Reach your desired weight without a diet

There are several approaches to reaching your desired weight without dieting. Often, it is enough to examine and change a few habits to achieve your desired weight.

Optimizing dietary habits beats any diet

A widespread strategy is still to approach one's desired weight during a diet by starving and cutting calories. This is particularly popular in the spring or a few weeks before a beach vacation. The pounds drop quickly until the scale shows the desired weight. The body is put into a kind of artificially created famine and, as soon as this phase is over, is intent on storing increased calories in the form of subcutaneous adipose tissue. "This phenomenon is known to most as the dreaded 'yo-yo effect'," says Thomas Pomperniggfrom the diet portal wunschgewicht.at. Diets may seem to deliver good results in the short term, but in the long term, they completely miss the mark. Therefore, it is worth reaching your desired weight without dieting if you want to achieve long-term success.

Get an overview

Such a change takes time and patience. It is not about reaching a milestone quickly, but about reaching your desired weight in the long term without dieting. Therefore, the first step is to gain clarity about the dietary habits that have led to your current weight. Observe yourself over a period of six weeks and pay attention to the following aspects:

• At what times of the day do I eat the most?
• Which staple foods do I prefer?
• What is the proportion of sugar, white flour, fat, and alcohol?
• When do I need a reward like sweets?
• With which foods do I "reward" or "comfort" myself?
• How often do I eat unconsciously without really being hungry?
• How often and when do I reach for "fast food"?
• What do I associate with individual foods?

The transition to conscious eating

During these six weeks, many will realize for the first time how much we eat, when we eat it, and how often the power of habit or emotional needs lead us to eat. Now we can start to experiment. What can we most easily omit or replace? Where can we easily save calories? In this way, previous eating behavior can be optimized in small steps without creating a feeling of deprivation or lack. The resulting successes provide strength and motivation to change things that might not be so easy at first.

Bring movement into play

Anyone who wants to lose weight without dieting should increase their basal metabolic rate through physical activity. Choose a type of exercise that you enjoy. Dancing, hiking, aerobics—everyone has different preferences and dislikes. It is important to move at all. This gets the metabolism going and leads to your desired weight even without a diet.

Author: Jens Sprengel, personal trainer for natural athletes and alternative practitioner

Read also: Tips against hunger while on a diet