How to Lose Weight
Do you have trouble losing weight? Or would you like to lose it faster? Here are the 17 best tips for you.
For some people losing all of their excess weight is easier said than done. But there are many common errors people make. Correcting them can restart or speed up your weight loss.
Based on a decade of experience treating obese patients, reading studies, going to obesity conferences and discussing this topic with the world’s biggest experts, here’s my best advice for maximizing your weight loss.
Start at the top of the list (most important) and go down as far as you need. Perhaps you only need the first piece of advice?
How to Lose Weight
1. Choose a Low Carb Diet
If you want to lose weight you should start by avoiding sugar and starch (like bread). This is an old idea: For 150 years or more there have been an infinite number of weight loss diets based on eating less carbs. What’s new is that at least 17 modern scientific studies have proven that, yes, low carb is the most effective way to lose weight.
Obviously it’s still possible to lose weight on any diet – just eat less calories than you burn, right? The problem with this simplistic advice is that it ignores the elephant in the room: Hunger. Most people don’t like to “just eat less”, i.e. being hungry forever. That’s dieting for masochists. Sooner or later a normal person gives up and eats, hence the prevalence of “yo-yo dieting”.
The main advantage of low carb diets is that they cause you to want to eat less. Even without counting calories most overweight people eat far fewer calories on low carb. Sugar and starch may increase your hunger, avoiding it may decrease your appetite to an adequate level. If your body wants to eat a suitable number of calories you don’t need to bother counting them. Thus: Calories count, but you don’t need to count them.
A 2012 study also showed that people on a low carb diet burned 300 more calories a day – while resting! According to one of the Harvard professors behind the study this advantage “would equal the number of calories typically burned in an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity”. Imagine that: an entire bonus hour of exercise every day, without actually doing it.
Bottom line: A low carb diet reduces your hunger and makes it easier to eat less. And it might even increase your fat burning at rest. Study after study show that low carb is the smart way to lose weight and that it improves important health markers.
How to do it: LCHF for beginners
Inspiration: Weight loss stories on low carb
2. Eat When Hungry
Don’t be hungry. The most common mistake when starting a low carb diet: Reducing carb intake while still being afraid of fat. The problem is that carbs and fat are the body’s two main energy sources. It needs at least one.
Low carb AND low fat = starvation
Avoiding both carbs and fat results in hunger, cravings and fatigue. Sooner or later people can’t stand it and give up. The solution is to eat more natural fat until you feel satisfied. For example:
Butter
Full-fat cream
Olive oil
Meat (including the fat)
Fatty fish
Bacon
Eggs
Coconut oil, etc.
Always eat enough, so that you feel satisfied, especially in the beginning of the weight-loss process. Doing this on a low carb diet means that the fat you eat will be burned as fuel by your body, as your levels of the fat storing hormone insulin will be lowered. You’ll become a fat burning machine. You’ll lose excess weight without hunger.
Do you still fear saturated fat? Don’t. The fear of saturated fat is based on obsolete theories that have been proven incorrect by modern science. Butter is fine food. However, feel free to eat mostly unsaturated fat (e.g. olive oil, avocado, fatty fish) if you prefer. This could be called a Mediterranean low carb diet and works great too.
Eating when hungry also implies something else: If you’re not hungry you probably don’t need to eat yet. When on a LCHF diet you can trust your feelings of hunger and satiety again. Feel free to eat the number of times per day that works best for you.
Some people eat three times a day and occasionally snack in between (note that frequent snacking could mean that you’d benefit from adding fat to your meals, to increase satiety). Some people only eat once or twice a day and never snack. Whatever works for you. Just eat when you’re hungry.
3. Eat Real Food
Another common mistake when eating a low carb diet is getting fooled by the creative marketing of special “low carb” products. Remember: An effective low carb diet for weight loss should be based on real food, like this:
Real food is what humans have been eating for thousands or (even better) millions of years, e.g. meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, butter, olive oil, nuts etc.
If you want to lose weight you’d better avoid special “low carb” products that are full of carbs. This should be obvious but creative marketers are doing all they can to fool you (and get your money). They will tell you that you can eat cookies, pasta, ice cream, bread and plenty of chocolate on a low carb diet, as long as you buy their brand. They’re full of it. Don’t be fooled.
Here are three examples of what to avoid:
Atkins’ Fairy Tale Cookies
Julian Bakery’s High Carb Low Carb Bread
The Dreamfields Pasta Fraud
These three companies are not unique. There are thousands of similar companies trying to trick you into buying their “low carb” junk food, full of starch, sugar alcohols, flour, sweeteners and strange additives. Two simple rules to avoid this junk:
Don’t eat “low carb” versions of high carb stuff, like cookies, bars, chocolate, bread, pasta or ice cream – unless you are SURE of the ingredients (perhaps by making it yourself).
