Losing Weight When Busy Life Gets In The Way
7 Tips To Lose Weight When You Have No Time
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things.
Morrie Schwartz ‧ American professor of sociology and an author
Everyone can agree that nothing puts a damper on fitness and weight loss goals quite like a busy schedule. But being busy doesn’t mean you have to give up on your health objectives. The scale doesn’t care how many hours you have in your day - only how wisely you spend them.
But keep it in mind, even with a full schedule, kids and family, you can reach your weight loss goals! It’s just a matter of setting a plan for yourself. Here are 7 weight loss tips for the go-getters who need some sound advice on how to capture their weight loss goals.
#1. Declutter Your Kitchen
Clutter isn’t good for your mental state, and may to increase your stress levels. That also applies to your kitchen, where mountains of unhealthy foods can easily derail your weight loss regimen.
Organising your refrigerator and pantry isn’t just good housekeeping. It will also help you eat better and save time, no matter how crazy and busy your schedule.
TIP: Organising your refrigerator and pantries isn’t just good housekeeping. It will also help you eat better and save time, no matter how crazy and busy your schedule.
#2. Plan Your Meals
Along with planning your workout schedule for the week, plan your diet too. Write an easy-to-make, healthy and travel-friendly lunch to pack to work. Cooking your meals yourself will help you keep an exact tab on your calorie consumption.
If you don't have time to prepare a meal in the morning, you could always pack some leftovers from your previous night's dinner or just carry a whole wheat bread sandwich with veggies. Packing your lunch every day will restrict your urge to order food from outside.
TIP: If you don’t have time to prepare a meal in the morning, you could always pack some leftovers from your previous night’s dinner or just carry a whole wheat bread sandwich with veggies.
#3. Track Your Calories
While regularly working out goes a long way, your diet plays a major role in burning fat and shedding pounds. It is essential to ensure you're sticking to the required amount and not going overboard.
Maintaining a food journal and listing out what you need could be one way of counting your calories, but it might not be the most accurate way. There are several apps you could download to count your calories and help you maintain your diet.
Doing this will not only help you achieve your weight loss and fitness goals, but will also help you understand portion sizes and nutrition value of ingredients in your diet. Utilise measuring cups to identify a healthy serving and do not underestimate your portion size.
#4. Don't Skip Meals. Just Don't...
FACT: It appears a lot of overweight people aren’t necessarily overeating, but their eating patterns have become so erratic.
This may seem counterintuitive after advice to eat less overall, but busy people especially may need to space out their calories more throughout the day. That’s because going over four or five hours without refuelling can slow metabolism, affect hormones and insulin levels, and contribute to unhealthy food choices when you do finally sit down to eat.
It appears a lot of overweight people aren’t necessarily overeating, but their eating patterns have become so erratic. They have a cup of coffee in the morning and then no proper food until late afternoon. The key is to avoid that and keep a consistent schedule, whether that’s three meals a day and a couple of snacks, or five mini-meals.
#5. Schedule Your Workout Time
TIP: If you are an incredibly busy individual, you are probably already glued to your handwritten day planner, Google Calendar or a similar one.
How does an overly booked individual “perceive” that they do, in fact, have the time for regular exercise? By scheduling it like an important appointment.
If you are an incredibly busy individual, you are probably already glued to your handwritten day planner, Google Calendar or a similar one. Why not also use those tools for pencilling in your workouts? Experts praise regular exercise, and there’s no better way to keep to a regular exercise plan than to block it off on your calendar.
#6. Integrate Full-body Exercises
The key here is to integrate exercises into your workout that give you a full-body blast and mix muscle work with cardio. Think jumping jacks, mountain climbers, burpees, plank exercises and similar. Also, the smart choice is to add dumbbells or kettlebells to your workouts to help create resistance and help burn more calories.
These exercise staples make great additions to a 20 to 30-minute circuit workout, perfect for a busy person and/or on-the-go parents who don’t have the luxury of taking a long jog through the park every day.
Full-body Blasting Workout
The key here is to integrate exercises into your workout that give you a full-body blast and mix muscle work with cardio.
#7. Don't Be Afraid To Change
Don't be afraid to change course if something is not working. Getting to the right mix of habits and behaviours that fit with you almost certainly will require trial and error. To that end, be willing to change it up if you feel like something is a dead end.
The Bottom Line
Healthy weight loss can be a time commitment, especially if you’re overweight thanks to a job that keeps you sedentary for much of the day or a schedule that lends itself to fast food and unhealthy snacking.
Don’t give up just yet. You don’t need extra minutes in your day to eat less or to move more, the two basic pillars of weight loss. Re-evaluate the time you have, use smart strategies above to make dropping pounds easier, no matter how swamped you are. Good luck!
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