How Leading a Healthy Lifestyle Can Have a MASSIVE Impact on Your Weight

One would assume that a person with a commitment to losing weight would necessarily have to work with measurable benchmarks and a definite timeline. While Susan Besser, a family medicine expert believes that it is okay to have a journal for keeping track of your progress, she believes that one shouldn’t get excessively stuck on numbers. The Baltimore-based family expert believes that what is more important is working on having a healthier lifestyle.  With that, losing weight would come easily.

Components of a healthy lifestyle generally include regular exercise, watching your portions, eating whole foods and reducing your intake of processed foods. However, if you find metrics so vital as to be a major push for your motivation, The Centers for Disease Control, as well as Besser believe that the average human should work towards losing a little above one pound in one week or about 4 to 5 pounds monthly.

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Regular exercise, watching your portions, eating whole foods and reducing your intake of processed foods are components of a healthy lifestyle

Limit To Monthly Weight Loss

Besser explained that the regular calorie deficit for a lot of diets amounts to approximately 500 calories per day and that sums up to about a pound in one week. For a lot of people, having a 500-calorie change in their food intake is considerably manageable and makes it easy for them to sustain on a long-term basis. By ditching the latte, you are close to losing that weight.

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The regular calorie deficit for a lot of diets amounts to approximately 500 calories per day, and that sums up to about a pound in one week

If you still feel the urge to be more aggressive in your approach to weight loss, reducing the additional calories would likely help you reduce more weight during that particular timeframe. However, the outcomes on the long run may not be so desirable.

Anybody who has been through a juice clean or food challenge can attest to the fact that it is very difficult to sustain a drastic change in diet. In such cases, it’s easier for the person to get frustrated by the imposed restrictions which could cause them to go back to their old habits. Besser further noted that rapid loss of weight could have adverse health effects. She mentioned that it could lead to muscle mass loss rather than fat loss and if one is eating unhealthily, it could lead to metabolic changes that would, in turn, make the person ill.

Better Alternatives

Sticking with the slow approach is a better alternative. One should also remember that these general guidelines only give a baseline for losing weight and the metabolism of the human body is more complex. The actual results that an individual who is dieting would get can be affected by different variables.

To begin with, you have to consider the weight you are starting with. Besser said those who are heavier when they started to tend to lose more weight in one month. Also, gender is another determinant. With the body composition and hormonal makeup, men tend losing weight at a faster rate as compared with their female counterpart.

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People who are heavier when they started to tend to lose more weight in one month

Also, there are some medical conditions as well as medications such as anti-depressants and steroids that may lead to weight gain in some people which would, in turn, affect their weight loss.

Inaccurate Reflections

Besser also added that even the people who have been able to drop one pound or even more per week consistently would likely plateau before they reach their final goal. According to her, that is because there is a slowdown of metabolism as the body sheds weight. Losing weight becomes harder if you don’t exercise or consume fewer calories.

You need to remember that the number reflecting on the scale isn’t the best reflection of your progress most especially if the exercise routine you adopted has resistance training as a component. Besser said the exercise might be causing your muscle mass to increase and muscle typically weighs more than fat. Thus, it’s possible that the scale isn’t reflecting your change.  Coupled with weight tracking, you should also watch how well your old clothes fit. You could also take pictures at regular intervals so you can compare.

In conclusion, there is nothing wrong with setting goals for your weight loss. However, avoid chasing numbers arbitrarily. You should be more focused on developing healthier habits that you can easily sustain in the long run.