Most agree but only a few truly understand the impact that nutrition and food choices have in our day-to-day lives. Food choices not only affect our reading on the weighing scale, but other equally important things such as skin and hair texture, brain health, sleep patterns, mood, and even our energy levels throughout the day. These in turn have a profound impact on our confidence and self-esteem – something that most of us realize at much later stages of our lives.
Over the years, I have experimented with different things to sustainably lose body fat and maintain long term health. Some worked out in the short term but weren’t sustainable. Others seemed easy but not healthy in the long run. Eventually, I realized that it all boils down to making simple non-negotiable rules that you can live by and lead a healthy lifestyle by design. When I say non-negotiable, it doesn’t mean they are etched in stone, you follow them until they become a habit, and then YOU ARE IN CONTROL!
Being in a calorie deficit is the key to fat loss, and one can achieve that by simply making sustainable changes to their lifestyle. Here are six lifestyle changes to help you lose fat and improve long-term health. Following even a few of them can make a world of difference to your health and wellbeing. They surely have helped me and my numerous coaching clients.
#1 DITCH THE CARBONATED SOFT DRINKS
As per WHO recommendation, a healthy adult should consume no more than 12 teaspoons (or 50 grams) of ‘free’ sugar per day to prevent unhealthy weight gain and dental caries.
What is ‘free’ sugar?
For simplicity, let’s say anything that contains sugar but isn’t in its natural form. This includes processed sugar, syrups, sugars that are naturally present in honey, fruit juices, fruit juice concentrates, and even residual fruit sugar in alcoholic beverages. It doesn’t refer to the sugars found in fresh fruits and vegetables or those naturally present in milk.
A lot of people relish carbonated soft drinks, but that comes at a cost. They are loaded with ‘free’ sugar and contain almost no essential nutrients – no vitamins, no minerals, and no fiber.
For example, a can of 330 ml soft drink contains about 40 gm of sugar. That’s 80% of your daily intake limit. Drink one of these and you aren’t supposed to consume any more processed food throughout the day. While added sugar in limited quantity is not necessarily “bad” for health, I would certainly diversify my sugar intake. And if fat loss is your goal, reducing free sugar intake would make calorie deficit much easier for you.
Some may question if “sugar-free” alternatives are slightly better, but they contain aspartame and phosphoric acid which may have adverse health effects (especially gut health). The research on the ill effects of aspartame is controversial, so one cannot be certain. But given these drinks do not provide any essential nutrients, I would not consider it worth the risk.
Even if we ignore the sugar content, most of these drinks are highly acidic. Drinking them regularly can adversely impact oral health and make your teeth vulnerable to decay. Given the addictive nature of such drinks, it’s best to simply get rid of them. If you really want a soft beverage, try coconut water or homemade lemonade!
#2 AUTOMATE YOUR BREAKFAST
Some believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, others argue if intermittent fasting is a better option. I would consider breakfast as an opportunity to load yourself with essential nutrients. This will allow you to be a bit more relaxed about nutrition for the rest of the day. We all get busy at work, so here is one less thing to worry about.
Most people (including me) have two common concerns when it comes to breakfast:
- Not enough time to prepare in the morning
- Not sure what to eat for breakfast
I devised a simple strategy to overcome this – BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE. Every night, put all the smoothie ingredients in your mixer grinder and leave it in the fridge. The next morning all you have to do is add some milk or coconut water and blend it – Voila! The breakfast is ready!
The idea of automating the breakfast is about taking one less decision for the day and going into autopilot mode so it does not feel like another task.
A breakfast smoothie seems perfect, and you can be as creative as you like with the ingredients. Given below are the major components of my smoothie:
- Greens – They provide essential nutrients (vitamins & minerals) and fibres
- Fruits – They provide flavour to the smoothie and provide good quality carbs and antioxidants
- Seeds – You can add a wide variety of edible seeds. My personal favourites are chia seeds, flax seeds, and linseeds. These are high in unsaturated fats (the good fats) and fibre, and also provide essential minerals such as magnesium, phosphorus, etc.
- Milk/ coconut water – If you are lactose intolerant or vegan, you can use coconut water or soy/ almond milk. You can also use plain water if you don’t have anything available
- Protein supplement – I usually add one scoop of plant-based protein supplement to my smoothie
- Avocado (optional) – Based on availability, they give a thick texture to the smoothie and have polyunsaturated and omega 3 fats which are good for your brain
Check out this plant-based smoothie recipe. Screenshot the list of ingredients at the end of this video and add it to your grocery list.
