Losing Weight Without Dieting: 7 Simple Tips

Losing weight without dieting is relatively easy, as long as you apply the principles we will discuss in the following article. We know that a healthy and balanced diet is essential, but many people have a distorted idea of what the word “diet” means, at least from the perspective of a healthcare professional. In this article, I will tell you about the 7 most important actions you can take to lose and maintain a healthy weight. These strategies are designed to be achievable and long-lasting, allowing you to realistically achieve your weight loss goals.

Our 7 tips for losing weight without dieting (also for controlling weight)

1. Don’t go on a diet if you want to lose weight

It may sound illogical not to go on a diet to lose weight, but what I have seen during my 5 years of practice and with many patients struggling with weight is that they consider the word “DIET” as one of the 3 worst things in life. The problem with associating diet with something difficult, controlled, boring, and bad-tasting is that, obviously, we will not follow it. However, in reality, when I talk about a diet, I mean anything we eat, whether it’s healthy or not. For example, we can follow a diet high in sodas, sugars, and junk food, but we can also have a healthy diet or have neither, something in between.

Personally, I have maintained my ideal weight for almost 12 years. I could assure you that I have not been more than 4.4 pounds above or below since then. I believe that part of why I don’t struggle with what I eat is that I don’t give it the focus of eating well as a nuisance and tedious task because I also eat chips and drink soda, but I try to do it very infrequently. I don’t consider myself on a diet, but I am careful about what I buy at the grocery store so I don’t have to choose between grilled chicken or delicious potato enchiladas. It’s also a matter of getting used to it and making things very simple. Many times a week, I repeat meals, and every week, I vary the menus.

2. The most important thing for losing weight: eat less calories

At first glance, this may seem obvious, but I don’t mean that you should follow strict diets with very few food, leaving you hungry, and then snacking on some donuts after a while. Put simply, if you eat 10 and burn 5, you are left with 5. That surplus of 5 will inevitably turn into fat (at least 2 or 3), no matter if you ate grilled salmon with vegetables and steamed rice. The problem here is that many people think that exercise will help them burn that surplus of 5 when, in fact, it’s at most 1-3. During my adolescence and early adulthood, I did a lot of exercise, I’m talking about 2 and a half hours of swimming and 1 and a half hours of gym, 6 days a week. It wasn’t just casual swimming; it was high-intensity, as I competed in a high-performance team. But many of us still struggled to maintain an ideal weight or have a toned body because we didn’t understand that the quantity of what we ate was crucial.

In simple terms, the easiest way to lose weight is to eat 5, burn 1-3, and the remaining 2 will be burned naturally for the body’s maintenance and functions.

You don’t need to be “on a diet” to lose weight, but you do need to make some changes.

3. Exercise MAY help you lose weight

Truth be told, the intensity doesn’t matter much here, whether you run like a professional runner or lift weights like a bodybuilder. What’s important is to start exercising, even if it’s just 20 minutes of walking initially (I mean, for one or even two months), as long as you do it consistently. There are certain heart rates that are better than others for fat loss. Without going into too much detail, high heart rates are not useful for weight loss. On the other hand, heart rates slightly above your normal rate are the ones that will help you lose weight. Moreover, consistent exercise increases the number of calories you burn just by existing (basal metabolism).

Something I always tell my patients is that, contrary to common belief, you don’t need to sweat or get exhausted for exercise to help you. Also, change your perspective on exercise, as we saw in the previous point, it won’t help with weight loss if you eat more and eat poorly. I once swam continuously for 2 and a half hours and only burned 1000 calories, which you can easily gain back with a hamburger and a soda. That’s why exercise should be more about health and well-being than a weight loss method.

Exercising can be as simple as going for a walk somewhere you enjoy. The excuse that you’ve already exercised because your job requires you to be on your feet or that you went shopping for things doesn’t count. It should be at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week.

4. Sleep to lose weight without dieting

Getting enough sleep is crucial for maintaining a healthy weight because the lack of rest can alter the hormones responsible for appetite and metabolism, leading to cravings and weight gain. As we saw in another article, it can also make us feel anxious or irritable. With all of the above, if it’s already challenging for us to make good food choices, imagine being irritable, having low tolerance, and a reduced ability to make decisions because you’re tired and experiencing hormonal imbalances. Therefore, make sure to sleep between 7 and 9 hours each night to optimize your health and facilitate weight loss.

Sleeping is the simplest way to regulate our weight-related hormones.

5. DON’T buy junk food during grocery shopping

This principle is one of the most basic for losing weight without following a strict meal plan (also mistakenly called a diet). Just like people who want to quit alcohol or cigarettes, it’s essential that there are no high-calorie, low-nutrition products at home. This works for weight loss for several reasons, which I will explain below. First, not having junk food readily available will force us to make a decision and ask ourselves a second time if we really want to eat that. Second, not constantly seeing the product will likely reduce our cravings for that food. Third, if we decide to go to the store because our craving or desire to eat is strong, we will have at least gone out for the food, making it more difficult to eat the same. Lastly, if there are fruits or vegetables that you can snack on with a little salsa, lemon, and chili, it will most likely satisfy your cravings and give you more satisfaction for making a better choice.

6. If you’ve already made a bad choice, make it a habit not to finish the unhealthy food

You could probably lose weight if you made this a habit. The truth is that all or almost all of us, at some point in our lives, will eat junk food or food that we know we shouldn’t. Instead of feeling bad and blaming ourselves for eating what we shouldn’t, we can see it as satisfying a craving, but it is

NOT AN OBLIGATION to finish that food. If you’ve already bought a donut and satisfied your craving, throw it away, give it away, or share the other half of the donut. The same goes for sodas; something I do is buy the smallest soda available and decide that I will only drink half of it, and the other half will go down the drain or to a plant somewhere on the street. Nothing will happen if you leave the food that’s not good for you unfinished, but you’re benefiting your body.

7. Stay hydrated with plain water

Drinking water helps in many ways, but the most important ones are that it helps you feel less hungry because it takes up space in our stomach (obviously, you won’t always beat hunger). It also helps regulate our metabolism and overall body function. Lastly, it aids in the digestion of food and better utilization of nutrients. I say plain water, but you can add lemon or chia if you’re like me and don’t like plain water so much.

8. Get used to consuming liquids without sugar

Another very simple way to reduce the number of calories you consume during the day is to drink liquids without sugar. What liquids do we normally consume? The most common ones are coffee, tea, flavored waters, or even smoothies. Initially, it may taste strange to you how foods and beverages taste without sugar, but after a few days, your palate will become more accustomed to the real taste of things. You will see that you can distinguish between a good coffee or the flavors of different herbs in tea without having to stop consuming them.

Conclusion on How to Lose Weight Without Diets

Losing weight is theoretically very simple: eat less than you burn, the famous caloric deficit. To maintain it, you should eat the same amount as you burn, and to gain weight, you need to eat more than you burn. From there, there are many ways to play with this formula, but the fundamental thing is to understand the concept that if you’re gaining weight or struggling to lose weight, it’s because you’re eating too much or burning too little, there’s no other way around it. Finally, as the article from one of the world’s best clinics (Mayo Clinic) says, we need to know if we are ready to make these changes, although they are very simple, and you could implement one per month. I hope you found what was discussed here helpful.

Ideas from another blogs

1. Why diets don’t work from Primal Potential Podcast
2. 10 ways to cut 500 calories a day from MedlinePlus
3. Some Myths about Nutrition & Physical Activity from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney diseases