Simple weight loss? “Simple” does not mean “easy”. “Simple” means losing weight with the least amount of complexity. With simple weight loss, it still takes a lot of work to successfully lose weight and keep it off. But “simple” means you do that work through the most direct, simple path possible. And the reality is, to be truly “successful”, the goal must be healthy, long-term weight loss; not just weight loss alone.
The simplest steps to successful weight loss can be found by looking at specific people who have been successful at substantial weight loss over a long period of time and who have kept the weight off as part of a long-term healthy lifestyle. If you do what they did, you will discover the simplest and most direct path to long-term weight loss. Again, it may not be easy, but it will be simpler than just trying to exercise and lose weight which fails for about 70-80% of the people who don’t take the right steps.
When we studied many individual cases of successful, long-term weight loss, we began to see several simple aspects which they share in common that can be summarized in 7 proven truths. And the best way for you to experience your own long-term, healthy, permanent and successful weight loss is for you to make sure these simple truths are incorporated into your own long-term healthy lifestyle.
Examples of Success:
Samantha B. – Lost over 100 pounds and is successfully keeping it off after more than a year.
Wendy D. – Lost 135 poiunds and after 6 years is still keeping it off.
Bonnie R. – Has lost 142 and has kept it off more than 5 years.
Susan E. – Lost 146 pounds and continues to keep it off long-term.
Meghan C. – Lost 87 pounds and is keeping it off over a long period of time.
Amy G. – Lost 115 pounds long-term.
These are just a few examples we will focus on, even though there are hundreds like them who have shared similar experiences.
Through the experiences of these people, and hundreds of others, the following 7 “truths” for successful long-term weight loss and health clearly stand out:
Weight Loss Truth #1 – For Successful Weight Loss, You Need to Team Up With Positive Supporting People
Samantha B. has continued losing weight and keeping it off; but the weight loss happened very slowly and didn’t accelerate until she teamed up with her one-on-one coach through the Curves program.
Bonnie R. volunteered to lead a wellness competition at work. She also gets support by walking with friends, taking a Zumba class and setting occasional consultations with a personal trainer.
Susan E. has fun running and skateboarding with her children.
Meghan C. keeps herself motivated running with her husband and doing 5K’s with her son.
People who have lost weight and kept it off long-term almost always do it while partnering with a family member, friend, coach or support group which is supporting them and holding them accountable along the way. If you feel like you’ve been failing at the weight loss battle, and you’ve been attempting it alone without others supporting you, that may be a big part of your problem. If you want to experience success, a supportive partner, coach or group is a must. Sometimes it’s hard to get started on that because we’re hesitant to discuss our weight problems with another person. But if you take the plunge and start talking about it to someone else who is in the same boat, and who is a positive, supporting person, the sharing suddenly becomes easy and you even look forward to it.
If there is no family member or friend to partner with, some people have turned to personal coaches which are available through some popular weight loss programs. Another easy option for finding support, used by many who have been successful, is to sign-up for one of the programs that have online support groups. Some of these are free and cost nothing.
One of the most highly rated programs, Weight Watchers, which has been around for decades, offers support for a fee. The most unique aspect of Weight Watchers, which puts them above most other weight loss programs regarding ways to connect with a positive support group, is the regular in-person group meetings they offer. For a less expensive option, you can also use their mobile app to track your food and activity, and have access to online forums to share comments with other members for between $15 and $20 per month. For more support, you can choose to attend face-to-face group meetings with other members for around $40 per month or more. And if you want to go all out and consult one-on-one personal trainer, it will cost you around $50 per month or more. One reason Weight Watchers is famously popular and has been around for decades is because of the in-person meetings which have helped thousands of people successfully lose weight and stay healthy, even before the Internet was ever invented. This us more evidence of how people who have been the most successful at healthy weight loss have been those who sought positive support from others.
One of the most popular free programs, SparkPeople.com, is also focused on providing you with positive support in your journey to better health. At SparkPeople.com you can connect with others online to share stories and be encouraged. You can invite individuals to be one of your “SparkFriends”, or you can choose to join a “SparkGroup” of people who share something in common with you (such as people who have high cholesterol). Also, SparkPeople.com is great about keeping you connected with reminders and with lots of resources through their website.
