A combination of less food and daily exercise is the best plan for slow weight loss that supports the energy (fuel) your body needs to function. Eat a variety of food from all food groups – meat, dairy, starches & whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats.
If you don’t know how much to eat, try my Healthy Body Calculator® which will calculate a calorie goal for you. When entering your physical data, select to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week. HBC will not calculate a calorie goal below 1,200 calories in order to eat enough food to meet your Recommended Dietary Allowance (protein, vitamins, minerals).
Next copy your HBC Daily Calorie Value into my HELP Healthy Eating for Life Plan® which will create a personalized healthy eating plan. You can choose what type of milk, meat or not, beans or not, and snacks or not. On your eating plan results page, print off your eating plan and check off foods as you eat each day. There are food groups linked from your plan so that you can create menus for each day.
Plan what you are going to eat ahead of time so that you don’t grab salty snack foods when you are starving. Eat every 4 to 6 hours so that you are not hungry.
Exercise 60 minutes 5 days a week. Move more than you do usually. Choose an exercise that breaks a sweat, but does not get your heart rate too high. Otherwise, you will just be burning up your blood sugar and stored muscle glycogen making you hungry when you are done. Exercise will keep your metabolic rate higher for 15 hours after exercise which helps burn more calories. I would also recommend weight lifting that will maintain and increase the muscles you have. Muscles burn more calories than body fat which is not very metabolically active i.e. burn calories.
If you need the motivation to exercise, find an exercise buddy who will commit to exercising with you. Knowing someone is waiting for you to exercise may help push you to exercise more often. Sometimes it is hard to start an exercise program, especially the first week. But once the endorphins kick in due to exercising, you should feel more motivated.
By energy, do you mean feeling better about yourself and happy as opposed to feeling tired and exhausted? Exercise is the best way to feel energetic. BTW in nutrition, we refer to energy as fuel for the body to function and move i.e. calories.
