16 Keys to Weight Loss

Over the last several months I have been sharing some of the things I have learned which helped me to lose at this point 106 pounds. In this article I thought I would put together all the things I learned in one place. After a lot of thought I have come up with 16 keys to my weight loss success.

I spent most of my life overweight. Following these keys I have changed my life in such a positive way that I couldn’t keep it to myself.

You don’t have to follow everything I did, but I encourage you to give them a try. It only takes a determination to do the right thing for you to succeed.

You will thank yourself for doing it because the feeling of being healthy and having all that excess weight off will give you a feeling of freedom that can’t be compared to anything else.

Let’s get started with the list.

1. Test your thyroid

If you have been struggling for a long time with your weight there may be more than just overeating involved. I use to say I probably had a slow metabolism and that was why I weighed too much.

It wasn’t until I read how one’s thyroid controls your metabolism and that it can be medicated to help your metabolism that is when I decided to do something about it. Once I learned that my thyroid could be an issue I had mine tested and sure enough mine was practically not functioning.

Just being properly medicated will not cause you to lose weight, but it will help you from gaining more. It will also help prevent your attempts at losing weight from being sabotaged by your slow metabolism.

So schedule an appointment and ask to have it tested. I did and it helped.

2. Use the LoseIt! App

The LoseIt! App literally changed my life. Once I was on the right thyroid medication I wanted to actively start losing weight and this app did just that for me.

The biggest key to losing weight is to eat less calories than your body burns. Just eating 500 calories less a day than your body needs will burn an entire pound a week. With the Loseit! App I was able to teach myself to watch my calories every day.

There are several calorie counting apps available. If you don’t want to use the LoseIt! App then try one of the others. For me though, the LoseIt! App was the perfect app for my success.

I have told several of my personal friends about the app and some of them have used it too. One has lost 25 lbs another 30 lbs and one who just started has lost 10 lbs.

They also have a members group on Facebook with nearly 8000 members. So there is a lot of support with the app.

3. Men over 50 should consider a Testosterone booster

If you are a middle age man you might have noticed that you have put on a few pounds. You might even have convinced yourself that the extra weight is normal for someone your age. After all most men your age you encounter have a few extra pounds.

Even those who have been fit most of their lives seem to add a few pounds after forty. It’s even worse for men like myself who had been overweight most if not all of their lives. The extra weight of becoming middle age on top of the extra weight you already have becomes debilitating.

I remember my stomach got so large it felt like I had a basketball in my stomach when I tried to bend over.

The fact is men after forty see a decline in testosterone levels. Lower levels create a lot of problems that is put down to aging, including adding extra weight around the waist.

If you want to lose that basketball in your stomach, seriously consider taking a testosterone booster. It made a world of difference in my life in several ways, especially with my stomach fat.

My stomach was one of my worst features, now it is becoming a feature I consider one of my attributes.

There are a lot of different T-boosters on the market. The one I use is called Alpha Test by Muscletech. I have used it for 3 years now and taking it has been one of the best decisions of my life.

4. Read the nutrition fact labels

One of the fortunate things about living in this time is the amount of information available to us. Practically every food we buy at the grocery or convenience store has a nutrition fact label on it.

Get in the practice to look at this label before you buy your food. Check how many calories each item has. Educate yourself on what you are putting into your mouth.

Two similar item can be side by side on the shelf. They may look the same, but the nutrition label may surprise you in the difference between them. Be wise with what you eat.

5. Change your lifestyle

Losing weight isn’t about going on a diet, losing the weight and then going back to your normal life. The only thing that happens is you will put on all the weight you lost and possibly more and then find it harder to take it back off the next time.

That is no way to live and it’s not healthy for your body. Instead of a diet, you should consider changing your lifestyle.

Changing your lifestyle doesn’t mean you have to give up everything that you love to eat. What is does mean is knowing what you eat and how much. It means having self-control over your body and doing those things that will make you healthier and feel better.

6. Portion control

In changing your lifestyle, the first thing that you need to learn is portion control. Be satisfied with one plate of food and learn the willpower of not having that second helping.