Another good program that provides access to positive supporting people who can share your journey to better health is MyFitnessPal.com. On their website you can go to the “Community” section and participate in forums where you can actively communicate with others who are also seeking people to share with as they work hard to lose weight and get healthier. It’s a great place to exchange tips and encouragement with other people like yourself.
Weight Loss Truth #2 – For Successful Weight Loss, You Need to Find a Daily Strenuous Activity That You Love:
Samantha B. – Makes excercise fun by playing basketball with her 16-year-old son.
Wendy D. found her motivation by working out to various favorite exercise DVDs before her children wake up in the morning.
Susan E. is best motivated by the high-intensity of running up and down bleachers at the park or doing at-home videos.
Meghan C. likes to build up her endurance on a treadmill, which has enabled her to have fun running in 5K events.
Amy G. likes walking around her neighborhood for at least an hour every day listening to her favorite music, and uses the treadmill when the weather is bad, as well as workout DVDs while listening to her favorite music.
If you study examples of people who have had long-term success at their weight loss, you will almost always notice that the main priority in finding a physical activity you can keep up long-term is that is has to be FUN! Maybe you’ve been trying to exercise, or just can’t get motivated to exercise, and you’re still caught in a cycle of yo-yo weight loss up and down. Get rid of the boring exercises. Instead, start over again by thinking about things you would love to do, that would be pretty strenuous.
Maybe you love good music and getting out and seeing different things. If so, put your favorite music on some headphones and go out to a park to walk around and explore. Many people like to walk or run around shopping or entertainment districts. Some people take their kids to sporting activities. Why not join them? Lots of people have lost weight after they signed-up to be a kids’ coach or volunteer. Or get involved in the sport yourself! Lots of parents take martial arts classes along with their children, have a great time and experience a fun bonding time with their kids. Whatever activity you choose, make sure you love it! This will keep up the motivation you need to make your weight loss and health a long-term lifestyle.
Of course, even if an activity is fun and you love it, it won’t help you be successful at long-term health unless it’s really strenuous and frequent. Most of the case examples of people who kept weight off and got healthier long-term had some strenous activity that they loved doing almost every day, or at least several times per week. Strenuous activity will be something that gets your heart rate up and gets you out-of-breath and sweaty for 30 minutes to an hour at least.
Of course, health is always a top concern. If you’re really out of shape, older or have medical issues, you need to talk to your doctor, take that into account and adjust how slowly you begin to ease into activity and how far you take it. But for the average person, you need to do something almost every day that you love and which gets your heart rate going, gets you out-of-breath and makes you sweat.
If you’re just getting started, it may not feel like “fun” at first. But most successful people find that once you get going you actually begin to love it and look foward to the “high” you start to feel as you get active and experience the healthy energy you’ve been missing. When you reach that point, fun strenuous activity that you love is easy to turn into a regular habit and you’re well on the road to your own long-term, successful healthy lifestyle.
Weight Loss Truth #3 – For Successful Weight Loss, You Need to Feel Good About Your Journey, Even As Set-Backs Occur:
Bonnie R. – If she has a bad day, she just focuses on turning it around and doing better.
Samantha B. looks at herself in the mirror and tells herself she’s beautiful.
People who are successful at long-term weight loss don’t look at set-backs as “failures”. Instead, if you experience a set-back, successful healthy people would tell you to simply view the set-back as a minor speed bump on the road of your healthy weight loss journey.
One point where many people feel like they’ve “failed” is when they are diligently following one of the established weight loss programs and it just doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Many of the successful people we researched have surprisingly switched back-and-forth between multiple different programs over the years. They don’t view this as a negative. Instead, they see each of those programs as different tools in their toolkit for healthy weight loss. If one program helps you be successful for awhile – great! If it no longer seems to work later, and you switch to a different program that seems to be more successful for you at that time – great again! Even if you switch back later to the first program you were using earlier to find your success, it’s all good. Just think of the different programs and changes as successful tools and steps that are helping you move along the road in your successful and healthier weight loss journey.
