories if you were to steadily drop it down to this level. As going too low, may cause health implications from lack of nutrients from food sources over the long term.

These top tips will get you on track to your journey in a safe and manageable way. A great idea for weight loss is to increase your vegetable intake, these nutrients help your body to effectively use the calories in the correct way. Most people tend to not consume the right amount of nutrients and these are vital for health and function. Need a quick, convenient way of boosting your nutrient intake? We have the perfect juice package for you. Select from a range of organic juices or pick and choose from out single juices to make your own.