#3 REPLACE DEDICATED CHEAT DAYS WITH REGULAR MODERATE INDULGENCE
Most people, in their fat loss journey, have a habit of demarcating dedicated cheat days for the week. A couple I know used to cook at home during weekdays and consider weekends as dedicated cheat days. Throughout the week, they used to work diligently in the gym (and kitchen), only to throw away their fat loss progress during the weekends. Every weekend used to be like a reset button and they used to wonder why they aren’t losing fat or even worse – Gaining!
Confused how this equates to throwing away your progress? The way the human brain is wired, in most cases, freedom to overindulge means – binging. Let’s say your daily calorie requirement for maintenance is 2000 calories. So, a calorie cycling plan with cheat days (as given below) should work perfectly fine, ONLY if you stick to it!
However, most people underestimate how much they can eat in a day, especially when it’s a free pass to eat as much as you like. In reality, the plan would look something like this and that translates to 2315 calories/ day. A whopping 315 calories (15%) more than your goal.
And it gets worse if suddenly you realize there is a birthday party or a work event in the middle of the week. If you are used to making your cheat day plans with your spouse or friends, its hard to not live up to them. Most people don’t have the self-discipline to follow it consistently.
The solution is simple – build a habit of moderate indulgence from time to time. Now this sounds simple but it requires consistent practice. And if you practice this long enough to convert this into a habit, you will no longer feel the need to consciously monitor your calorie intake.
One can deal with it by establishing a few ground rules:
PRACTICE HEALTHY INDULGENCE
Healthy indulgence sounds like an oxymoron, but it is truly enjoyable, meaningful, and fulfilling. If you are going out with your kids to enjoy a meal at your local burger joint, that’s a healthy indulgence. It is satisfying, delightful, and a great way to spend time with family. On the contrary, sitting in front of your laptop and devouring a whole packet of chips and gummy berry candies can be deemed as an unhealthy indulgence. Because not only is it unhealthy, it most likely will leave you feeling empty and guilty of unnecessary binging.
CAP THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF DAYS PER MONTH FOR INDULGENCE
The advantage is that it provides you with the flexibility to decide when you want to overindulge based on your situation and mood. E.g. if there is a birthday at work, you don’t need to feel guilty devouring that whole piece of cake. Enjoy it and strike one day off your list. Or if your friend brings some homemade cookies that look delicious, you don’t have to control that urge and take one small bite. Take the whole cookie, or maybe two… guilty free!
IF YOU CHOOSE TO OVERINDULGE, DO IT ONLY ONCE A DAY
This especially helps those who eat out often with friends during weekends. It’s hard to resist the urge when your friends are relishing their burgers and french fries while you are there contemplating a much healthier option. The good news is that overindulging in one meal is always better than two!
#4 KEEP THE FOODS THAT TRIGGER BINGE EATING OUT OF SIGHT AND HARD TO REACH
Binge eating is quite common and one of the biggest barriers to fat loss among adults. While it’s important to identify patterns of binge eating, and I have discussed that at length in another article, the first step is to identify foods that you find addictive and trigger binge eating. These are the foods that you should ideally consume a handful or even less, but end up finishing the whole pack. Chips, cookies, chocolates, ice cream, biscuits, bhujia are some common examples.
While it’s impossible to suddenly eliminate them from your diet, keeping them out of sight and hard to reach will surely reduce your frequency. If you can’t see it, you probably won’t crave it! And if you do crave it, it should require significant effort to get it so that your procrastinating mind eventually gets used to living without it. Even better, keep healthier options such as fruits, nuts, or roasted chickpeas (chana) closer to you so you reach out for them instead.
Imagine you are watching your favourite TV series and you suddenly feel the urge to eat your favourite chocolate cookies. But hang on! Those cookies are wrapped up in a box placed in the top compartment of your kitchen. To get them, you have to get up from your couch, bring a chair to the kitchen, climb up, and take out the box. And once you have the box in your hand, you need to unwrap it to take out the cookies. So much work for a cookie? You might as well do it some other time! Unless you are Kung Fu Panda, but he also does it in style with a full split 😛
I am not saying this will work every single time. But you are more likely to reduce your frequency of binge using this technique.
