List below are habits that need to be created for those who want to lose weight. Below that, I have made brief explanation as to why. These are not menu and all needs to be done for proper results. Before implementing the task below, you will need to understand that weight that you have gain over the years or decades, may take more than 3 month to lose. Rather than following the fad diet that only works temporally, work on creating health habits that will help you long term based on physiology so that body will transform at the right pace.
Complete 12,000 steps per day
Strength training 2-3 times/ week
Sleep minimum 7 hrs per night
Eat 3 meals a day (No Snack)
Create calorie deficit
Eat proper amount of protein
Choose carb/fat
Eat dietary fiber
Drink at least 64oz. of water per day
No alcohol
Limit caffeine intake to once per day
Complete 12,000 Steps per Day
To use more energy throughout the day, we need to move more. Although some article suggests 7-8,000 steps a day is enough but when you look at people across the globe, people who are in better shape tend to walk more than 10,000 steps per day. See if you can move more to hit 12,000 steps on daily basis. If you currently don’t get more than 1,000 steps per day work towards 7,000 steps as a starter.
Strength Training 2-3 times/week
Strength training help develop strength and muscle mass. By getting stronger, your capacity to do various task will increase. With more muscles, your metabolism increase, meaning your body can use more energy. Start off with 2 timer per week of 30-60 minutes sessions.
Sleep minimum 7 Hours Per Night
Sleep helps with recovery, improving brain functions, better food choices, cardiovascular health, and so on. Majority of studies find that sleeping less than 7 hours seems to lead to some sort of health issues including, weight gains, compromised immune system, cognitive decline, poor food choices, cardiovascular problems, and so on.
Eat 3 Meals a Day
Before intermittent fasting, low carb or low-fat diet, control your meal frequency. If you are snacking for whatever reason and struggling to lose weight, most likely it will not work. Mainly because of insulin spike and frequent work of digestive system. 3 meals a day, when scheduled well, will come with 6 hours of intermittent fasting between each meal and 12 hours fasting between dinner and breakfast. You can manipulate the macronutrients splits easier.
Create Calorie Deficit
Although it is not the primary issue of gaining weight, however, portion control does play an important role in managing your insulin and promote faster fat or weight loss. Once you establish 3 meals a day, if necessary, reduce the amount of food you are consuming. Yes, this process will make you hungry but that is a part of process in weight loss.
Eat Proper Amount of Protein
Losing muscle mass will lower your metabolism, which will be negative impact towards your weight loss. From nutrition perspective, you want to consume adequate amount of protein which would be .7-1.1g of protein per lb. of your ideal body weight. Protein selection should be the priority in planning your diet. If you are worrying about calories, 30-40% of calories from protein will be used for digestion. In other words, the body need to use energy to breakdown and absorb protein source.
Choose carb/fat
Once you choose the amount of protein that you should be consuming, then choose carb or fat as your energy source. This may need some trial and error because everybody metabolizes carb/fat differently. Pick one for 1 week and if you don’t see any results then shift to another. When you choose one it should be covering at least 70% of your caloric intake.
Eat Dietary Fiber
For some reason, dietary fiber lost its place. Dietary fiber does few things. It binds with toxin and excrete out of the system. It also helps increase the mass of your stool to minimize the chance of constipation. Little trivia. A person can hold from anywhere between 8-25lb of stool. Don't you want to get it out?
Drink at Least 64oz. of Water
Body consists of 50-75% of water. For weight loss, you want to keep your metabolic rate high. For the metabolic process to happen, water is a requirement not a choice. It will also help with digestive process including eliminating constipation. Gallon of water a day is a ideal for anybody but at least get half of that. If you find yourself going to frequent bathroom, then you are doing a great job.
No Alcohol
As much as I love drinking, I do understand that it does negative impact towards my weight. When I need to lose weight, I do cut out alcohol to avoid extra calories and not spiking insulin needlessly. Another trivia. For average individual, it takes about 10 hours to get the alcohol out of the system. Meaning, even when you sleep for 8 hours, alcohol may be still in your system.
Limit Caffeine Intake to Once Per Day
Caffeine has half life of 6 hours and quarter life of 12 hours. Which means, caffeine may have affect to your body even after 12 hours. What does this mean. Caffeine is great in boosting your metabolism and promoting sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight) to work dominantly. This is the reason why with coffee or energy drink you may feel your heart rate racing, able to focus better, and able to accomplish more task. However, just like with workout, you want the body to turn off at the end of the day. With caffeine affect may last for 12 hours, sympathetic nervous system may still be at work and may interfere with quality of your sleep. It is not that caffeine is bad, however, it can affect your sleep which we discussed earlier. If you are working on your weight loss, be mindful of when you should drink your caffeinated beverages.
Kota Shimada
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