How to Start a Weight Loss Journey
Do you want to know how to start a weight loss journey? Congratulations! You are doing the right thing to look at weight loss as a journey rather than a diet or quick fix.
It can be overwhelming knowing how to start a weight loss journey. Where do you begin?
The most powerful place to begin a weight loss journey is by deciding to change your diet and lifestyle. The first thing to do is to throw out all the unhealthy junk food, cookies, crackers, chips, sodas, and products that have no nutritional value.
Nourishing your body is the key to being successful at weight loss. Many people, although overweight, are starving for nutrition. They may not be educated as to the type of calories they are consuming. All calories are not equal. There are empty calories, which are calories that have no real nutritional value, and there are nutrient-dense calories. Of course, you want to choose the nutrient-dense calories so you are feeding your body each day with optimal nourishment.
When you eat empty calories regularly, your body is not being fed. it is being fed a toxic load but not being fed nutrition. The toxic load coming from empty calories will cause not only weight gain but severe health issues over time.
Another thing to consider is that your body may be signaling to you that you are hungry, even after eating a meal that has little or no nutritional value. This is because your body needs nourishment and that burger and fries from McDonald’s may not register as nourishment.
A weight loss journey needs to begin by replacing empty calories with whole food nutrition. This means whole, fresh, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and clean meats.
My recommendation when beginning a weight loss journey is to limit meat, dairy and gluten and eliminate all processed foods and sugars.
The reason I recommend this is the results. You want results right? The quicker the better for most. Although I don’t recommend rapid weight loss, you are more likely to stay on your journey when you are seeing results. Meat and dairy are saturated fat and can spend a lot of time in transit through your digestive system in comparison to fruits, veggies, and other whole foods like oats, quinoa, beans, and lentils.
Gluten, found in most breads and wheat products causes problems for a lot of people and can slow your weight loss results as well. Therefore, to have better results you may want to replace gluten products with gluten-free.
Since I don’t recommend breads, cookies, and crackers, unless they are made with healthy, whole ingredients, replacing gluten may not be as challenging. If you are a bread fanatic and eat a lot of sandwiches, you may want to find alternatives. But if you continue to eat bread, choose high quality, whole grain breads.
So the first steps on your weight loss journey are to eliminate all processed food and sugars, cut out processed meat and dairy, cut down on your meat and dairy, and only eat a small amount each day or only several times a week. Replace gluten products with gluten-free ones.
This is a good start to begin eating clean and choosing lots of healthy whole foods.
When you start a weight loss journey, eat as much as you need to feel satisfied. You are not going on a diet, you are changing your diet. This isn’t about starving yourself or counting calories. It is about feeding and nourishing your body with optimal nutrition.
If you want to learn more about starting a weight loss journey, check out my weight loss coaching guide.