Planning on losing weight as your New Year’s resolution? Make sure you’re doing it the right way, says Dr. Aaron Michelfelder, a Loyola University professor and health expert.
“For the New Year, most of us should add some weight loss to our resolutions,” says Michelfelder, who serves as a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University’s Stritch School of Medicine. “[Don’t] try to go it alone. When you tell other people you are trying to lose weight, they will give you their support, and stop shoving cake and candy your way.”
If you truly want to succeed in your weight loss goals, Michelfelder also recommends avoiding these common mishaps as well:
1. Thinking you’ll lose weight just by joining a gym. While staying active can help improve weight loss by inhibiting a person’s appetite and building muscle mass–by the way, more muscle mass makes your metabolism faster–it doesn’t mean doing this alone will give you that coveted beach body. In fact, Michelfelder notes that exercise alone isn’t good at “shedding pounds”–instead, what works better is eating fewer calories.
“To lose weight, you will need to eat fewer calories,” says Michelfelder.
2. Dramatically changing your diet. It seems like a common sense change: To lose weight, you need to change your diet. After all, that’s how you gained weight in the first place, right?
While that’s somewhat true, be careful–making sudden changes to your diet can also make it harder to maintain. A study in the journal Obesity also reveals sudden, strict changes can also cause less than favorable results, such as eating disordered thinking and a higher body mass index (BMI). Yikes!
Michelfelder’s suggestion? Just cut back on the calories, and make gradual, healthy changes instead.
“A more effective strategy is to simply cut back a few hundred calories a day,” says Michelfelder. “When going to a restaurant, for example, eat an apple before dinner to dull your appetite, then skip the bread before the main dish arrives.”
3. Wanting to lose a lot of weight–quickly. Sure, we all want to shed 10 or 20 pounds in a month, just like on The Biggest Loser, but let’s face facts: We aren’t superheroes, nor do we have Jillian Michaels breathing down our necks to keep us on track. Never mind the fact that losing this much weight just isn’t healthy, something that most weight loss gurus don’t want you to know.
Instead, Michelfelder says you’re better off figuring out more realistic weight loss goals for yourself.
“A more realistic–and healthy–strategy is to try to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week,” says Michelfelder. “This will provide the slow-and-steady type of weight loss that will be long-lasting.”
Remember, it’s about losing weight realistically–and although the allure of weight loss shows, supplements, or just wishful thinking may tempt you to go all in, Michelfelder says taking a slower approach is more manageable.
“Even losing as little as 5 pounds will be good for your joints,” says Michelfelder.
Readers: Have you made any diet or fitness resolutions for 2015?
Sources:
Resolved to Lose Weight in 2015? Here are 5 Bad Strategies to Avoid – NewsWise.com
5 Bad Strategies to Avoid When Losing Weight – News-Medical.net
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