Avoid products with the words “net carbs” on them. That’s usually just a way to fool you.
Focus on eating good quality, minimally processed real food. Ideally the food you buy shouldn’t even have a list of ingredients (or it should be very short).
4. Measure Your Progress Wisely
Tracking successful weight loss is sometimes trickier than you think. Focusing only on weight and standing on the scale every day might be misleading, cause unnecessary anxiety and undermine your motivation for no good reason.
The scale is not necessarily your friend. You may want to lose fat – but the scale measures muscles, bone and internal organs as well. Gaining muscle is a good thing. Thus weight or BMI are imperfect ways to measure your progress. This is especially true if you’re just coming off a long period of semi-starvation (calorie counting), as your body may want to restore lost muscles etc. Starting weight training and gaining muscle can also hide your fat loss.
Losing fat and gaining muscles is great progress, but you may miss it if you only measure your weight. Thus it’s smart to also track the disappearance of your belly fat, by measuring your waist circumference.
Here’s how to do it:
Put the measuring tape around your middle, like in the picture above, slightly above your belly button (to be exact: at the midpoint between your lowest rib and the top of your hipbone, at your side).
Exhale and relax (don’t suck in your stomach).
Make sure the measuring tape is snug, without compressing your skin.
Measure
Compare your result to these recommendations:
I recommend aiming for “excellent” but it’s not always realistic. Young people can usually achieve it, but for some middle-aged or older women it may be a major victory to get all the way to “decent”.
Measuring progress
I suggest measuring your waist circumference and weight before starting and then perhaps once a week or once a month. Write the results down so that you can track your progress. If you want you can measure more areas: around the buttocks, the chest, the arms, legs, etc.
Note that your weight can fluctuate up and down several pounds from day to day, depending on fluid balance and stomach contents: Don’t worry about short term changes, instead follow the long-term trend.
If you can, try to check other important health markers when starting out, like these:
Blood pressure
Blood sugar (fasting blood glucose and/or HbA1c)
Cholesterol profile (including HDL, triglycerides)
These markers are almost universally improved on a low carb diet, even before major weight loss. Re-checking these health markers after a few months can be great for your motivation as they’ll usually show that you’re not just losing weight, you’re gaining health too.
PS: Don’t have a measuring tape at home? Try these options:
Use any piece of string. Wrap the string around your waist and clip off the extra on day one. This string could magically appear to become longer and longer every week you wrap it around your waist.
Comparing how an old pair of jeans fit is also a decent option.
5. Be Patient
It usually takes years or decades to gain a lot of weight. Trying to lose it all as quickly as possible by starving yourself rarely works well long-term, that’s just the recipe for “yo-yo dieting”. To succeed you need something that works long term.
What to aim for
It’s common to lose 2-6 pounds (1-3 kg) within the first week on a strict low carb diet, and then on average about one pound (0.5 kg) per week as long as you have a lot of weight remaining to lose. This translates into about 50 pounds (25 kilos) per year.
Every 5 pounds of fat loss roughly equals 1 inch lost around the waist (1 kilo = 1 cm).
Young males sometimes lose weight quicker than this, perhaps twice as fast. Post-menopausal women may lose it at a slightly slower pace. People eating a very strict low carb diet may lose weight quicker, as well as those who exercise a lot (a bonus). And if you have an enormous amount of excess weight to lose you could start out much faster.
As you get closer to your ideal weight the loss slows, until you stabilize at a weight that your body feels is right. Hardly anyone gets underweight on a low carb diet – as long as they eat when hungry.
Examples: Weight loss stories.
Initial stalls
Are you coming off a period of semi-starvation (calorie counting)? Focus on your waist circumference and health markers (see advice #4) at first as it sometimes takes several weeks before weight loss is apparent.
Weight loss plateaus
Expect weight loss plateaus: Days or weeks where nothing seems to happen on the scale. Everybody gets them. Stay calm. Keep doing what you’re doing and eventually things will start happening again (if not, check the other 16 tips).
How to lose weight forever
Losing a lot of weight long-term and keeping it off forever won’t happen unless you change your habits forever. If you lose weight and then return to living exactly the way did when you gained weight, don’t be surprised when the excess weight returns. It will.
Maintaining weight loss requires long-term change and patience. If this doesn’t seem possible for you, then you’re perhaps more interested in one of these magical diet scams.
