Weight loss is a journey and doing it the right way will help you achieve long-term weight loss. Here are 8 tips to help you achieve sustainable weight loss.
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Losing weight and maintaining weight loss can be challenging. For some, losing weight and achieving their weight goal is even more challenging. After having Ayah, I struggled so much with losing the baby weight that I gave up even trying. This was only because I had no idea what I was doing.
If you want to lose weight sustainably, meaning not going through a constant loop of losing and gaining weight, then stick around. I will be sharing 8 tips that have helped me lose all my baby weight and stay consistent with the lifestyle I have built for myself.
Just a disclaimer, I am in no way an expert or professional. I only share my experience and what has helped me through learning over the past year. Everything I learned was from experts and adjusted their tips to fit my lifestyle. My aim is to help someone enjoy the process of building a healthy lifestyle instead of seeing it as a punishment.
This post is all about 8 tips to help you achieve sustainable weight loss.
Sustainable Weight Loss
What Is Sustainable Weight Loss?
So what is sustainable weight loss? This is achieving long-term results by being realistic about your lifestyle and making changes for the good that fit your lifestyle. The aim of this is not just to make changes until you lose weight, but to make changes to create a new lifestyle for yourself that you will always follow through with.
What Is A Sustainable Weight Loss Per Week?
The right sustainable weight loss rate is so important to help you stay consistent with the new lifestyle. A lot of people are very unrealistic and want to lose 2kg a week. This will only make you hungry and burned out and is super unrealistic. You should aim to lose 0.5kg a week, which is a sustainable rate. Anything more will make you hungry and you will end up binge eating.
Just an FYI, you may not lose 0.5kg every week. It may take 2 or 3 weeks for you to even lose 0.5kg. But that does not mean you will not achieve your goals. Weight loss is a journey, which is why you need to fall in love with the process to see results. We are humans and our body weight fluctuates a lot. So be patient!
Sustainable Weight Loss Tips
1. Find The Type Of Exercise You Love
I wanted this to be the first tip I give because it has been game-changing for me. How many of you dread exercising? The thought of exercising just makes you feel so lazy and tired. And even if that is not the case for you, you find yourself not being consistent with exercising. You find yourself exercising for a week or two and then not exercising for another week or longer!
The reason this happens is that you haven’t found the type of exercise you love doing. There are so many different types of exercises you can do. Going to the gym is not the only way to lose weight. You can lose weight sustainably at home and are more likely to stay consistent this way. A lot of people, because of their lifestyle, dread going to the gym or do not even have the time to go. And this is why people do not stay consistent. You can lose weight at home!
There are so many different types of exercises you can do at home, for example, kickboxing, dance workouts, pilates, strength/cardio, etc. You need to find the one you enjoy doing the most or even find a YouTube channel that does workout videos that you will love!
Once you find the workout you love and enjoy, I promise you will see massive results because you will be consistent.
2. Low Impact Workouts
I wanted this to be the second tip because a lot of people (like myself a year ago) think high-intensity workouts are the only way to lose weight. People think if you want to lose weight you have to challenge yourself, push yourself, and do a long intense workout.
This does not work at all. The reason for this is that it can cause you to burn out and lead you to be inconsistent with your workouts.
Low-impact exercises are exercises that are slow burning and have low pressure on your joints such as walking (indoor walking workouts you can follow on YouTube are my absolute favourite) and pilates (another favorite of mine). High-intensity workouts are effective and should be done 1-3 times a week while the other days should be low-impact. This is when you will see sustainable results.
3. Calculate Your Calorie Intake
Calculating your calories is important. But it is more important to do it the right way. I have shared a blog post about the calorie-tracking app I use that helps me track my calories. I have given some details about the app. Click HERE for the blog post.
I do not use this app to limit the foods I eat. This is what I mean about doing it the right way. Please do not do this. It is very unhealthy and will not help you achieve sustainable weight loss.
I use the app to ensure I do not undereat because a lot of the time when we want to lose weight we think the way we do this is by eating less. And that ends in undereating which in turn leads to binge eating and not losing weight in the long term. If I go over my calorie count that day I do not feel bad because I am so flexible with my calorie intake.
A huge tip that helps me stick to my calorie count is by eating foods that will keep me full for longer. For example, if you were in a calorie deficit you can definitely eat takeouts, such as burgers and chips. The only issue is if you were to eat meals like this a lot during the week, you will be consuming so many calories and it will not keep you fuller for longer. This will just lead to overeating and further weight gain.
4. Fit The Changes Around Your Lifestyle
Everyone has a busy lifestyle, whether you’re a stay-at-home mum or a full-time worker. We always think that building this new healthy lifestyle is impossible in our busy lifestyle. Let me tell you this, it is possible.
The key thing to do when trying to change your life for the better is to fit these little changes you are making around your lifestyle, not the other way around. A lot of people who work or are mums think they have no time to go to the gym, so why bother? I will repeat this again, you do not need to go to the gym to lose weight. You can do your workouts at home by watching a YouTube video that you enjoy and lose weight.
