Tips and Tricks for Losing Weight
March 17, 2012 in Weight Loss/Gain
Most people who switch to a low-carb diet, a paleo diet, or a low-carb paleo diet find great success in losing weight. I, myself, have lost 120 pounds using these strategies (low-carb for the first 100 pounds and low-carb paleo for the last 20 pounds). But if your weight-loss seems stalled or too slow, there are some extra tricks that will help you lose weight faster and/or get beyond those natural set points that our bodies all seem to have.
1. Don’t Eat for 3-4 Hours Before Bed: When you eat shortly before bed, you increase your metabolism and stimulate growth hormones, which makes it very difficult to lose weight.
2. Get Lots (and Lots and Lots!) Of Sleep: Getting plenty of sleep will help regulate your cortisol levels and give your body plenty of time to rest and repair. If you are prioritizing sleep but still not sleeping well, see my post Trouble Sleeping? for tips.
3. Manage Stress: Do whatever you can to keep your stress level in check. This is about the stress hormone cortisol, which profoundly affects the ease at which our bodies access stored energy, how we metabolize fat versus sugar, our insulin sensitivity and our leptin (hunger hormone) sensitivity. For more tips on stress management, see my post Managing Stress.
4. Get Lots of Low-Strain Exercise: Things like walking, yoga, and swimming are fabulous for regulating your hormones and reducing stress (exercise is not about burning calories, it’s about regulating hormones). They also build muscle tone without stressing your body. Some light resistance training (yoga, pilates, lifting weights without going nuts) can be very helpful aswell. One of the key points here is that “over-training”, by which I mean doing something that is too stressful for your body, ends up increasing cortisol and derailing your weight loss efforts.
5. Get Outside: Our bodies need sunlight. Sun exposure helps regulate our circadian rhythms and our adrenal glands (via the hypothalamus and pituitary gland), which affects cortisol regulation, as well as a whole host of other hormones. If getting outside just isn’t possible for you, make sure you are taking a Vitamin D3
6. Eat 2-3 Meals per Day (and maybe one snack): Eating less frequently is better for your insulin and leptin sensitivity (and actually all of your hormones). If you are also keeping your sugar intake fairly low, then this is really great for regulating your hunger too. Some people like to create a calorie deficit by occasionally skipping meals. This only works if your stress levels (specifically your cortisol levels) are well-managed (you should be getting plenty of sleep and lots of low-strain exercise).
7. Reduce Carbohydrates: Keeping the carbohydrate intake on the low side (check out my post How Many Carbohydrates Should You Eat?) can be very helpful in curbing your appetite and regulating insulin. The end result is that you eat less, which creates a calorie deficit so your body uses stored energy instead. Typically, if your carbohydrate level is on the low side, you don’t need to worry so much about portion control (your body does this naturally). But do still be aware of how much of certain calorie dense foods (like nuts and seeds) you are eating.
8. Promote Healthy Digestion: If you feel that you are stuck at a “set-point”, first evaluate your health. Do you really need to lose more weight? Maybe it’s time to turn your focus to fitness goals and creating lifelong habits for maintaining a healthy weight. If you do still feel like you need to lose more weight, you might be dealing with an overgrowth of “bad” bacteria in your gut. See my post on Repairing the Gut for ways to address this. Once your gut health is improved, the weight should start coming off again.
9. Patience: As I mentioned above, it’s possible that you are already at a great weight for your body, even if it isn’t what you were hoping to achieve. How do you feel? Are you energetic? fit? happy? If you do still have weight to lose and you are doing everything else right, it might just be that your body needs some time to adjust hormone levels (but also check out my post on Female Hormones, Weight and Autoimmunity), adjust the number of receptors on cell surfaces, and repair itself. When your body is ready (and this might take one to three months), you will start losing weight again.
awesome points and fantastic questions for individual consideration. I am not looking to go full paleo, but all the above fit for low carbing too. I think this is the most beneficial spot I’ve been and I’ve been searching every single day for solid info that I can really use.
Just a thought, but it would seem that heavier exercise was what our paleo ancestors did on a daily basis just for survival. I feel better doing something more challenging, it improves my mood quite a bit. Of course we are all different and if it causes too much stress for someone I’d say they should change their fitness routine.
A little bit of heavy lifting can go a long way and I do think that working to build strength is very important for overall health. The reason why I focus more on low-strain exercise here is that, very often, people who are battling weight issues are also battling cortisol disregulation. And when it comes to cortisol, too much high intensity exercise(especially high intensity cardio) can contribute to cortisol problems. On the other hand, a large amount of gentle exercise like walking can go a long way toward regulating cortisol. But you make an excellent point that exercise is very individual and people should find something that works for them.
I’ll share this for sure, since most parents are having a hard time to condition themselves physically. Thanks.
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[...] to one pound of stored energy. If you want to lose weight, focus on your diet (see my post Tips and Tricks For Losing Weight). But, while diet changes will make the largest contribution to weight loss, it’s important not [...]
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I’m a bit confused about the advice on eating less frequently, because others say that you should eat smaller meals, more frequently
http://www.thepaleomom.com/2012/05/does-eating-frequency-matter.html
Hi,
I love your blog. However I disagree with points 1 and 4. First http://www.librehealth.com/2012/01/is-it-bad-to-eat-before-bed.html — and second, women need to lift heavy weights if they want to lose weight. They really do. I love all your tips and all they’re great, but if they want to get lean — weights!