Forget quick fixes: If you lose some weight every month, eventually you’ll get rid of all your excess weight. That’s inevitable progress. That’s what you want.
PS: Long-term change is only hard in the beginning, especially during the first couple of weeks. It’s like quitting smoking. Once you develop new habits it becomes easier and easier every week. Eventually it comes naturally.
How to lose weight faster
Keep reading these tips!
6. Women: Avoid Eating Fruit
This is a tip that goes for men as well, of course, but eating fruit is a more common obstacle for women trying to lose weight.
This advice is controversial as fruit has an almost magical health aura today. People may believe that fruit is nutritious but unfortunately fruit contains a lot of sugar – around 10% by weight (the rest is mostly water). Just taste an orange or a grape. Sweet, right?
Five servings of fruit per day is equivalent to the amount of sugar in 16 ounces of soda (500 ml). Contrary to what many people believe the sugar is more or less identical (about 50% glucose, 50% fructose).
Sugar from fruit can shut down fat burning. This can increase your hunger and slow your weight loss. For best results avoid fruit – or enjoy it occasionally as a treat.
Bottom line: Fruit is candy from nature.
7. Men: Avoid Drinking Beer
This applies to women too, but men drink more beer on average. Beer contains rapidly digested carbs that shut down fat burning. That’s why beer is sometimes referred to as “liquid bread”. There’s a good reason for the term “beer belly.”
Here are smarter alcoholic options for losing weight:
Wine (red or dry white)
Dry champagne
Pure spirits like whiskey, cognac, vodka (avoid sweetened cocktails – try vodka, soda, lime instead)
These drinks hardly contain any sugar/carbohydrates so they’re better than beer. However, large amounts of alcohol might slow weight loss somewhat, so moderation is still a good idea.
8. Avoid Artificial Sweeteners
Many people replace sugar with artificial sweeteners in the belief that this will reduce their calorie intake and cause weight loss. It sounds plausible. Several studies, however, have failed to show any positive effect on weight loss by consuming artificial sweeteners instead of plain sugar.
Instead, according to scientific studies, artificial sweeteners can increase appetite and maintain cravings for sweet food.
This could be because the body increases insulin secretion in anticipation that the sugar will appear in the blood. When this doesn’t happen, blood sugar drops and hunger increases. Whether this chain of events regularly take place is somewhat unclear. Something odd happened when I tested Pepsi Max though, and there are well-designed studies showing increased insulin when using artificial sweeteners.
Furthermore, artificial sweeteners can maintain an addiction to sweets and lead to snack cravings. And the long term effects of consuming artificial sweeteners are unknown.
By the way, Stevia is marketed as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. That’s marketing talk. There is nothing natural about a processed super-sweet white powder like Stevia.
If you’re having trouble losing weight I suggest that you completely avoid sweeteners. As a bonus you’ll soon start to enjoy the natural sweetness of real food, once you’re no longer adapted to the overpowering artificial sweetness of junk food and “diet” sodas.
9. Review Any Medications
Many prescription drugs can stall your weight loss. Discuss any change in treatment with your doctor. Here are the worst three:
Insulin injections, especially at higher doses,are probably the worst obstacle for weight loss. There are three ways to reduce your need for insulin:
A. Eat less carbs, which makes it a easier to lose weight. The less carbs you eat the less insulin you need. Remember to lower your doses if you can.
B. If this isn’t enough, treatment with Metformin tablets (at a dose of 2 grams – 3 grams/day) can decrease the need for insulin (at least for type 2 diabetics).
C. If this is not enough to get off insulin (again, for type 2 diabetics) you could try newer promising drugs like Victoza or Byetta. These reduce the need for insulin and cause weight loss.
Other diabetes medications. Insulin-releasing tablets (e.g. sulphonylureas) often lead to weight gain. These include: Minodiab, Euglucon, Daonil, and Glibenclamide. Tablets like Avandia, Actos, Starlix and NovoNorm also encourage weight gain. But not Metformin. The newer drugs Victoza and Byetta (injectable) often lead to weight loss, but possible long-term side effects are still unknown. More on diabetes
Cortisone as an oral drug is another common culprit (e.g. Prednisolone). Cortisone often causes weight gain in the long run, especially at higher doses (e.g. more than 5 mg Prednisolone per day). Unfortunately cortisone is often an essential medicine for those who are prescribed it, but the dose should be adjusted frequently so you don’t take more than you need.Asthma inhalers and other local cortisone treatments, like creams or nose sprays, hardly affect weight.
These other medications can also cause problems:
Neuroleptics/antipsychotic drugs, can often encourage weight gain. Especially newer drugs like Zyprexa (Olanzapine).
