Sometimes figuring out how to lose weight is frustrating. Figuring out how to do it while balancing being a real human being isn’t always easy either (Oooooh I’m doing so great, hello Holiday! Hello birthday party! Hello, summer BBQ!).
But what I know for sure is this: the times I’ve lost the most weight have 3 things in common.
There have been two times in my life that I’ve lost weight. Well, significantly, anyway. I’ve kept it off with each time, the second time I just lost more.
Neither loss was by the cabbage soup diet (though I tried it), the miracle diet (though I tried it, too), the starve-binge way (though I lived by it in high school) or by any other means of counting, calculating, limiting or following plans.
Here are the lessons from the times I did lose weight, so you can scoop them up, drop your restriction, and find the body you love (by the way, that means right now AND moving forward).
Strategy One:
Stop TRYING to Lose Weight
Bare with me here. This one comes true over and over, so it’s important that you hear (read) it.
This hasn’t only been true for me (both times I’ve lost weight), but I’ve heard it over and over in different ways. “I just tried to be healthy”, “I don’t know, I stopped following the weight loss system I was for a while… I don’t know”.
When you stop TRYING to lose weight, you stop weighing yourself. Which means on heavier days you stop hating yourself (and eating those emotions through a “who cares, if it’s not going to work, anyway…” mentality), and on lighter days you don’t see the number the scale is telling you and base your worth on it.
You’re WAY more than both of those.
When you stop TRYING to lose weight, you stop FORCING yourself to eat tasteless foods that you hate.
And when you stop TRYING to lose weight, you lose the inner yeller who puts you down, tries to keep you motivated by being mean and tries to tell you that you’re not good enough until.
You ARE good enough.
You being here, on Earth, is proof enough.
So, how can you put this strategy into place for weight loss success?
Start trying to do something that ignites a burning, bright POSITIVE light in you.
TRYING to lose weight is hard. It even sounds hard when I write it.
But trying to get HEALTHY. Working to get VIBRANT. Eating to GAIN ENERGY. Fuelling yourself for STRONGER workouts.
Those are all positive-to-you goals.
When you’re TRYING to lose weight, you’re telling yourself you’re not good enough now. When you’re trying to gain energy, you’re saying you ARE grand and you deserve to feel amazing.
Hear that? YOU ARE GRAND, and you deserve to feel amazing.
Strategy Two:
Eat Less Meat:
I cooked a chicken dinner. We ate it.
I’d heard of a documentary that day in school; no details given except that it was a good watch.
Food Inc.
We watched it, unknowing the effect it was about to have on our eating.
That was the last day we ate meat, back in September of 2010.
I didn’t TRY to lose weight. I tried to be nice to animals. I love animals.
And DAMN did I lose weight.
I don’t own a scale, I haven’t since moving out on my own. So I didn’t see it happening.
It actually wasn’t until I saw pictures of myself that I noticed how drastic my weight loss had been.
The overflowing of the jeans I always hoped didn’t make it to Facebook – gone.
Whoa.
All I did was stop eating meat.
I can’t even say my diet was healthy. I ate hella brie and Ace Bakery bread.
We must have had veggies in there at different points, and I’m sure I cooked with butter. And I LOVED to bake. Cookies, incredibly fancy cakes for parties, pancakes, waffles, you name it.
And with all that, weight loss happened without my trying.
And the only change I made, was stopping eating meat.
And my body shifted HUGE.
Strategy Three:
Eat Less Other Animal Products OR Eat More Veggies (Or Both!)
The second time I lost weight dramatically and got into the body I rest at now was when I dropped dairy.
I had given up eggs already; I found them hard to LOVE, and I was drawn into the vegan world at least a bit by this point.
My milk had switched to almond milk, and my ‘butter’ for baking had become coconut oil.
Life was good, but DAMN could I eat a brick of cheese.
It started as a challenge: I wanted to run a marathon, and because I’m a Holistic Nutritionist, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could train for and complete a full marathon without North America’s favourite sources of protein: meat (I include fish in that), dairy and eggs.
At first I thought the marathon made me lose weight. Obviously, you’re running a LOT.
But, as it turns out, I didn’t gain any weight back after the marathon.
Weird, I thought.
By this point, I was hugely content being dairy-free for two reasons:
- When I ate dairy after having given it up for that long, I got a massive pain I’d completely forgotten I used to get all the time, in the left side of my abdomen underneath my ribs. And
- I TRIED MY FIRST CASHEW CHEESE!
It was a ‘blue’ cheese and I was in love. It was made entirely of raw cashews and some superfoods, and my GOSH did it fill the spot!
Plus, with more coming on the market at this point, I knew we could still have cheese plate and wine ‘picnics’ in our living room.
*Swoon*
The Veggie Part
I said eat more veggies above, because it blends into my beautiful idea of health, the one I instill in my clients all the time:
Just focus on ADDING.
If it feels too hard to GIVE SOMETHING UP, ADD something else.
I love that tip. It’s so simple and so profound.
Just add more goodness. Then add more. Keep loading in vegetables.
And little by little, you’ll have less room for cheese.
(And, follow me on Pinterest for some of my vegan cheese pins so you can get started making vegan cheese that satisfies your soul, too)
Lastly, don’t force yourself to eat veggies you hate. If you can get by with tomatoes, grilled zucchini, sauteed mushrooms and the occasional pepper, just eat those! Eat lots of them!
Eventually, after eating whole foods for long enough, your taste buds will adjust and you can be more adventurous; seeing if there are ways to cook veggies you don’t like with spices you do. Or, just keep on eating lots of the veggies you STILL like and keep moving.
Just get them in. Enjoy yourself. Find healthier ways of making your treats.
And weight loss will find you.
Just always remember: “Weight loss is a side-effect of good health”
Chase health. Chase feeling good. Chase happiness, being centered and having the ability (through eating often enough to avoid moodiness) to be kind to all.
Happy Body-Changing with massive love to you,
Nathalie
Holistic Nutritionist