Weight Loss Truth #4 – For Successful Weight Loss, You Must Honestly Track Everything You Eat and Do (food types, measures, calories, activity, etc):
Samantha B. – Giving up sweets has been a big part. Uses a tablespoon to measure how much Paremesan cheese she puts on her salads.
Charlene J. signed up for the Nutrisystem program to help her track her food by sending her meals to her on a regular basis.
Wendy D. uses the LoseIt! app and SparkPeople.com to help her track her calories.
Bonnie R. tracks her meals and exercise on SparkPeople.com.
Amy G. tracks her exercise activity and keeps a food diary on SparkPeople.com.
Samantha B. says she makes sure she eats breakfast every day.
As you can see from these examples, many successful healthy people sign-up for one or more programs that help them with tracking their eating and their activity. One tip we see across the board is that almost all of them suggest you never skip breakfast. Many people who fail at losing weight are tempted to forego breakfast, but it just makes their hunger kick into high gear later which just makes it harder to stick to a healthy eating plan.
How do you decide which tracking program is best? Again, keep an open mind, be positive and don’t think you have to stick with just one program. Be flexible and be ready to switch programs if that’s what you need to keep you successfully moving forward. With that said, don’t let anyone tell you which program is “best”. The “best” program is the one that is best at helping you be successful. This may be different for each individual because we are all unique. to help you decide initially which programs might be a good fit for you, here are some of the most popular programs you may want to check into:
MyFitnessPal
iTrackBites Plus
Ultimate Food Value Diary
ProTracker Plus
iMacroApp.com
GetApplause.com
There are also many other good health, fitness and weight loss apps and programs you can use. To find some of them, just do a Google search for “weight loss apps”, “fitness apps” or similar search terms.
A Note About Nutrisystem:
Some people have also successfully lost weight with the Nutrisystem program. Nutrisystem is a little different. Their strategy is to actually prepare your food portions for you and they send the food to you. One downside a lot of people mention is that this does not always fit the reality of life. What do you do if you are away from the house, or you’re at a special event like a wedding? Then you will still need to rely on your own ability to track what you are eating.
Again, the app or program that is “best” is simply the one that works best for you, regardless of what others may say. Try more than one, and see which helps you achieve the most success in getting healthier. And don’t feel bad about switching between apps and programs, or using more than one at the same time. They are all just tools in your tool kit for getting healthier and losing weight.
Weight Loss Truth #5 – People Who Successfully Lose Weight and Keep It Off Track Their Weight Often (but not TOO often):
Notice that tracking weight is not the number one item on our list of weight loss truths. This is not accidental. Most people who have long-term success at healthy weight loss actually avoid focusing primarily on weight. Believe it or not, some people who have lost a lot of weight actually had to gain some back to get to their optimum healthy weight. Also, most of them found success when they focused first on healthy eating and activity, and the weight loss automatically followed.
Sometimes this is due to the fact that muscles weigh more than fat. If you just lose a lot of weight by eating less rather than increasing physical activity, you could end up being pretty unhealthy and you probably won’t keep the weight off long-term. But if you focus on finding your healthy weight level, even if you could lose more, you will probably have better long-term success, health and happiness by staying near that level.
As an example of this, one young woman who had been successful at long-term weight loss had posted a swimsuit photo of herself online showing herself before she lost a lot of weight; another photo showing herself after losing a lot of weight; and a third photo of herself after she gained some of the weight back. Amazingly, she looked substantially better and she reported feeling a lot healthier after she gained some of the weight back! It was such a surprising result, the photos went viral on the Internet!
TIP: If you want to be like the people who have succeeded at healthy weight loss long-term, do not focus primarily on weight; focus on getting healthier.