Some antidepressant medications can cause weight gain, especially the older tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) such as Tryptizol, Saroten, and Clomipramine; as well as newer drugs such as Remeron (Mirtazapine). Lithium (for manic-depressive disorder) often leads to weight gain. The most common antidepressants known as SSRI’s (for example Citalopram and Sertraline) usually don’t impact weight significantly. More on depression
Some contraceptives often contribute to slight weight gain, especially those that contain only progesterone and no estrogen, for example the mini-pill, the contraceptive injection, or a contraceptive implant. More on fertility
Blood pressure medicine, in the form of beta blockers can cause weight gain. These drugs include: Seloken, Metoprolol and Atenolol. More on high blood pressure
Epilepsy drugs may cause weight gain (e.g. Carbamazepine and Valproate).
Allergy medicines called antihistamines can cause weight gain, especially at high doses. Cortisone is even worse (see above). More on allergies
Antibiotics can possibly lead to a temporary weight gain by disturbing the gut microbiota and increasing the amount of energy we absorb from food. This is still speculative for humans but it’s another reason not to use antibiotics unless you truly need it.
10. Stress less, sleep more
Have you ever wished for more hours of sleep, and a less stressful life in general? Most people have – and that can be bad news for their weight.
Chronic stress may increase levels of stress hormones such as cortisol in your body. This can cause increased hunger and result in weight gain. If you’re looking to lose weight, you should review possible ways to decrease or better handle excessive stress in your life. Although this often demands substantial changes, even altering small things – such as posture – may immediately affect your stress hormone levels, and perhaps your weight.
You should also make an effort to get enough good sleep, preferably every night. Strive to wake up refreshed of your own accord, independently of the alarm clock. If you’re the kind of person who always gets brutally woken up by the alarm ringing, you might never be giving your body adequate rest.
One way to combat this is to go to bed early enough for your body to wake up autonomously before the alarm clock goes off. Letting yourself get a good night’s sleep is another way of reducing stress hormone levels.
Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, comes hand in hand with sugar cravings. It also has an adverse effect on self-discipline and makes it painfully easy to give in to temptation (it’s no coincidence that induced sleep deprivation is a common interrogation technique). Similarly, sleep deprivation weakens your resolve to work out.
Sleep issues?
Do you have trouble sleeping even if there’s ample time for it? Here are five tips from an expert:
Stick to a certain bedtime every evening. In the long term, this will help the body prepare for sleep at that time.
No coffee after 2 pm. Just don’t – and remember that it takes time for caffeine to leave the body.
Limit your alcohol intake three hours before bedtime. While booze might make you woozy, it worsens the quality of sleep.
Limit exercise in the four hours before bedtime. Physical activity can perk you up and make it difficult to get to sleep for several hours afterwards.
Get 15 minutes of sunlight every day. This is good for your circadian rhythm (your “body clock”).
Finally, make sure that your bedroom is dark enough, and stays at a pleasant temperature. Sleep well!
Difficult, but worthwhile
Many may find the above guidelines difficult to follow, perhaps because of a lack of time (or the equivalent – small children!). But stressing less and sleeping more doesn’t just feel good. It can also play a part in helping you get thinner.
11. Eat less dairy products and nuts
Can one eat as much as one likes, and still lose weight? Yes, it tends to work just fine with a low-carbohydrate diet, as appetite regulation happens effortlessly.
However, despite the fact that a low-carbohydrate diet generally makes it easy to eat just enough, there are foods classified as low carb which become a problem in larger quantities. If you find yourself having a hard time losing weight on a low carb diet, you could try to be more careful with:
Dairy products (yoghurt, cream, cheese)
Nuts
Dairy products all contain a varying amount of lactose (the milk sugar), which slows down weight loss. What’s more, part of the protein in milk generates a significant insulin response, which can have the same effect. Consequently, cutting back on dairy products may accelerate weight loss. This applies especially to dairy products typically lacking in fat, such as regular milk and different yoghurts, but be careful with full-fat dairy such as cream and cheese all the same. And don’t forget whey protein powder, which is pure milk protein.
Exempt from all these dairy product warnings is butter, which is almost pure fat. Butter may be consumed liberally as desired.
Nuts, which are the second food to watch, contain a fair amount of carbohydrate, and it’s very easy to unwittingly scarf down large quantities. Cashew nuts are among the worst carb-wise – you’ll find that they contain around 20% carbohydrate by weight. For someone following a strict LCHF diet with a 20 grams of carbs per day allowance, this means that consuming 100 grams (which happens in a flash!) will have filled their daily quota. Peanuts tend to be around 10-15% carbohydrate – not putting them in the clear either.
