Healthy habits to lose weight, especially in eating and exercise, are my topics for today.
Losing weight is a big undertaking. Most of my experience with losing weight has been losing pregnancy weight. It seems like losing baby weight should be easier because it was gained for a natural and worthy cause. But that’s not the way it is. Losing weight always takes healthy habits and hard work.
A few years ago, when I had 5 or 6 kids, I was standing in line at a local Sprouts store. Two ladies behind me were talking about how they hate women who have 6 kids and are thin. I didn’t say anything, but I would have liked to tell them, “It wasn’t luck, it was work, and you can be thin too.”
I’ll be honest, as my belly grew big and round through each pregnancy, there was a beauty to it, both to myself and my hubby. I enjoyed being “in a motherly way,” for the most part. But as soon as the baby was out, I was ready for the weight to be gone. I longed for the day I’d fit into my “skinny pants” again.
What kind of expertise do I have that gives me the right to teach you about healthy habits for losing weight? Well, I’ve reach my postpartum weight loss goal 9 times, and I’m almost there with the 10th. I don’t remember exactly how many pounds I worked off each time, but I know it was close to an average of 25-30 pounds. That’s over 200 pounds that I’ve worked off!
It’s interesting to note that sometimes my husband’s weight went up when mine did, so there were a few times he and I were working on losing weight together. We learned a lot together about healthy habits that help us get and keep our bodies at a healthy weight.
Healthy Habits to Lose Weight
While losing weight is often about looking good, it also has a lot to do with feeling good and being healthy, which is why it should include building healthy habits. Two of the biggest things that affect our weight are eating habits and exercise habits.
Healthy eating habits to lose weight
Having healthy eating habits to lose weight means being careful with what, when, and how much we eat. You can find specifics on this Nutrition and Diet Manual.
What should we eat?
We should eat what our bodies need. What do they need? Carbohydrates for energy, protein for growth and repair, fiber to keep our digestive systems working, and some fat, vitamins, and minerals for all the other little processes our bodies do without us thinking about it.
We can find those things in whole grains, beans, nuts, meats, dairy, fruits and vegetables. That sounds simple enough, but when much of what we eat was made for us by someone else, it’s easy for us to not pay attention to whether or not we’re giving our bodies what they need.
Read the ingredients and look for a short list of words you understand. Read the nutrition facts and look for higher amounts of protein and fiber, and lower amounts of added sugars and fats. Eat a variety of foods. Remember that drinks often have calories, so look at their nutrition labels too. I talk more about picking foods carefully in Simple Nutrition for your Kids.
Pay attention to how certain foods make your body feel and it will be easier to know what you need to eat.
When should we eat?
We should eat within an hour of waking up to get our metabolism started for the day. Our bodies keep up their metabolisms best when they are fed every 2-3 hours. Then our last meal/snack should be 1-2 hours before bedtime, which keeps us from being too hungry, reduces heartburn, and prevents our bodies from storing those calories as fat while we’re sleeping.
Pay attention to your body’s cues to know when you are hungry and need something to eat.
How much should we eat?
There’s not a one-size-fits-all healthy eating habit for this one. For one thing, different kinds of foods are more or less calorie dense. For example, a spoonful of peanut butter will give you a lot more calories than a spoonful of watermelon. For another thing, every individual person has different caloric needs depending on their size, activity, and unique characteristics. But to give some general idea of how much you should eat, a meal should be about 2-3 times the size of your fist on your dish, and a snack should be about 200 calories.
When you are working to lose weight, you need to eat less calories than you’ve been eating. A simple way to do this could be to cut back on high calorie foods, especially those with a lot of fat. Another simple way could be to trade drinks with calories for drinks without calories. Maybe you could stick to one plateful instead of two, or save that dessert to eat as a snack later. I’m sure you can figure out a way to cut back calories.
This time for me, the thing I’ve really had to watch is that I don’t eat in between snacks and meals. There is always food around here; a cracker on the counter, 2 apple slices on a plate in the living room, a few peanut butter crackers and milk left on the table. Aside from little bits of the kids snacks that I’m trying not to eat, we have a teenage daughter who bakes really yummy treats on a regular basis, and she brings home leftover pizza from work. It’s really hard to make myself not eat all those things. And it’s not because I’m hungry that I want them, it’s just because they’re there tempting me. I have to hide them from myself!
Pay attention to your body’s cues to know when you’re satisfied and stop eating. Work with your body to build healthy eating habits to losing weight and then to stay at a healthy weight. If you can, find someone to talk to about it, because that support is really helpful.
