7 Small Sustainable Changes I Made to Lose 20 Pounds and Keep it Off!

June at Karin Yoga Life is all about making small sustainable changes!

My first Facebook Live talk for the month was about how I made small sustainable changes in my diet and lifestyle to lose 20 pounds and keep it off. Small sustainable changes can lead to big results! 

Many women struggle with weight management, especially when coming into menopause. This article will focus mainly on dietary changes that you can make to help you along your health and wellness journey, so that you can feel good and achieve your goals!

First, there are a few things to note. It is important to understand your motivation and know why you're doing what you're doing. We deserve to feel good and live a healthier life; it’s not only about losing weight. Once we understand the reason behind why we are making these changes, it is easier for us to follow through with them.

Next, these changes are not a diet! We often turn to crash diets and cutting out certain foods for a specific amount of time, but these methods are not sustainable. Diets only worked for me temporarily, as once I was done, I gained back the weight. It's important to note that you are making a lifestyle change - not a diet!

Don't put a deadline on it. Don't be in a rush. Don’t cut out anything forever. You can make small changes over time that will have a huge impact. 

Lastly, losing weight is much more about what you eat than how much you exercise. Don’t get me wrong, exercising is still very important! However, if you want to lose weight, it's more effective to look at what you're eating; the amount of food, and type of calories you're taking in. 

With that being said, here are 7 sustainable changes that helped me lose weight and keep it off. 

1.Always have ½ your plate filled with plants 

Eat more vegetables! When making small sustainable dietary changes, it is helpful to first add to your diet rather than take things away. An easy way to do this is always have half of your plate being full of vegetables. 

For lunch and dinner this is pretty straightforward, but you can do it for breakfast too by adding vegetables to your smoothies or toast or eggs or whatever you eat for breakfast. Vegetables are low calorie, high in nutrition, and high in fiber. And if you have ½ a plate of vegetables, you have less space on your plate for other stuff. 

2. Eat good carbs and protein

Move away from bread, pasta and other processed foods, towards complex carbohydrates like yam and sweet potato. Even switching from white flour based products to whole wheat is better for you! With ½ a plate of veggies, you should then have ¼ of your plate filled with protein and the other ¼, complex carbs.  

3.Add more soups 

A great sustainable change that helped me a lot was adding more soups to my diet. I switched away from some big, heavy meals to a lot more soup. Soups are filling, nutritious, and taste good! They are also high in water content, and it is always important to drink more water.

4.Eat your main meal earlier

Another small change I made was having my main, large meal at lunch time, rather than later in the evening. It is much better to eat a lighter meal at night, even if this means having the same thing you would have for lunch, but as a smaller portion. When we eat before bed, we do not burn off any of the calories that we have just consumed, so it is better to eat less later in your day. 

5.Brush your teeth after dinner

This change is super simple! Brushing your teeth after you eat dinner can help you avoid late night snacking. This is because you probably wouldn’t want to brush your teeth again after you eat. What I do if I am feeling peckish is drink a large glass of water or have some tea. 

6.Change how you snack

You don’t need to cut out snacking! Although, you should try to move away from cookies, crackers, and other processed foods to something like nuts. A handful of nuts or seeds is a much better snack to have during your day. Be careful not to have too many, as almonds for instance have a high caloric content. Nonetheless, even a handful of nuts can satisfy you and hold you over to the next meal.

7.Weigh yourself often 

If you don't measure your results, it's hard to achieve your goals. I recommend purchasing a digital scale and weighing yourself often. It helped me to keep track of my progress and hold myself accountable. You don’t have to weigh yourself everyday, though! If I have a “bad” day, I don’t weigh myself and try harder the next day, then measure my weight after that. The small wins for me were seeing a decimal of a reduction. Some people also use a measuring tape or even the way they feel in their clothes. It is just important that you are keeping track!

These are small changes that you can make in your lifestyle to achieve big goals. You can try one at a time, and see what works for you. Remember, these are mindset shifts and they take patience. Don’t be too hard on yourself if it takes you some time to abide by the changes you are trying to make.

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