By: Matt Weik, BS, CSCS, CPT, CSN
Focusing on achieving weight loss success can be just as exhausting as doing cardio itself. What if there were some weight loss tips you could implement throughout your day to set you up for success? Well, there is!
In this article, we are going to focus on 10 effective weight loss tips that you can implement throughout the day to help you see the best results and reach your weight loss goal faster.
Let’s start with things you can do first thing in the morning and work our way through until you lay your head on the pillow at the end of each night.
Disclaimer: It is recommended that you speak with your doctor before starting any exercise program or making changes to your nutrition plan.
Morning Weight Loss Tips
1. Avoid Hitting the Snooze Button
When you feel better, you’re more likely to be productive and want to fit in a workout during the day, right? So, start your day off on the right foot by skipping the snooze button. Each morning, you should have a reason to jump out of bed and start your day. When you skip the snooze button and get up when your alarm goes off, research shows that it can improve your mood.
A great strategy is to make it a habit of not lying around in bed. Get right out of bed, put your feet on the floor, and get going. Sleeping an extra 10 or 15 minutes will not provide you with any sort of benefit from a health or weight loss standpoint.
2. Drink a Glass of Water
Sleeping for several hours overnight can cause you to become slightly dehydrated. Upon getting up and moving, one of our weight loss tips is to grab yourself a glass of water and drink it. This has two main benefits. The first benefit is that it’ll help rehydrate your body, while the second is that it helps kickstart your metabolism. Research has shown that drinking water before meals (such as breakfast) can actually help enhance your weight loss results.
An easy tip to achieve this (and even get it out of the way) is to leave a water bottle on your nightstand before hopping into bed. That way, as soon as your alarm goes off, you can get up and immediately down some water. Having a water bottle on your nightstand also helps prevent you from forgetting by getting caught up in morning activities, and it will help you form a new habit in your morning rituals.
3. Get Moving Early
When you think of the reasons why you skip a workout, the most common reason is probably a lack of time. You get busy and never had it planned in your schedule to fit it in. By waking up and making it a point to start moving early, you can get it out of the way — removing the excuse that you didn’t have time.
That said, when looking at the research it shows that getting in a workout before breakfast can help increase your metabolism and aid in fat-burning for upwards of the next 24 hours. Wouldn’t it be great to burn more calories throughout the day to help encourage weight loss? Of course! What is the moral of the story? Get up and get after it so that you can get it out of the way.
4. Eat a Healthy Breakfast
One of the best weight loss tips and ways to kick-start your day is by ensuring you eat a healthy and well-balanced breakfast. This should consist of protein and healthy carbohydrates. Think of something along the lines of eggs with oatmeal or whole-wheat toast. If you don’t have time to prepare a full breakfast (a poor excuse, but we’ll let it slide), consider something like a bowl of Greek yogurt with fresh fruit cut up on top.
Related Article: 7 Simple Meal Planning Tips That Create Huge Weight Loss Results
A healthy breakfast is a great way to promote weight loss and get you closer to your goals. You can even include coffee or tea with your meal as the caffeine can help stimulate the metabolism and align with your weight loss goal as well.
Afternoon Weight Loss Tips
5. Prepare a Healthy Lunch Ahead of Time
A commonly used saying is you “plan to fail when you fail to plan.” While some people out there love to cook and the kitchen is their favorite place in their home, others have no clue what to even do in a kitchen (and that’s ok).
However, if you want to set yourself up for weight loss success, preparing your meals ahead of time and making them in bulk can not only save you a ton of time but it provides you the ability to have your meals ready to go when you need them. Cooking meals in bulk cuts down on the wasted time of preparing multiple meals throughout the week, not to mention all of the clean-up time you skip.
Think about all the things you can do with that free time (like hitting a workout).
6. Have a Protein-Packed Snack
What happens around 3pm when your stomach starts making all sorts of crazy noises and hunger sets in? You probably end up raiding the vending machine, right? That’s a horrible idea. There’s really nothing in a vending machine that aligns with your weight loss goals. Most of the options are high in carbohydrates and sugar. A better solution and one of our weight loss tips would be to ensure you are prepared for such situations by planning ahead and having a protein-packed snack with you at all times.
