How to Lose Weight without Exercising
How to lose weight without exercise?
It may sound too good to be true, but it certainly isn’t, at all.
In fact exercise is only responsible for approximately 20% of weight loss, and sometimes not even that. The bulk of weight loss is due to one thing, our DIET.
This is GREAT news for those of you who aren’t able to commit to focussed exercise. Lack of time, motivation or simple ability is something Mums are all familiar with, so you have no excuse there.
If you are struggling with your weight loss, then I want you to embrace this fact (of diet being the main driver for weight loss) and use it to your full advantage. And to further maximise your weight loss efforts, I have shared the top tips I share with my clients who are looking to take immediate action.
1. EAT A PROTEIN RICH BREAKFAST
For years my biggest excuse was I had a poor metabolism, but it was my doing…and undoing! #projectmamma
Protein is essential for lasting weight loss, especially when it is consumed immediately on breaking your fast, ie breakfast. Protein essentially sets the quality of your metabolism.
By giving your body a good dose of protein to get your metabolic fire burning as soon as you wake up, you will be essentially setting the intensity of your metabolism. What’s more protein is the number 1 source to build your muscles. Stronger muscles actually increase your metabolism further, so it really is a win, win.
Think of it in terms of your metabolism being a fire and protein being the fuel. If you fail to stoke the fire with adequate fuel, if any at all, it will be a flicker of a fire (thus burning very little energy) for the majority of the day until you stoke it up. This is further tested when you consider most people their main protein consumption is at dinner time, essentially revving up their metabolism, just when we are ready to close our metabolism down for the evening.
Use metabolism as your advantage. And before you say you have a poor metabolism, many of us do. For years that was my biggest complaint. But it was my own doing, just as how nourishing it strategically to get it working how it should is also my doing. It is there, you just need to kick it with the right foods.
AIM FOR AT LEAST 20 GRAMS OF PROTEIN AT BREAKFAST.
E.g 2 Boiled Eggs, Wholemeal toast with Natural almond butter, 1 Protein smoothie (banana is my fave, flavoured with stevia to taste), Full fat natural yogurt with almonds and oats, Bircher Muesli, Cottage cheese with fruit and almonds
2. CARB CURFEW
This weight loss tip is the bomb when it comes to controlling your weight.
The idea of a limiting, or in fact eliminating your carbohydrate consumption in the evening is based of a few principals.
1. Carbohydrates are the body’s principal and preferred energy source. In their excess, carbohydrates are stored as fat, a survival mechanism for the body when food sources were low (rarely an excuse for most of us).This is indeed the case in the evening when most people are ending their activity and closing down for the night. As there is no demand for the energy, the energy (carbohydrates) has nowhere to go, other than be stored as fat.
2. Digestion requires some mechanical assistance (ie movement) for it to go through your gut adequately. In the absence of movement, the food is more likely to hang around and just sit in the stomach and small intestine, delaying digestion. Consequently making your feel bloated after your food and often the next day as complete digestion did not take place.
By eliminating carbohydrates in the evening you will not only get away from the bloat, but lack of calorie rich carbs is less likely to be stored as fat.
I recommend that you concentrate eating carbs prior to 5pm if weight loss is your goal. And if you are really desperate for lasting weight loss, then eliminate them earlier, perhaps having your last carbohydrates at lunch time. This is radical, but if weight loss is your primary goal, you will see results.
By eliminating carbohydrates prior to 5pm you WILL see weight loss without too much other effort
3. BAN ALL PROCESSED FOODS
This rule is so simple and will (if you are a processed food lover) transform not only your weight, but may reduce or even eliminate other physical symptoms such as achy joints, headaches, sinusitis, bloating, constipation etc. What’s more, reducing your processed food intake will most definitely help your mental health, with refined sugar and fructose contributing significantly to depression (not to mention other ingredients ie additives and preservatives and GMO ingredients).
There are lots of different levels of processed food. Generally speaking, most food is processed to some degree, be it simple filtration or blended like yogurt. But I am not talking about that. I am referring to banning all processed food that is the least like it’s natural state, that has been “interfered with” to make it taste good or last longer or appear pretty.
Salt and sugar are common in processed food. Everything just tastes so much yummier with salt and sugar. But it causes terrible ailments in your body, principally due to its stimulation of inflammatory messengers in your body. This manifests itself in many ways, achchy joints, puffy face and my old friend “ouchy skin” as I call it. Your body retains so much water to counteract the sugar and salt that it actually aches to touch your skin.
As a general rule of thumb for you and your kids, when consuming food ask yourself the following
1. Are the ingredients ALL pronouncable?
2. Are any of the ingredients prefixed or suffixed with numbers or letters, such as E
3. Is the food close to the source, ie it hasn’t had to have stabilisers and preservatives added to increase its shelf life
4. DRINK FILTERED WATER, BEFORE, DURING, AFTER FOOD
One of the top reasons many of us overeat is that our brain confuses thirst for hunger. This is primarily due to the same part of our brain controlling both feelings. To alleviate this problem, drink water 15 to 20 minutes before you eat. If the “hunger” subsides, you can be safe in the knowledge that your stomach gremlins were just being greedy. If you are still hungry, then it is safe to say you need food.
Drinking water throughout your meal will ensure you are properly hydrated and help satiate you quicker and assist the onset of a good digestion to get your food processed as it should.
I should point out, that a great deal of other weight loss factors are controlled by water. If you fail to drink enough water your body is simply not capable of “pushing” food though your gut and eventually out. Causing constipation, bloating and flatulence, not to mention contribution to spots and cellulite.
5. HACK YOUR ACTIVITIES
Ok, so the post is how to lose weight without exercising, and that is still true. However what I am proposing is that you incorporate more focus and awareness into the activities you are already doing.
This bit of tightening here and clenching there will help you not only lose a bit of weight around the said area, but actually get toned, and more importantly feel toned!
The hacks are not that difficult, and personally, once you get into the habit of doing them regularly, even connecting certain exercises to an activity, such as walking the kids to school (for tummy toning), waiting at stop lights (for pelvic floor training) or going to the shops just to workout your biceps with those heavy shopping bags of clothes, I mean healthy snacks.
HACKS
E.g The core is the easiest group of muscles to train on the go (yes, I am being honest) and oh so simple. Your core is the collective sheath of muscles around your abdomen, not your six pack). These muscles include our pelvic floor, which is what we use to contract our down below when going to the bathroom, our naval area and our back and waist.
Engage these muscles when you are walking, sitting, standing using these cues
- Pull in tail bone (bum) by an inch
- Engage pelvic floor and bring upwards
- Pull naval in as if you were squeezing into a tight pair of jeans
- HOLD
So there you have it, not an extensive list of weight loss tips, but extremely significant.
In an ideal world I would of course say do all of them. But your personality and mental discipline may respond better to implementing one change at a time. You know yourself so implement with love and compassion.
Yours in wellness
SABRINA SULOVSKY
Wellness Coach
Sabrina focusses on positive lifestyle changes for health and confidence.
‘Health powers the quality of your life. So when you’re health suffers, so does everything else’
Website: sabinasulovsky.com
Instagram: @Sabrina