I try to keep the calories of each meal between 300 to 500 calories. After a while your body gets use to it. I also have a couple low calories snacks of around 200 calories between means to hold me over to the next meal.

In that way I eat about 5 times a day, all low calorie, but never long enough apart that my system gets hungry. My body is sated and yet calorie deficient enough to lose weight.

7. Eat low calorie prepared meals when you need a quick meal

If you don’t have the time to prepare a meal at home, you probably do like a lot of people I know do and stop by a fast food restaurant or a pizza place and pick up something to take home. The problem is that quick meal is usually a high calorie meal that doesn’t help your attempt to get fit.

Instead of going the fast food route, buy a little extra at the grocery store. There are a lot of prepared meals, especially in the frozen aisle that you can get that will keep you within that 300 to 500 calorie range.

Remember to check the labels before you buy to make sure they are low calorie meals. You also will find it is cheaper to eat this way than the fast food route as well.

A few of the brands that I enjoy is Hormel Completes, Chef Boyardee cups. Banquet Pot Pies and Michelina dinners. Another favorite of mine is there are a lot of soups that are low calorie now. Especially Progresso which has a low calorie line of soups less than 300 calories.

8. Substitute fatty meats with lower calorie alternatives

One thing that is hard to do without for most of us meat. Some of the best tasting meats though are not good for us on a regular basis.

Fortunately now there are low calorie alternatives to some of the favorite meats we love.

I still enjoy breakfast sausage, bacon, ham and meatballs in my diet, but now they are made of turkey meat rather than pork or beef. Honestly for the most part you can’t taste the difference except for the fact that it’s not as greasy.

9. Be smart with what you drink

One thing that you may want to consider giving up or at least limiting in your diet is carbonated drinks. Regular cokes are saturated with sugar and the chemicals in diet sodas can be more harmful to your system than sugar.

I probably average about one coke a month. That is a lot better than 2 or 3 a day like I use to drink.

What I drink is usually 1- 2 cups of coffee without cream or sugar, maybe a cup of tea without sugar and the rest of my day I drink water. Water is the best thing for your system.

I use to try and drink tap water but the taste was horrible. Now we boil our water the day before and reserve it in a picture. It is amazing how much better the water is after boiling off the chemicals. It is also a lot cheaper than buying bottled water.

10. Avoid dessert

This is probably one piece of advice that will not set well with some who love their dessert. I’m not saying never have a dessert, but it would be wise to avoid that dessert as much as possible. Save it for special occasions and not as a daily ritual.

Sugar is one of the worst things for our bodies. It is mainly empty calories with no nutritional value. Sugar calories add up quickly and if you eat too many calories sugar readily stores in your system as body fat.

Most desserts are sugar bombs ready to become body fat. Desserts are always so tempting, so remove that temptation and stay away from it. Don’t buy it at the store and don’t keep it in your house.

More than likely, you will be offered desserts at social functions or at work. Maybe there once in a while you can indulge, but any more than that will sabotage your healthy lifestyle.

11. Strategies when eating out

Just because you’re trying to lose weight doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy an evening at a restaurant, you just have to watch what you are buying.

Fortunately now basically every restaurant except for the Mom and Pop places detail the calories for their food on their menu so you can make informed choices.

At fast food restaurants your best bet is with their smallest sandwiches. For example at McDonald’s their Mcdouble and McChicken are both under 400 calories.

Be careful with the fries and soda though. If you have the willpower avoid the fries. Maybe once in a while you can indulge in the smallest order of fries. Believe me, it is a treat eating fries after going a while without. You end up eating each one separately and enjoying them like you hadn’t enjoyed anything for a long time.

When it comes to drinks, I usually opt for coffee or water. Maybe once a month at a restaurant I will have a small soda. Once a month doesn’t hurt, several times a day does.

At a sit down restaurant I use one strategy to keep from gaining weight. What I noticed at most of these restaurants is the calories for almost all of their meals is anywhere from 900 to 2000 calories.

