How to Lose Weight

Written by Kevin McCurry, MD in Family Health Last Updated September 22, 2022

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

That’s easy, burn more calories than you take in. If you want to know how to lose weight permanently its the only surefire answer. How to do that is another question. By now, you may have already broken your New Year’s resolutions to healthier, be more active and lose weight fast. But it’s still early in the year, and it’s not too late to get started. It’s been said that it takes 27 days to establish a new habit. The new year is young, and we have many more days left to create those new habits, and eventually never have to ask “how do I lose weight” ever again.

Table of contents

What is a Healthy Weight?

Great question, and that’s easy to answer by looking at your BMI. That’s body-mass-index, and you can see a calculator hereOpens in a new tab. ; a healthy BMI is 18-25, overweight is 25-30, Above 30 is obesity. Under 18 is underweight.

Thank You, Captain Obvious

There are the obvious things which you might consider, such as not eating after the evening meal, being careful with taking in processed sugars and eating more fruits and vegetables. But there are some other strategies related to eating that may help you learn how to lose weight for real. For example, start by dishing up smaller portions. Believe it or not, eating standing up tends to make people gain weight simply because they are usually in a rush, so they eat faster and don’t pay as much attention to what and how much they’re eating.

Sit down and Put the Fork down

It’s been shown that if you eat slower, your stomach-brain connection detects fullness earlier than if you eat quickly. If you eat very rapidly, you can shovel down a lot of food before you feel full. Whereas if you eat slower, you tend to feel full with less food. To help with that strategy, it’s pretty simple. Take a bite with your fork, put it down, chew up your food and swallow it, pick up your fork and start the process all over again. That by itself will slow you down a lot and keep you from eating more than your stomach needs to feel full.  Additionally, drinking a full glass of water before eating will occupy some stomach space so that you have less room for food.

Increase the Burn

Increasing your activity will help you burn more calories. Even if it’s as simple as a 20-minute walk, Increasing your burning of calories above your baseline helps. Reducing caloric intake helps. That gets back to our number one bottom line up at the top.

Mind over Matter

There are also mental strategies as well, such as when you’re considering something to eat, ask yourself, is this going to help you lose weight or not. Additionally, some like to do what’s called intermittent fasting, which is essentially not eating food for a certain number of hours per day. Such as only eating for an 8-hour window or a four-hour window and the rest of the time fasting except for water. Initially, this will leave you with a hungry feeling, but eventually, this will pass and once you hit 27 days, it will have become your new habit. During your eating window you can eat what you like, but again, some discipline, can be helpful as well.

Goal Setting

Everyone does better when they have a goal to shoot for. Make those attainable and not too far out of reach nor too grandiose or too big that it becomes discouraging. You can use a targeted BMI as a goal. Or, for example, you might aim to lose 10% of your body weight or perhaps 10 pounds. Once you’ve achieved that, you can set another goal depending on how much you would like to lose or need to lose for good health.

Don’t Do This Alone

If you can do this with a partner, it’ll make it a lot easier, and you can mutually encourage each other along your way. What’s stopping you from taking the first step on your way to a healthier you?

To your good health,

Dr. McCurry

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Kevin McCurry, MD

I’ve spent the last 30 + years helping my own patients navigate complex medical issues. Now, I hope to help you better understand your medical problems.

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