10 Tips to Lose Weight in a Healthy Way

January is the month of "good resolutions". Having some good purpose in mind is one of those inertias that, oddly enough, serve to stop us from thinking about our priorities. The calendar makes us stop to think "what do I want to change". And many nutritionists come to the consultations of nutritionists who have thought that their priority this year is to lose weight. It is great to see how there are people who stop searching for "miracle diet" in Google and decide to put themselves in the hands of a qualified professional. We really celebrate it.

And taking advantage of this goal of many, that of reaching a healthy weight, we want to dedicate this January to creating content that will help you achieve it. In the consultations hundreds, thousands of advice tailored to patients are given. But if we had to highlight 10 tips, they would surely be the ones that Alimmenta dietitian-nutritionist Adriana Oroz sums up so well:

1. Set yourself a clear and realistic goal

Set yourself a realistic and easy to achieve goal. How? Looking for a method that allows you to lose weight and then maintain it without compromising your state of health. What is the best method that I propose to you? Change habits and learn to eat in a healthier way, adapt a healthier diet or lifestyle to your situation or personal life. Seeing it from this perspective will help you feel more motivated, carry it better and not be so burdened by how many kilos you should lose per week, since what you have to improve is your behavior when it comes to eating.

2. DO NOT obsess about weight

"The best scale is clothing." You should assess your evolution with more objective data such as clothing, the one that fits you best, the one that you can get a pair of pants that did not fit you before, feel more deflated and light. The value of weight varies greatly depending on when you weigh yourself, the conditions, the amount of water you have drunk, the food you have consumed, the regularity of your intestinal transit, the hormonal cycle you are in, and even the level of stress you currently have. You can have a weight control, to see evolution, but that is not daily or the only parameter to take into account.

3. Distribute your intake in several intakes throughout the day.

The mistake you tend to make is thinking that the fewer calories you eat, the better. Stopping breakfast or going to bed without dinner does not help, on the contrary, perhaps it will be moving you away without realizing it, from your goal. Since if we go many hours without eating, anxiety or voracious hunger may appear that predisposes us to consume unhealthy foods that cause a spike in our blood glucose, so that we will be hungry again in a short time; and on the other hand, the body interprets this situation as fasting and can favor the body's adaptation to energy saving. The recommended number of intakes per day will vary depending on our schedule, customs and lifestyle, but the recommendation to lose weight is to eat more than three meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner can be completed with a mid-morning snack or a healthy snack. Neither is it worth skipping meals to “compensate for excesses” since we predispose the body to the aforementioned situation and do not favor the acquisition of good habits.

4. Learn to say NO and identify possible SABOTEATORS.

The saboteur is that part of you that weakens you by making excuses not to do something you want or have to do. You have to learn to say NO but you also have to learn to eat by your own decision, with knowledge of the cause and not by inertia, not because the situation leads you to it, or because the environment encourages you to do so. You have to learn to make the decision that most appeals to you, the option that best suits your objective or your situation.

5. Include the practice of physical exercise in your daily routine.

DO NOT exercise as a compensatory method of poor diet, if so, it will end up taking its toll. Physical exercise alone does NOT help you lose weight if you also eat more calories than you expend. Practicing physical exercise on a regular basis will help you lose body fat, will prevent the body from adapting to the guidelines and above all will improve your physical shape and your health, since in addition, exercise generates endorphins and provides well-being. Find a sport that you like, that you enjoy and that does not require effort to introduce it into your daily routine.

6. Plan your meals.

Make a weekly planning of your meals and based on this, make the shopping list. If the purchase is not planned, it is very likely that you end up eating or eating anything that damages the quality of your diet and makes it difficult to lose weight. The presence of unhealthy food at home increases the possibility of failure, so it could be said that it is a determining factor for success in the short and long term. Dare to try new things! It is not only the frequency of consumption of different foods that makes the variety and the difference in your daily diet, but the way of eating and presenting them. This will allow you to enjoy more of the change you are making.

7. Use the plate method

When planning your meals and dinners I advise you to keep in mind the dish method that will help you ensure that they are balanced, varied and delimit quantities. Always give preference, with half your plate, to both raw and cooked vegetables. With salads, the amount ingested is usually not enough, so you should also not forget to also consume vegetables. A quarter of a plate should be proteins in the form of eggs, meat, fish, shellfish, vegetable protein or legumes, and the other quarter of a plate should be composed of carbohydrates such as pasta, rice, potatoes or bread. The dessert can be a piece of fruit or a dairy dessert.

8. Prioritize water consumption over other types of drinks

It is the main component of our organism. Maintaining a good state of hydration is very important and it is recommended to drink 1.5 to 2 liters of liquids a day. In addition to being the best resource to quench our thirst, it can help us control the impulse of hunger by contributing to feeling more satiated during the day.

9. Be consistent and persevering with your goal.

Do not give up at the slightest failure in the guideline. Think that it is a change of habits what you are doing, so you should not demand to make it perfect but to maintain it over time and make small improvements. Any advance in your behavior, in your way of eating, is an advance towards your objective that will allow you to achieve it and above all, maintain it.

10. Take care of your free time, your body, your rest and love yourself a lot

Do activities that are enjoyable for you and help you avoid problems and relieve stress. If your life is full of nice things, you don't need to be filling your stomach at all hours or releasing your stress with food. In addition, living without so much stress is the secret of a better quality of life. Take care of yourself emotionally.