How do you do this? One way is to avoid weighing yourself daily. This is always a bad idea because you are training yourself to focus primarily on a number, rather than health. Yes, it’s important to be aware of your weight. But aim at measuring your weight at reasonable intervals, such as no more often than once per week. And don’t keep thinking about it in the meantime. If you measure your weight weekly, and sometimes it has gone UP – so what. Don’t sweat it. Just tell youself to stay on track, keep getting healthier, eating right, and enjoying lots of fun strenuous activity, and the weight will take care of itself over the long haul. Remember – the main priority should be health and happiness, not just a number on a scale. You should aim to reach and stay at whatever weight makes you feel the healthiest and happiest, even if it’s not the lowest weight you might be able to reach.
Weight Loss Truth #6 – People Who Successfully Lose Weight Set Long-Term Gradual Goals and Are Patient With Themselves:
In virtually every case where someone has effectively lost substantial weight, and kept it off for the long-term, most were only able to do it gradually over long periods of time. This is true for several reasons.
First of all is the issue of health. Most medical advice tells us that it is considered unhealthy to lose weight over the long-term at a rate greater than about 2 to 5 pounds per week. And if you lose at a rate substantially higher than that, your body will naturally react and will begin to fight your efforts to get healthy, through illness, increased hunger, etc. Of course, this depends a lot on your beginning weight and other health factors. Most of the apps and programs mentioned in this article will help you keep your weight loss progress within a healthy range. The main point is to be very patient, don’t expect to lose weight too fast, and plan to achieve it over many months and years to be most successful. If you do that, then the probability of you keeping the weight off over the years is high.
Another reason to be patient and to make your weight loss gradual over a long period of time (other than health) is your attitude. Nothing is more frustrating than staring at a pot of water on the stove waiting for it to boil. You are doing the same thing if you check your weight every day. Don’t do it. Weight can fluctuate slightly up or down for many reasons on a daily basis, even if you have been limiting your eating and exercising. For example, building your muscles can actually ADD weight. It will just discourage and frustrate you if you check your weight daily, which interferes with the positive attitude you need to maintain your long-term health. To track your weight, make it a rule that you will not weigh yourself more often than once per week or less.
Weight Loss Truth #7 – People Who Successfully Lose Weight Keep Their Doctor In The Loop:
One not-so-obvious reason that it helps to have your doctor in the loop is accountability. People who have bene successful at long-term weight loss have discovered this. Your doctor is one additional person who can help you with motivation in your journey through weight loss and better health. If you know your doctor is aware of your efforts, and that you will be checking in with the doctor from time-to-time, this can be a huge motivating factor because if you don’t take the necessary step to get healthier, you will have to face your doctor about it at the next visit.
Also, no one is in a better position to be objective and honest with you about your health. If you don’t make good progress in your weight loss and health during certain periods of time, your doctor will be able to discuss the exact reasons and solutions with you in an objective, private, professional matter without the need for you to be embarrassed. Who knows; your doctor might even come up with some ideas or tips that no one else had suggested, and which might work really well in helping you to get healthier as you lose weight.
Of course, a more obvious reason that successful people keep their doctor in the loop is health, especially as it relates to any specific medical conditions they may have to deal with. Healthy eating, activity and weight loss will have no chance of succeeding in the long-run if it pushes you beyond your physical limits that exist because of some medical problem you may have. It’s a good idea to start your weight loss journey by first talking to your doctor and having a complete physical, which may sometime uncover a medical issue you may not be aware of, and which can have a significant impact on how you plan your strategy for healthy eating, activity and weight loss. This is especially critical for older persons, and people who already known they have certain health risks. Many efforts at weight loss and better health have been derailed by a sudden injury or illness that could have been prevented. Successful people make sure they avoid these kinds of things so they don’t interfere with their progress. Protect your own success. Keep your doctor in the loop.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
The “simple” (but not easy) path to real weight loss is to make sure you apply the 7 truths. If you want to be like the thousands of successful people who have lost the weight, kept it off long-term, and continued to live a healthy lifestyle over many years, be sure to do what they do…
1. Team up with positive supporting people;
2. Find a daily strenuous activity you love;
3. Feel good about your journey, even as set-backs occur;
4. Honestly track everything you eat and do;
5. Track your weight often (but not too often);
6. Set long-term gradual goals and be patient;
7. Keep your doctor in the loop.
Get started now. You can do it!
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