Over our 25+ years serving Alaskans, we’ve seen thousands and thousands of patients make major progress towards their weight loss goals. We know it can be tough to gain momentum in the beginning, though. Don’t people say, starting is the hardest part? So, we asked our community for their advice to new patients and these are some of the responses we received.
Here are 15 tips for people who are just starting out on a weight loss journey:
1. Losing weight is hard and takes patience and determination.
2. Calorie counting is really eye-opening.
3. Checking out food labels really helps understand the macronutrients in each food and helps inform decisions.
4. Metabolism slows as you age and therefore the effect of exercise for calorie burn diminishes.
5. Hydration is super important to weight loss.
6. Accountability is really helpful to make it through the challenging moments and keep you motivated over the long term.
7. It’s been helpful to keep the daily menu simple with foods that contain the right and most beneficial composition of macronutrients.
8. You can be very creative with vegetables to add volume and variety to meals.
9. Portion control is very important. Selecting foods that are easy to partition into a single serving versus using will power and an “open bag” approach.
10. Maintaining an ideal body composition is really a math equation, calories in (food) and calories out (exercise). However, accurately recording the inputs and outputs is not as straightforward and easy as we think.
11. There are carbohydrates in vegetables. Not all vegetables are “freebies”.
12. Metabolism can be negatively affected when reducing calories and increasing exercise too far apart from each other, which can have long-lasting effects.
13. Having single serving healthy snacks with you all the time helps make good decisions when you’re busy and on the go.
14. Your progress might feel slow but don’t be discouraged!
15. Take time to recognize the progress you make that’s not related to your scale. Such as the way you feel, eating habits and energy. These changes are huge and will be with you forever.
Looking for more advice? Watch our series, Healthy Lifestyles with Kikkan!