Consider buying a resealable container of nuts such as almonds, cashews, or peanuts to keep in your desk drawer or bag. Are nuts not your thing, or maybe you have nut allergies? Another great option would be beef jerky. When you feel hunger pangs setting in, reach for your protein-packed snack (still being mindful of your portions as you don’t want to keep reaching for more, and before you know it, you ate the whole thing).
7. Get Up and Move Throughout the Afternoon
One of the worst things you can do to stall your weight loss progress is sitting all day long. You want to get up and move throughout the day to help you stay more active, burn extra calories, and help promote blood flow.
Related Article: 7 Things You Should Be Doing to Keep Your Metabolism Revving
Rather than sending an email to your co-worker down the hall or picking up the phone, walk down to their office and poke your head in to get your question answered. You should also make it a habit to continue drinking water throughout the day. This will give you a reason to get up and use the restroom and refill your water bottle when it’s empty.
Evening Weight Loss Tips
8. Skip the Caffeine and Drink Water
How can you improve your sleep quality to promote weight loss? Reduce your caffeine intake late at night (especially if you are sensitive to stimulants). While caffeine can help boost your metabolism and provide you with an energy source throughout the day to fuel your body, it’s definitely not necessary at night when you’re trying to settle in and relax.
Some people enjoy a cup of coffee or even soda at night, which can increase energy levels and keep you awake due to the caffeine content. You can minimize this by making sure you switch over to strictly water in the evening.
9. Avoid Eating a Large Meal Late at Night
If weight loss is the name of the game, you want to stay away from heavy and large meals late at night. Consider a smaller meal if you fall victim to being incredibly busy, and that’s the only time you have to sit down and eat dinner.
When you sleep, you’re obviously not physically active like you are throughout the day. Therefore, your metabolism slows down slightly, and you may not be able to burn those calories, which could then be converted and stored as body fat (the opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish).
Should eating late be your only option, one of our weight loss tips would be to move some of your calories to earlier in the day, such as breakfast or lunch, to allow you the ability to use some of those calories to fuel you during the day, rather than a large meal at night that could cause you to potentially gain weight and hinder your weight loss progress.
10. Go to Bed at a Reasonable Time
Something not many people realize when it comes to weight loss is that sleep is incredibly important. Not getting enough sleep can actually cause stress levels to rise. When this happens, cortisol levels (a stress hormone) become elevated, which increases a hunger hormone known as ghrelin. Getting adequate sleep (a minimum of seven hours) can help normalize your hormones and prevent hunger from paying you a visit all day long.
Being that you want to get a minimum of seven hours of sleep, it would be wise to schedule your bedtime. If you know you need to get up at 6am, make sure you are in bed no later than 11pm (assuming you’re the type of person who falls asleep quickly). It may even be helpful to set an alarm to remind you when it’s time to get ready for bed each night. This can prevent you from getting caught up in something (like binge-watching a television show) and looking at the time only to realize it’s 1am.
Give these 10 weight loss tips a try and see how they impact your results. They are easy enough to implement and don’t require a lot of effort on your part, which can make them fairly easy to follow.
*BONUS* Weight Loss Tip for Any Time of Day
When we’re talking about weight loss tips to implement throughout the day, we aren’t only talking about certain timeframes of the day and then forgetting about the rest. That’s why we created MuscleSport SlimKit.
Don’t see-saw up and down when it comes to maximizing your metabolism, let that puppy burn, baby, burn! SlimKit is specifically designed for women who want a 24-hour advanced weight loss kit that takes the guesswork out of the equation. SlimKit provides you with everything you need and nothing that you don’t.
MuscleSport SlimKit can help you effectively torch body fat, tone and metabolize, as well as detox and cleanse. Utilizing daytime and nighttime components allows you the ability to fast-track your progress and see the results you desire much faster. Try it today, along with the weight loss tips mentioned throughout this article!