Working out is about keeping your body healthy, which in turn reduces your risk of certain diseases, both physically and mentally. Part of keeping your body healthy, is ensuring you maintain a healthy weight. Now, your body’s ideal weight is different for everyone, so never compare your weight to your friends and family – even if you’re a similar body type.
In fact, there are much better ways to measure your health, such as your fitness levels, your Body Fat Percentage, your Blood Pressure and your Inch Measurements.
The guidance that the British Heart Foundation provide is that as a woman, your waist measurement should be below 80cm for you to be ‘low risk’.
If you are needing to lose weight for health purposes, make sure to do it in a sustainable way, losing around 1-2lbs a week. Certain diets can be harmful to your heath if they cause you to lose too much weight too quickly, such as shake diets, and often the weight will be put back on once you stop the diet.
Here are our Top 5 Tips To Help You Lose Weight Healthily
1 – Set Realistic Goals
When trying to lose weight it’s important to make realistic goals that you can hit. If you aim to lose 10lbs in week 1, not only is this extrememly unhealthy if you do achieve it, but the chances are you won’t which can then cause you to be dissheartened and stop trying to lose the weight.
Your goals need to be SPECIFIC & ACHIEVABLE: “I want to lose weight” is too vague, “I want to lose 1 stone over 12 months” is completely achieveable, healthy and realistic. MEASUREABLE: You need to make sure you have a timeframe, such as 12 months, otherwise you’ll always put off starting! REALISTIC: You need to plan how you are going to achieve your goal – what do you need to put in place? You could join a gym for guidance with your fitness and nutrition, at W Fitness we are able to help you put a plan in place for goals like this!
2 – Start with Small Changes
Start with changes that you can do straight away, but don’t overload yourself. If you aim to batch cook, meal prep, change your entire diet, head to the gym 5 times per week and go on daily walks, you’re setting yourself up to fail. Start introducing small changes gradually, such as improving your nutrition first by taking healthy lunches to work rather than buying it from the cafeteria or local shop, and creating a meal plan for dinner time so you don’t have to start thinking of what to make when you’re tired after work (and this helps you avoid takeaways or frozen meals).
When you add in exercise (or prehaps you decide to start with your exercise) ensure you can fit it into your schedule by booking out your ‘gym time’ in your diary like you would any other important appointment. At W Fitness we use a booking in system for our circuit, so all of our members can easily book their slot and pop in in their diary, making their attendance more likely, and therefore, giving them quicker and better results!
Remember: It can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days for a person to form a new habit and an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. Yet it can take just 21 days to break a habit.
3 – Add In Resistance
It’s important to do the right type of exercise when you’re aiming to lose weight. If you feel more comfortable heading to the cardio machines over the weight machines when you go to the gym, then you’re not alone – the majority of women feel the same. However, as great as cardio is for your heart, resistance training will actually help you burn more calories.
There are many benefits to resistance training, such as increased bone density (which reduces the risk of osteoperosis) as well as, building muscle tone. In turn, the more muscle your body has the more calories it will burn – even when you’re not exercising!
If you’re unsure how to use resistance machines or weights, as a Personal Trainer for help. At W Fitness, every member gets a full induction so you’re confident on each piece of equipment, ensuring you achieve your best results.
4 – Figure Out Your WHY
Before starting your fitness journey it’s important to think about why you’re doing this. Thinking about why you want your results will help keep you motivated, and writing it down will always give you that reminder and a little boost when you need it.
It can be as simple as ‘I want to feel my best for my Summer Holiday in Greece’, but please think deeply and honestly and go one step further than ‘I want to lose weight’ – what do you want to lose the weight for?
Your overall ‘why’ can change throughout your fitness journey as your situation changes, such as, mine has gone from “I want to feel AMAZING on my Wedding Day” to “I want to be healthy for my baby”. So whatever you choose to begin with needs to be something you feel now, but if your situation changes, your why can adapt too to keep it relevant and motivating.
5 – ENJOY it
Possibly most importantly, whatever route you choose to lose weight, you’ve got to enjoy it! Don’t sign up to dance classes if you prefer running, and equally don’t sign up to a ‘big box’ gym if you’re going to feel uncomfortable there. Instead of focusing on doing something just to get the number on the scale down, find something that you enjoy and in turn the number on the scale will go down!
A great idea is to get a friend to join in with you too as this will keep you motivated, having fun, and accountable.
If you need help with your weight loss send us a message as we’d love to help you create your plan, find your why and get you the results you want and deserve! Send us a message for your free consultation.
Love,
Hannah & Caroline x