Losing body fat starts with your diet, but lifestyle modifications are also crucial to lose weight and keep it off. Additionally, addressing the emotional and mental aspects of weight loss is essential for long-term success.

It’s important to implement sustainable changes that foster a positive relationship with food, rather than leading to feelings of shame.

5 strategies to help lose body fat and maintain a healthy weight:

1. Focus on Eating Whole, Real, Unprocessed foods. Protein, Fat, and Fiber are the Optimal Combo.

Protein + fat + fiber is the optimal combination for losing body fat. Most whole foods contain a balance of nutrients, which are sources of nourishment for the mind and body and necessary for optimal body function. The body must be working efficiently to allow weight loss to occur.

On the other hand, processed and refined foods are loaded with ingredients that undermine health, such as sugar, refined flours, damaged fats, and additives. These harmful foods rob the body of valuable nutrients in the stress of trying to digest them. 

Only focusing on the scale and the mirror overlooks key changes happening in your cells and organs. Eating foods that create frequent blood sugar spikes are linked to inflammation and blood vessel damage, as well as weight gain. 

Build your meals and snacks around:

• A lot of vegetables, fruits (ie: berries and apples)
• High quality fats and unrefined oils (ie: avocados, nuts, nut butters, seeds)
• Beans, lentils, and eggs
• High quality animal protein (ie: wild-caught seafood, grass-fed beef, or organic chicken).

2. Consume 1 Tbsp Fat Immediately Upon Waking Up.

Retrain your metabolism to rely less on sugar and instead tap into fat stores. Consuming oil in the morning turns off gluconeogenesis, stabilizing blood sugar for the rest of the day. Gluconeogenesis is when the liver feeds glucose into the bloodstream. If your day starts this way, you can’t undo it, and blood sugar remains unstable the rest of the day.

Best options:

• Cod liver oil and fish oil increase the cell’s insulin sensitivity to support blood sugar levels and fat burning
• Extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, or coconut oil

Skipping the morning oil or not eating right away increases insulin levels, a fat-storage hormone. Insulin also causes the body to make more of the forms of estrogen that interfere with thyroid function.

3. Manage Stress Levels. 

Research shows chronic stress can contribute to weight gain for a couple reasons: first, you are more likely to soothe that stress with comfort foods. Second, stress keeps levels of your stress hormone cortisol elevated when it should taper. High cortisol also increases blood sugar. and promotes storage of belly fat. While stress is hard to completely eliminate, You cannot eliminate stress, but you can learn to manage it with strategies including deep breathing, meditation, journaling, walking, and yoga.

4. Reduce or Eliminate Sugar. 

Americans consume pounds of sugar each year, and that does not include the starchy foods that convert to sugar in the body. Even so-called healthy foods like almond milk can contain hidden sugars, so scrutinize nutrition labels very carefully, especially “Added Sugars.”

4 grams sugar = 1 tsp sugar

When you eat foods high in sugar and refined carbohydrates, they increase your blood sugar level, which causes an insulin release, and insulin promotes fat storage in the body. Blood sugar highs and lows can cause sugar cravings, weakness, irritability, brain fog, and excess belly fat.

5. Set Yourself up for Success.

People who plan their meals and snacks ahead are more likely to succeed at eating healthier, along with losing weight and keeping it off. Planning your meals ahead of time is one of the most important habits for you to establish because it removes the guesswork. The more practice you have meal planning, the easier it gets, and the less time it will take.

Four steps when meal planning:

1. Plan what you will eat

2. Make a List of what you need

3. Shop for your list

4. Execute the meal

Additional Tips:

• Make eating a priority. Block time in your schedule to fully enjoy your meal without distractions. Do not work and eat. You will be far more productive after a healthy, mindful meal.

• Identify your food triggers. Make a list of people, places, circumstances, and things that trigger your cravings and make a list of different options you can choose instead.

• Avoid spontaneous, impulsive eating. For example, walking by the candy on the counter at work and grabbing a piece on your way out the door. Always ask yourself these two questions before eating anything: Am I physically hungry right now? and Is this a food my body really wants to eat? If the answers are both yes, make the time, space, and place to eat and enjoy. Take control of the food, do not let it control you.

These are only 5 strategies of at least a dozen for supporting weight loss and a healthy body weight.

Fat Loss Supporting Supplements

Chromium and Berberine 

These nutrients help stabilize blood-sugar levels through proper insulin utilization, which is important for preventing the conversion of blood sugar into fat and for diminishing food cravings.

Recommend: Glucose-Adapt is specifically designed to promote healthy glucose metabolism and a healthy cell response to insulin. 

Vitamin B Complex

Collectively the B-vitamin complex supports the brain, intestines, and liver, as well as providing nutritional support for healthy metabolism, helping increase energy, and aiding digestion. Unfortunately, factors such as stress, a poor diet (high in sugar and refined foods) and poor lifestyle choices, can deplete the body’s stores of the B vitamins. 

Recommend: Bio-V which contains substantial levels of all B-vitamins in their most bioavailable form.

Thermo-Quick

If you enjoy using products that increase energy in a natural way, you will like Thermo-Quick as it contains green tea extract, yerba mate leaf extract, bitter orange fruit extract, and guarana seed extract.

Physio-Lean

This is such a unique blend for supporting energy production, healthy metabolic function, body fat metabolism, and lean muscle mass. Physio-Lean can be taken between meals to promote normal appetite and hunger cycles.

By taking control of your eating habits, you can ensure long-term success in your weight loss journey.

Please ask me if you have any questions,

Kelly Harrington, MS, RDN

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist for Healthy Goods