🍎 Health Hack: #6 of 6 Weight Loss Strategies

Change Your Perspective

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 sabotaged past efforts. Move beyond simply recognizing your challenges — Plan how you’ll deal with them to succeed in losing weight. Setbacks happen. Don’t quit. Start fresh the next day.  It won’t happen all at once. Stick to your healthy lifestyle and the results will be worth it.

Mayo Clinic

🍎 Health Hack: #5 of 6 Weight Loss Strategies

Get Active, Stay Active

Exercise can help burn off the excess calories you can’t cut through diet alone. 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. . . . One of the best ways to lose body fat is through steady aerobic exercise — such as brisk walking — for at least 30 minutes most days of the week. Any extra movement helps burn calories. 

Mayo Clinic

🍎 Health Hack: #4 of 6 Weight Loss Strategies

Enjoy Healthier Foods

Adopting a new eating style that promotes weight loss must include lowering your total calorie intake. . . . One way you can lower your calorie intake is by eating more plant-based foods — fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Strive for variety to help you achieve your goals without giving up taste or nutrition.

  • Eat at least four servings of vegetables and three servings of fruits daily.
  • Replace refined grains with whole grains.
  • Use modest amounts of healthy fats, such as olive oil, vegetable oils, avocados, nuts, and nut butters and oils.
  • Cut back on sugar.
  • Choose low-fat dairy products and lean meat and poultry in limited amounts.

Mayo Clinic

🍎 Health Hack: #3 of 6 Weight Loss Strategies

Set Realistic Goals

Over the long term, it’s best to aim for losing 1 to 2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a week. Generally to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week, you need to burn 500 to 1,000 calories more than you consume each day, through a lower calorie diet and regular physical activity. Depending on your weight, 5 percent of your current weight may be a realistic goal. Even this level of weight loss can help lower your risk for chronic health problems, such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. If you’re 180 pounds (82 kilograms), that’s 9 pounds (4 kilograms). When you’re setting goals, think about both process and outcome goals. “Walk every day for 30 minutes” is an example of a process goal. “Lose 10 pounds” is an example of an outcome goal. 

Mayo Clinic

🍎 Health Hack: #2 of 6 Weight Loss Strategies

Find your inner motivation

No one else can make you lose weight. . . .Make a list of what’s important to you to help stay motivated and focused, whether it’s an upcoming beach vacation or better overall health. Then find a way to make sure that you can call on your motivational factors during moments of temptation. Perhaps you want to post an encouraging note to yourself on the pantry door, for instance.. . .  . Pick people to support you who will encourage you in positive ways, without shame, embarrassment or sabotage. . . . If you prefer to keep your weight-loss plans private, be accountable to yourself by having regular weigh-ins, recording your diet and exercise progress in a journal, or tracking your progress using digital tools.

Mayo Clinic

🍎 Health Hack: #1 of 6 Weight Loss Strategies

Make a commitment

Long-term weight loss takes time and effort — and a long-term commitment. Make sure that you’re ready to make permanent changes and that you do so for the right reasons. To stay committed to your weight loss, you need to be focused. It takes a lot of mental and physical energy to change your habits. . . . Make a plan to address other stresses in your life first, such as financial problems or relationship conflicts. While these stresses may never go away completely, managing them better should improve your ability to focus on achieving a healthier lifestyle. Once you’re ready to launch your weight-loss plan, set a start date and then — start.

Mayo Clinic

🍎 Health Hack: Walking & Weight Loss

Walking is a lower-impact exercise, meaning it doesn’t stress your joints. According to Harvard Health, it’s estimated that a 155-pound (70-kg) person burns around 167 calories per 30 minutes of walking at a moderate pace of 4 mph (6.4 km/h). A 12-week study in 20 women with obesity found that walking for 50–70 minutes 3 times per week reduced body fat and waist circumference by an average of 1.5% and 1.1 inches (2.8 cm), respectively (6 Trusted Sources). To get started, aim to walk for 30 minutes 3–4 times a week. You can gradually increase the duration or frequency of your walks as you become more fit.

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🍎 Health Hack: Hit it for 40

Was the last time you did pushups in gym class? . . . According to a new study published in JAMA Network OpenTrusted Source, pushup capacity is inversely associated with future cardiovascular disease (CVD) incidents — meaning the more pushups you can do, the less likely you are to have a heart attack or stroke. Researchers found that CVD risk was 96 percent lower in men who were able to do 40 or more pushups during a physical test compared to men who could do 10 or fewer. . . . Pushup capacity also was a better predictor of CVD outcomes than submaximal treadmill tests, a more commonly used test.

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🍎 Health Hack: Ditch the Diet

“Diets are much like fashion—trends come and go,” says Natalia Groat, MS, RD, CD, a clinical dietitian at Harborview Medical Center. “Instead, stay in tune with how you feel after meals or snacks, and eat more of what makes you feel great.”

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🍎 Health Hack: How Many of the 5 Healthy Habits Do You Follow?

Maintaining five healthy habits can add more than a decade to your life:

  1. Eating a healthy diet.
  2. Exercising regularly
  3. Keeping a healthy body weight.
  4. Not drinking too much alcohol.
  5. Not smoking — during adulthood.exercise

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