2000 calories is out of the question because that is more than my entire day’s calorie count.

I usually pick something that ranges between 900 to 1100 calories. When the meal is brought to me the first thing I do is take the fork and divide each item on the plate in half. Half of the food I eat, bringing the calorie count down to 450 – 550 for the meal and the other half I take home.

That way you end up with two meals instead of one. For me that’s a win – win situation.

The one restaurant to avoid is the buffet. There is no way to leave a buffet without overeating. If you want to go to a buffet, limit it to just once a year, more than that will be the start of temptation to give up on your new lifestyle.

12. Get a good night’s sleep

One thing that is often overlooked in our busy life these days is getting enough sleep. We tend to stay up to watch that movie or sports event on TV and then turn around and get up 5 or 6 hours later for work.

Our bodies need more than that to function properly. Getting enough sleep has a myriad of health benefits of which helping control your weight is one of the most important benefit.

Sufficient sleep helps to balance a person’s hormones and hormones is what controls your appetite.

Try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night to get all the health benefits sleep has to offer.

13. Exercise is necessary for your health and your success in losing weight

Two hundred years ago the average person didn’t have to exercise because their daily life was physical enough. As technology has grown, so has the average waistline.

It is a simple fact that to stay healthy one has to move their bodies. You really can’t be physically fit simply by dieting. You need to move your bodies. There is almost an infinite variety in what you can do as exercise, so find something you enjoy and make it a part of your life.

For real physical fitness, most experts talk about it being 80/20. 80 percent of your fitness success is through what you eat, 20 percent is by exercise. Don’t do one without the other. Both are necessary for success.

There are 3 more keys to losing weight. These three have to do with the mental aspect of weight loss. Your mindset is vital to your success.

14. Don’t worry about the fluctuation of your weight

As you get on your scales every morning you are going to notice that your weight loss is not going to be a straight line. One day you go down a half pound, the next you will go back up a pound.

Even if you have kept a strict diet and been on point with your exercise this will happen. Don’t lose heart and keep at it. You may not see immediate losses but in the long run you will. My experience has been to see a loss in weight only once, maybe twice a week at the most.

There have also been times where I have gone 3 and 4 weeks without losing weight. If you keep at it you will eventually overcome it and see results.

Only record your weight when it reaches a new low and don’t worry about it bouncing up and down the rest of the time.

15. Remember every day is a new start

There are going to be times when you blow your diet. Your calorie count is way over because of a celebration or you gave into temptation. That is part of life.

Accept that you made a mistake and when you get up the next morning start over because it is a new day.

In fact, treat every day like it’s a new day and a new start. It’s a fresh start. Set your goals for the day and go for it. Don’t dwell on the past mistakes and don’t fret over what may or may not happen in the future. Live focused on what you can do today.

16. Be patient

This last key to losing weight can be the hardest, but the most important. Patience is a virtue, but it is the one thing most people don’t want. We want immediate satisfaction.

It’s still true that the best things come to those who wait.

Don’t try to lose 60 pounds or more in 8 or 12 weeks. For one thing it’s not healthy for your heart. For another, your body doesn’t react well to sudden weight changes like that. I can usually tell when someone has lost weight too fast. They are the ones who need cosmetic surgery to remove the excess skin hanging off their bodies.

I just reached the third anniversary of my weight loss journey. I have lost all but a few pounds to reach my ultimate goal. This is the hardest part, but I know I will reach my goal. Now while I lose the last few pounds I am also working to add some muscle. It is going to take longer than before but it will be worth it.

In just two years I will reach 60. I plan to be a very healthy and strong 60 year old.

It takes time and hard work. If you are patient you can do it.

Don’t try to lose more than one pound a week. That means no more than 50 pounds a year. Depending on how much you need to lose you can calculate how long it will take to get there.

Be patient and do the work. If you would like some advice leave me a message or comment and I will get back to you.

As a favorite comedian of mine, Red Green would say at the end his monolog, “I’m pulling for you, because we are all in this together.”

Have a wonderful and blessed day.