If you are really busy, and all you can do is do a 10-20 minute workout 4-6 times a week. Guess what? That is more effective than doing a 1-hour session at the gym 1-3 times a week and then burning out because you are so tired from your busy lifestyle.
Also, it is not just about working out. It is also down to food preferences. Do not start eating meals that you do not enjoy. You can eat the foods you love and still lose weight. Every change you make needs to fit your lifestyle in order for it to be sustainable.
If you are a busy mum like myself (or even if you are not a parent but you are busy), then click HERE for some tips to help you achieve a healthy lifestyle around your busy lifestyle.
5. 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule is about creating a balanced lifestyle where 80% of the time, you eat nutritional foods and the other 20% of the time, you enjoy your favourite treat.
Following the 80/20 rule in building a healthy lifestyle has helped me so much with my weight loss. I always thought being healthy meant having to be restrictive with what I eat. I would tell myself that I can’t eat take-out until I’ve achieved my weight goal or only once a month. Or that I can’t enjoy a donut or chocolate in the evenings.
Let me tell you something – once you become restrictive, you will never achieve sustainable results. The 80/20 rule means you can enjoy going out with friends and family to eat out without feeling guilty that you have gone over your calorie count or not eating the right foods. You will enjoy the process of building a healthy lifestyle so much more and you will stay consistent!
Also if you know you love sweet snacks, as I do, but want to make healthier choices then that is amazing! I have shared a few healthy sweet snack recipes on my blog that you will absolutely love and will satisfy your sweet cravings. Click HERE for all the recipes. I will definitely be sharing more so keep an eye out!
6. Enjoy The Food You Eat
This is a little similar to the 80/20 rule but I wanted to put more emphasis on enjoying the food you eat without any guilt. Anyone that knows me really well knows I love eating. Two years ago when I wanted to start losing weight after having Ayah, all I thought was I had to eat boring bland healthy food to lose weight and be restrictive. This is why I never lost weight until I started again nearly a year ago. The mindset shift helped me lose weight and sustainably too.
My biggest tip is don’t force yourself to eat something you do not like just because it is healthy – you will hate being healthy and just go back to your old ways. You can definitely enjoy a homemade burger or a plate of lasagna! Whatever you love, just make healthier choices. For example, if something can be air fried and you can avoid deep-frying it in oil, then do that! Add nutrient-rich snacks and foods to your meals!
Also, carbs do not make you fat – they are part of your macros. Enjoy a bowl of pasta without any guilt, please! Food is fuel remember. Consume more complex carbs to fuel your body the right way. Click HERE to see a few examples of complex carbs.
7. Mindset Shift
A mindset change in so many areas around weight loss and building a healthy lifestyle will completely change the game for you. Here are some mindset shifts I have made that have helped me lose weight:
1. There is no such thing as “bad” or “good” food. Although there are foods that are worse for your health than others, enjoying a certain food in moderation is perfectly okay. Building a healthy lifestyle is about building a balanced lifestyle. This goes back to the 80/20 rule.
2. Exercise does not cancel out calories. How many of you think if you work out and lose 400 or 500 calories, you have basically canceled out the calories you ate during lunch that you feel guilty about? This mindset is completely wrong. It doesn’t work like that. There are so many other things that contribute to your weight loss, not just how many calories you’ve lost from a workout.
3. The number on the scale does not matter. I used to weigh myself every week and never saw results. Do you know why that is? It’s because our body weight fluctuates. This used to make me feel so discouraged and felt like nothing I was doing was working.
Once I stopped this and began measuring myself at the end of the month, and measured my progress by looking at how my energy levels are, how good I feel, and how my mental health has improved – focusing on other types of progress helped me ‘marry the process and divorce the results’. This is key to achieving sustainable weight loss! Remember, you can exercise as much as you want and eat as healthy as you want and your body weight will still fluctuate due to different factors. Measure progress differently and watch how you fall in love with the process.
8. Build A Routine
A morning and night routine with healthy habits can help you achieve healthy sustainable weight loss. A morning and night routine where you focus on self-care, and your mental health, and creating a schedule that fits your lifestyle will make a huge difference. I have shared a morning and night routine on my blog that has helped me so much. Click HERE for a positive morning routine idea and click HERE for a night routine.
If you struggle with building healthy habits and sticking to them then I cannot recommend the Atomic Habits enough! This book has helped me so much with building healthy habits and sticking to them. I have mentioned this book in so many of my blog posts because it is that good.
I hope you found this post helpful and helps you achieve your goals!
Make sure to follow my socials – Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and LikeToKnowIt – for more lifestyle content!
Lots of love, Mariam x
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[…] thing I mentioned at the end is building a routine. If you haven’t checked it out, then click HERE to see how you can lose weight sustainably. But this just shows how a routine can help you […]