There are many short-term solutions to losing weight such as detoxing, going on very restrictive diets, or doing extreme amounts of exercise.  Although you will lose a lot of weight the results never stay.  You tend to have a yoyo affect with fitness, your weight constantly goes up and down.  In order to get long term solutions to weight lost, you sometimes need professional help. So let’s see what dietitians would advise to lose weight.

The Best Advice from Registered Dietitians

1. Reconnect with Your Hunger and Fullness Signs

Instead of always checking the scale, Gisela Bouvier, R.D.N., L.D.N., says it’s important to get back in touch with your hunger and fullness signs. “When we learn to eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full, we let our bodies determine how much fuel it needs,” she explains

Many people have problems with weight loss because they are never hungry.  They eat as a distraction or because food is offered to them.  But not because the body is feeling signs of hunger. If you would reconnect with being hungry before you eat you will find out that you will not eat nearly as much as you do.  You will therefore cut your calories and lose weight.  You must also listen to when your body says you have had enough food and not overeat.  One of the most important things for weight loss is to stop eating before you get to full.  You should feel satisfied after a meal, not full and sluggish.

2. Tidy up your kitchen counter

One of the best ways to keep yourself away from unhealthy food temptation is remove all the unhealthy foods from your house.  This is not always possible if you have kids, or a spouse, so the next best thing is to rearrange your kitchen.

To start, clean up your kitchen counters by removing cereal and soda or other unhealthy foods. Notable researcher and author of “Slim by Design,“Brian Wansink, Ph.D., led a 2015 study in which more than 200 kitchens were photographed in Syracuse, New York. “The Syracuse Study” became called the “20-pound cereal box” study based on the fact that women who had breakfast cereal on their kitchen counters weighed 20 pounds more on average than those who didn’t. Those with soft drinks left out? They weighed an outstanding 24 to 26 pounds more!

The next step after you remove all the unhealthy things from your counter is to replace it with a bowl of fresh fruit.  Individuals with bare kitchen counters, with a bowl of fresh fruit, had significantly lower BMIs (body mass index) than those with cluttered kitchen counters.

Finally, keep healthy foods, like pre-cut vegetables and fruit, at eye level in your refrigerator and pantry. If the vegetable or fruit is already cut you are more likely to eat it versus a fruit that you have to cut up, when you are ready to eat it.

3. Become a Writer

When you write about your food, you will become more conscious about what you are eating.  Also you can write down how you feel before you eat the food and after you eat the food.  You will be able to better attach your emotions to your food choice.  By logging your food, you will be able to properly analyze your food if the weight loss journey is not going as planned.  Many times you don’t remember all the times you ate unhealthy and you downplay the incidents in our head.

4. Don’t ONLY Rely on Willpower

Will power is similar to a muscle it has to be worked out to become stronger.  But also with a muscle you understand that during exercise the muscle fails sometimes.  So the same thing with willpower, it can fail sometimes, but as you continue to exercise that willpower it will get stronger over a period of time.  But you should not only rely on willpower, you should avoid certain situations if you feel like it will cause you to fail. Also set up barriers or pre planned things that will better your chances of success, like taking unhealthy foods out of your house, not going to parties hungry especially when you know they will have unhealthy foods, drinking lots of water to avoid being hungry often, etc.

5. Get NEAT

Nutrition consultant and author of “Fertility Foods” Elizabeth Shaw, M.S., R.D.N., C.L.T., works with her clients to increase their Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis, or NEAT, behaviors. According to Shaw, NEAT behaviors are small servings of activity that are not formal exercise. Examples of this is parking farther away from the store to walk, climbing stairs instead of taking the elevators, etc.

One of the best ways to make sure you are being active and on your feet moving is getting a fitbit, and making sure you have take a good number of steps a day.

6. Eliminate the Perfection Standard

Perfection is the enemy of progress.  Many times people feel like if they can’t be perfect why try at all.  Even though we strive for perfection we should not ignore the progress that is happening.  If you are legitimately stressed out by not being perfect, you are not having healthy expectations, and you will find it impossible to reach your fitness goals.  You must understand that you will make mistakes at times, but you must also understand that the world is not over.  When you make a mistake you get a chance to learn from the mistake and get better.  So make sure you are progressing from day to day, year to year.

7. Quit Your Cardio Addiction

Doing lots of cardio is great for weight loss, but the problem arise when you feel like you can run away the bad food that you eat.  Many people exercise hard so they can eat badly and eating badly will always win that fight.  Also, when you lose weight, you also lose muscles, if you don’t incorporate strength exercises.  The best way to ensure constant fitness is to build muscle, this raises your metabolism so your body is always in fat burning mode.

If you are constantly struggling with your fitness journey do not be afraid to get help, by working with a dietitian or a personal trainer.  You should always educate yourself and put that education into actions and results will soon follow.