Find changes that you sustain
Do you want to lose a few kilograms, or maybe a lot of kilos? These are the golden basic rules that are then indispensable.
1. Find your own way
Everybody is different. You may not be able to maintain the diet with protein shakes that works perfectly for your neighbor. While your colleague is happy with a large salad at lunch, you crave a sandwich. So find the way to lose weight that ultimately suits you and your life best. Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t change anything. If you want to lose weight, you will have to change your eating habits. Look for the changes that you can sustain.
2. Omit the Empty Calories
If you want to lose weight, start by cutting out the empty calories. Those are added sugars to start with. You really don’t need them, they only provide calories and no vitamins, minerals or fiber.
So get rid of cake, candy, soda. And with alcohol, because that also provides you with empty calories and also increases the desire to snack. If you do this step consistently, you will really save a lot of calories.
3. Drink lots of water
Drinking water before eating helps to lose weight, research shows. That’s probably because it fills the stomach well, so you eat less with meals.
Some drinks, such as fruit juice, soda, and sweetened yogurt drinks, provide a lot of calories unnoticed. Do you often forget to drink water? These tips will help you.
4. Eat lots of protein and fiber
The most satiating nutrient is protein. If you add more protein-rich products to your meals, you will be less hungry again. Examples of protein-rich products are cottage cheese, cheese, eggs, fish, meat and legumes.
Fiber-rich products also keep your stomach sweet for a long time. You can find a lot of fiber in whole grain products, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and (sweet) potatoes.
5. Exercise an hour a day
Half an hour of exercise a day is the norm for healthy people. If you want to lose weight, according to experts, that is not enough. Aim for an hour a day. Build it up slowly and look for your movement in everyday life: walking, gardening, shopping by bike. Everything counts.
6. Vegetables are great
You can never eat too many vegetables. They contain hardly any calories and are full of nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and fiber. Really the opposite of empty calories.
Aim for at least 250 grams of vegetables per day, but (much) more is also a good idea. Eat vegetables at lunch, dinner and in between. If at dinner half your plate is filled with vegetables, then you are doing well!
7. Keep eating real
Meal replacements, sweeteners and diet products may temporarily help you lose weight. But in the end, real food gives the most satiety and taste. Good food is something to enjoy, even if you are dieting. Try out new recipes and eat mindfully and calmly.
8. Don’t give up
Losing weight never goes well all at once. You really do go ‘wrong’ sometimes. At a party, when it’s your colleague’s birthday, during a holiday or because you are sad and reach for the chocolate. Don’t think about one piece of cake that already ruined your day so that you eat even more. The art of losing weight is that after such a miss you pick up the thread again.
Liesbeth van Rossum is an internist and endocrinologist and Mariette Boon is an internist in training and researcher into brown fat. Together they wrote the bestseller ‘Fat important‘. This duo knows all about body fat and how you can influence it. Do you want to lose weight? Listen to the podcast below before you start a diet, because then you can avoid common mistakes.
