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A SUPER critical long-term weight loss strategy is knowing when you’re hungry, what to eat for that hunger, and knowing when to stop eating. The weight loss industry is great at selling tools and gadgets designed for weight loss. Problem is, they can create dependency issues, and make maintaining weight loss a difficult (or expensive) task.
Pre packaged meals, counting points, and heavy restriction aren’t super sustainable in the long-term.
Consider this: What if you found out that you already have EVERYTHING you need to lose weight and maintain a lean body? What if you could effortlessly lose weight and keep it off without popping pills, tracking macros, eating diet meals, or missing out on your favorite foods?
If you’ve always depended on external tools, like calorie counting to lose weight, learning how to rely on your bodies cues will help you achieve a weight that’s right for you that you can maintain for life!
Here are 4 Keys to Lasting Weight Loss
Key #1: Listen to your hunger
Many of us are disconnected from our hunger. We eat out of boredom, in social situations, or from trying to diet, we’ve ignored our hunger. Do you ever sit down at noon and eat, because it’s lunch time? But are you actually hungry? How often do you snack? Were you told it’s good to eat 6 meals a day? Yea, I was too. OR, you’re like me, and fear hunger and eat to prevent hunger. Something I’m working on =) And here is what I’m learning!
Learning how to listen to your hunger takes some practice. For some people, listening to their hunger is second nature to them and they do this easily. Others of us grew up just eating because food was there, so we need to practice this.
Hunger is actually a GOOD thing. It’s your bodies way of telling you that you need to eat. You should ONLY eat when you’re hungry. A big part of why we are disconnected from our hunger, is that we are CONSTANTLY EATING.
Key #2: Eat less often
A way to get back in connection with your hunger is to actually eat less often. Eat 3 meals a day, no snacks. This way you’re eating enough food to satisfy you at each meal, and you won’t NEED snacks, but you’ll also start to feel hungry again around meal time.
The only exception to this is if your meals are 7 or more hours apart, say you eat lunch at noon and dinner is at 8. A way to get around that, though, is to reverse engineer your hunger. If you know you’re going out to lunch at 11:30, don’t eat as big of a breakfast. If dinner is late, eat a larger lunch.
Key #3: Evaluate your hunger
Have you sat down and evaluated your hunger on a scale of 1-10, one being ravenous and ten being stuffed? You want to pay attention to this scale—and evaluate yourself before each meal. Ideally, you stay between 2 (hungry but not starving) and 6 (satisfied but not stuffed).
A good rule, is to let yourself be hungry for 30-60 minutes before actually eating. This way, you know you aren’t eating for emotional reasons (emotional hunger, like oh wow that smells amazing) usually leaves after 15-20 minutes, while true hunger, when your belly is rumbling, will stick around.
Key #4: Check in with yourself while eating
Listen to your body at each meal and note when you feel satisfied, and the results over the next couple of hours and days. Do you get crazy hungry before your next meal or do you feel stuffed for hours? Are your pants fitting looser? Try these regular mind-body check-ins to help you better understand your relationship with food.
Try out these tips to help you lose weight naturally—and NO, you won’t die from being hungry for an hour, lol. You might actually feel empowered, like WOAH, I don’t actually need all of this food all the time. By letting your body find it’s true hunger, you’ll naturally find your happy weight. Sounds good, right?
I’m currently reading the book Lean Habits by Georgie Fear, it goes into listening to your hunger in much greater detail (as well as other habits to help you stay lean!). I highly recommend it!
Did this help you? If so, I would really appreciate it if you comment below and share on Facebook!
Rachel Ngom’s Blog
Email: Clientcare@fitwithrachel.com
“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.” Tony Robbins
PS. If you’re not at your goal weight & need support to get there, this group is what you need.
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