So, for those of you having trouble losing weight: use nuts sparingly. When in a situation where nuts are an absolute must, know that the most harmless ones carb-wise are macadamia nuts (usually around 5% carbs), or Brazil nuts (around 3%).
12. Supplement vitamins and minerals
Your body needs a certain amount of essential vitamins and minerals to function properly. What happens when you don’t get enough of them? What happens when you eat too little food, or when the food you eat isn’t sufficiently nutritious? Perhaps our bodies catch on and reply by increasing hunger levels. After all – if we eat more, we increase the chances of consuming enough of whatever nutrient we are lacking.
On the other hand, reliable access to vitamins and minerals could perhaps mean decreased hunger levels and decreased cravings, thereby promoting weight loss.
The above is, of course, speculation. But now there are well-performed studies which suggest it might not be far from the truth.
Vitamin D
A lack of vitamin D is probably the most common deficiency in northern countries such as Canada, or most of the US. Three recent studies indicate that, when compared to a placebo, a vitamin D supplement can decrease your fat weight or waist measurement [1 2 3].
In one of the studies, 77 overweight or obese women received either a supplement of 1000 units of vitamin D, or a placebo, every day for 3 months. Those who took the vitamin D supplement decreased their body fat by 2,7 kg (6 pounds) – significantly more than the placebo group, who hardly decreased their fat weight at all.
Multivitamins
A study from 2010 involved around a hundred women with weight issues, separating them into three groups. One group received a daily multivitamin supplement, the other a daily calcium supplement, and the last group only a placebo. The study carried on for half a year.
Unsurprisingly, the results showed that nothing had happened to the weight of the women receiving calcium or the placebo. However, the group which took the multivitamin lost more weight – about 3 kg more – and improved their health markers. Among other things, their basal metabolic rate (the rate at which the body burns calories when at rest) increased.
Furthermore, another earlier study found that subjects decreased hunger levels by taking multivitamin supplements during starvation diets, compared to a placebo.
Conclusion
Nutrient-dense, good food is certainly the foundation of weight loss. But an adequate amount of vitamin D can be difficult to ingest via food. In the case of a lack of sun (such as during the darker months of autumn and winter), it’s wise to supplement for multiple health reasons – and perhaps even for your weight.
If you’re overweight and not entirely sure that your diet provides enough nutrients, it may be worthwhile to take a multivitamin pill. Unfortunately, they still contain only minimal doses of vitamin D, so you need both for the full effect.
13. Exercise smart
Do you wonder why this weight-loss tip doesn’t show up until number 13 on the list? It’s because few things are so overrated for weight loss as exercise is.
Have you ever watched “The Biggest Loser”? The participants take leave from their jobs (and family) for months. They are allowed only small portions of food, and work out as though it was their full-time job – 40 hours a week, sometimes more. This method is clearly unsustainable for your average person in the long run.
Just taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or getting off the bus one stop earlier, isn’t going to change the numbers on your bathroom scales. It’s a myth. Sorry about that. Studies show that if you just start exercising, you’re going to need at least one hour of tough workouts every single day to noticeably lose weight.
Basically, the effect of exercise on our weight is vastly overrated. That’s why it’s only number 13 on this list. There are other things you need to take care of first. It’s not a good idea to eat bad food, drink sugar water (so-called “sports drinks”) or be on medications which force you to train for hours daily just to compensate. Metaphorically that’s like digging a hole, into which you put your ladder, on which you stand and paint the ground level windows of your house.
Exercise cannot compensate for other issues in your life. Those must be addressed first.
The good news
If, on the other hand, you’ve already taken care of steps 1-12, you should have a rested and recharged body which is already happily burning fat. In this case, increased activity will accelerate your weight loss, and act as an nice bonus. You’ll be burning even more fat from the very first step.
For example, you could take long walks (golf), cycle, dance, or play any sport you’re happy and comfortable with.
Exercise also burns the body’s glycogen stores, which are essentially carbohydrate. This means that after a workout, you can eat a little more carbs than you otherwise can permit yourself, without negative effects on insulin or fat storage. Also, don’t forget that the non-weight-related health effects of exercise are quite impressive.
Hormonal effects
For even more impressive effects on body composition: aim for exercise forms which elicit a positive hormonal response. This means lifting really heavy things (strength training), or interval training. Such exercise increases body levels of the sex hormone testosterone (primarily in men) as well as growth hormone. Not only do greater levels of these hormones increase your muscle mass, but they also decrease your visceral fat (belly fat) in the long term.
As a final bonus, exercise can both make you feel and look better.
What kind of activity suits you?