And if there is something you absolutely cannot resist, don’t keep it at home. If it is not available, you don’t have an option. A few years back, I did exactly this to overcome my habit of devouring milk chocolates. I replaced my urge for eating something sweet with fruits which is a much better alternative – packed with nutrients and fibre. And as far as chocolates are concerned, I eventually moved onto consuming dark chocolates, a healthier alternative. But only after I was confident that I can resist my urge to binge chocolates.
#5 PRACTICE CONSCIOUS PROCRASTINATION WHILE ORDERING IN
We all have been in that place where we feel that urge to order in food at odd hours, not because we are actually hungry but we have nothing better to do! And sometimes it happens because we are just too lazy to put in the effort to reheat the meal stored in the refrigerator.
The best way to deal with this is to proactively take advantage of the instant gratification monkey in your head and delay the process of ordering in.
Do anything to distract yourself and delay the process for another 10-15 mins. More often than not you will either end up eating what is already available at home or get busy doing something else so you don’t have to indulge in compulsive eating.
#6 PREPARE AT LEAST ONE MEAL AT HOME
This is the simplest but seemingly the hardest one to implement, especially if you are used to eating out all the time. There was a time when I used to eat out throughout the week and “try” to prepare a meal or two during the weekends. While you can always find healthier options while eating out, nothing compares to a hearty meal cooked at home. Most importantly, you are completely aware and in control of what goes into your belly.
So, I’ve made yet another simple rule – Prepare at least one meal at home every day
Now, this was a bit stressful initially because I had lost the flair of preparing meals at home and cooking just for yourself isn’t the most fun thing to do.
Being an Indian, salads for a meal is not something that seems natural to us, so that was not an option. As a result, I used to spend almost two hours every day from preparing ingredients to cooking and cleaning up after dinner. While the meals were wholesome, the time spent was just not worth it.
If you have read this far, you probably know by now that instead of making choices every day, I prefer making rules that subconsciously drives the behaviour of clean eating. So, with that in mind I have two rules to solve this dilemma:
- Prepare meals in large quantities enough to last at least three days
- Find something that is easy to cook and is nutrient-dense at the same time
The first one was pretty simple, you just need to stock more grocery, and keep bigger sized cookware and utensils. For the second rule, I tried different things and finally settled for Indian style vegetable pulao with brown rice. Why vegetable pulao? Because it is nutritious, tastes great, requires minimal effort for preparation and one can try different vegetable combinations to enhance its flavour.
Here is the recipe for you to try out:
HEALTHY VEGETABLE PULAO RECIPE
Prep time – 10 mins
Cook time – 20 mins
Total time – 30 mins
Serves – 4-5 servings
Suitable for vegetarians and vegans
Ingredients:
- 1 cup basmati brown rice
- 2.5 cups of water
- 200 gms beans
- 1 small-sized broccoli
- 100 gms peas
- 2 medium-sized potatoes (Optional)
- 3 medium-sized carrots
- 3 tsp turmeric
- ½ tsp red chilly powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 5 tsp cumin powder
- 8 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 2-3 bay leaves (broken into medium-sized pieces)
- Salt to taste
Method:
- Add basmati brown rice in a bowl and wash it a few times until the water runs clear
- Put the rice in a saucepan (with a transparent lid) which would be used for cooking
- Add the required quantity of water and soak it for about 15 mins.
- While the rice soaks, rinse carrots, beans, peans, potatoes, and broccoli
- Peel the carrot and potatoes; Chop all the veggies into bite-sized pieces
- Add all the veggies to the rice in the saucepan
- Add all the required spices and salt
- Cover the saucepan with the lid and cook it on medium heat until all the water gets absorbed. This is typically 20-25 mins
- Switch off the stove. Let it cool down a bit and then it is ready to serve
The pulao will be a bit dry so it’s best to add some cucumber raita. Sometimes, I used to add toor dal and mango pickle. You can dry different options based on your taste.
Storage:
The pulao can be easily stored for 3-4 days in the refrigerator.
HEALTHY LIVING IS ALL ABOUT BUILDING HEALTHY HABITS
When you are on a health & fitness journey, it is important to appreciate the food so you can enjoy your transformation. Taking a balanced approach and gradually building healthy habits is the most sustainable way to lose fat and stay healthy in the long run. That includes identifying behavioural patterns that throw you off track and work towards making small changes, to build long term habits.
So go ahead, make some changes to your lifestyle and reap long term benefits. Try the above tips for at least 3 months, turn them into a habit and notice your life change.
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