Plan your healthy eating habits
Make yourself a daily/weekly plan for healthy eating habits and put it somewhere that you can see it. Knowing my own body, its tendencies with different foods, and what foods taste and feel good to me, this time my food plan looks like this:
| Food | Monday | Tue -Th | Fri – Sun |
| Breakfast | 7am: 2 slices of whole wheat with peanut butter and berries | 7am: 2 slices of whole wheat with peanut butter and berries | 7:30am: Oatmeal w/ berries and almond milk |
| snack | 9:30am: 1/2 cup yogurt and 1 fruit | 9:30am: 1/2 cup yogurt and 1 fruit | 10am: about 200 calories that includes fruit or veggies |
| Lunch | 12pm: About my fist size and a half of what the kids make plus that many vegetables | 12pm: About my fist size and a half of what the kids make plus that many vegetables | 12pm: leftovers or a turkey sandwich with veggies |
| snack | 3pm: About 200 calories that includes iron rich fruit or veggies | 3pm: About 200 calories that includes iron rich fruit or veggies | 3pm: about 200 calories |
| Dinner | 5:30pm: About 3 of my fist sizes of our planned balanced meal. More details here. | 5:30pm: About 3 of my fist sizes of our planned balanced meal. | 5:30pm: About 3 of my fist sizes of our planned balanced meal. |
| snack | 8pm: A treat with my family | 8:30pm: Peanut butter on one slice of whole wheat | 8:30pm: Peanut butter on one slice of whole wheat |
Healthy Exercise Habits to losing weight
Exercise gets a bad wrap sometimes. It’s too hard, there’s not enough time, I’m just not fit enough, etc… There are all kinds of excuses not to try. I’ve learned through experience that it is worth the effort, like I wrote in my post Is Exercise Worth the Effort.
Aside from being a healthy habit to lose weight, exercise strengthens hearts and bones and muscles. Done at the right level, exercise gives us energy and improves blood circulation. It’s a great stress reliever, as we wake up our bodies and give our minds a rest. It helps our bodies’ digestive systems. And there are enough choices for exercise that when we find one we enjoy it’s just fun.
Exercise at your level
Let’s talk more about finding the right level. If you have weight to lose and you turn on the video with several people showing off their chiseled abs, it’s going to have you lying on the floor defeated in a few minutes. Those people worked for years after being at their healthy weight to look like that. Once you get to your healthy weight and get really good at exercising, then it’s time for that video, so don’t give up on it, just work toward it. You’ll know you’re doing the right level if it’s challenging but you can keep going through the whole thing without breathing so hard that you can’t talk.
Do something you enjoy
Let’s talk about choices. Anything that gets you moving counts as exercise. So what do you like to do? Play a sport, do “Just Dance,” take a long walk? Maybe you like hiking or swimming. Maybe you like going to the gym or riding a bike. My hubby’s favorite exercise is running. He’s run several marathons. I’m proud of you, Honey! That’s not my favorite, though. I like running for about a mile, then I’m done. I also enjoy simple workout videos, dancing with my kids, and bike rides. Or on special occasions we enjoy a hike in the mountains. Here’s a link to a dance workout channel I enjoy on YouTube: Emkfit. What do you like to do to get moving?
Sweat!
Exercise turns into a healthy habit to lose weight when it makes you sweat. I’m not talking about feeling a little damp, I’m talking about seeing the sweat on your clothes and feeling it drip on your skin. Did you just say gross? I told you it was hard work to lose weight, and it is. I agree that when I’m dripping sweat and have to go back to my routine that way I feel disgusting. On the other hand, there is something very satisfying about working hard enough to really sweat. And it’s equally as satisfying to take a shower when I’m all done!
It would be great to be able to exercise at least 3 times a week for at least 20 minutes each, but do what you can when you can. And if you can find someone else who’s working on building healthy habits to lose weight to talk to about it, that support can be a great help.
Plan your healthy exercise habits
Make yourself a weekly plan for exercise and put it somewhere that you know you’ll see it. Here’s my exercise plan right now while I’m teaching homeschool Monday – Thursday:
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| Run/walk 10 min with kids | Strength exercises with kids 12 min | Walk, bike, or dance with kids 10 min | Run/walk 10 min with kids | cardio workout 20 min | Pushups and squats x20, run/walk a mile |
Things to keep in mind when losing weight
- Our weight fluctuates, even throughout the day. Don’t rely to heavily on the scale. Remember the scale is only one tool that helps measure your health. Weighing yourself once a week is plenty to give you some idea if you’re on the right track.
- Weight goes down more like uneven stairs than a ladder. Sometimes it takes a while to get that next pound off, and other times two or three pounds come off rather quickly.
- Breastfeeding is said to help you lose weight – that’s partly true. In the early months postpartum it helps the uterus shrink back to it’s original size, and it does burn calories. However, I found for myself that as long as I was nursing I couldn’t get those last 10-15 pounds off. It was like my body was trying to keep that weight to help make milk with. So don’t count on breastfeeding to lose your weight for you.
- Losing weight after a c-section was a lot harder than after a vaginal delivery. I imagine that any major surgery needs recovery time before a body has energy to change size. If this applies to you, be gentle, take care of yourself, and start some healthy habits that will help you lose weight when your body is ready.
- Just changing your diet or just sweating usually won’t be enough on their own to make any difference. You have to make both into healthy habits to lose weight.
- Drinking water and getting enough sleep are important healthy habits and go right along with the others to help you lose weight and feel good. I know as a parent that sleep is sometimes hard to get! If your kids won’t let you sleep at night find time to rest during the day. And can you even remember when you had a drink of water? Do your best. Keeping your body healthy has to include all the healthy habits to really work.
- Losing weight will take time. Building healthy eating habits and exercise habits to help you lose weight is important because habits are easier to stick with all the way to the end than something you plan to quit later. Also, by making healthy habits, you help yourself keep off the extra weight you worked so hard to lose.
- If you have given these and other weight loss programs an honest effort and they aren’t working, please find professional help. Taking care of our bodies is one of the most important things in life.
Thanks for reading my post. I hope it was clear and helpful. You might also enjoy my other self-care posts.
I hope you’re enjoying your adventure.
