With spring being the season of fresh starts and new beginnings, it seems only fitting that you begin making headway into your long-term weight loss goals during this transformative time of year. Many of us tend to barricade ourselves indoors throughout the winter months, and while this may help keep us nice and toasty, it isn’t always conducive to shedding those extra pounds. Fortunately, turning your springtime weight loss goals into reality doesn’t have to be an uphill battle – particularly if you have a bevy of practical tips at your disposal.
Limit How Often You Dine Out
While there’s nothing wrong with treating yourself to the occasional restaurant visit or takeout meal, dining out too often isn’t good for a number of reasons. For starters, it can be a substantial drain on one’s finances. In fact, dining out or ordering in just a few times a week can eat up hundreds of dollars a month. Secondly, since a fair amount of restaurant food has a very fat content, dining out all the time generally isn’t conducive to meeting weight loss goals.
So, if you’ve gotten into the habit of getting most of your meals from restaurants, you should start taking measures to correct this. While not having to deal with the trouble of food prep and cleanup is undeniably appealing, this approach to eating can be ruinous for both your finances and waistline. Even if you don’t fancy yourself much of a cook, there are a number of low-effort, health-conscious recipes you should be able to prepare – many of which don’t even require the use of an oven.
Of course, this isn’t to say that you should never dine out or order in. Rather, you should limit restaurant visits to no more than one per week. Additionally, whenever possible, try to make healthy choices when eating out. Fortunately, many restaurants make this easy by listing the respective nutritional values of their various dishes online.
Limit the Amount of Junk Food in Your Home
It should come as no surprise that people are more likely to give in to junk food cravings if the food(s) they’re pining for are easily accessible. If, however, satisfying a craving requires one to drive to the store, purchase the food(s) in question and drive home before being able to indulge in them, they’re less likely to act on impulse. As such, limiting the amount of junk food you keep in your home can be a boon to your long-term weight loss goals.
You can also benefit from replacing some of your junk food go-tos with health-conscious alternatives. For example, if you’re an avid lover of potato chips, stock up on veggie chips. If you can’t get enough tortilla chips and salsa, give pita crackers and hummus a try. Additionally, anyone looking for a fantastic alternative to traditional sugar and sweeteners should give monk fruit sweetener a try.
Snacking is not an inherently bad thing. In addition to keeping our hunger sated between meals, snacking can prove conducive to healthy metabolism. However, as is the case when choosing meals, nutritional value should be taken into account when selecting suitable snacks.
Commit to Daily Exercise
When it comes to fulfilling weight loss goals, proper eating and exercise go hand in hand. Unsurprisingly, if you’ve been out of the exercise game for a long time, getting back into the groove of working out is liable to prove challenging. As such, making physical fitness a part of your everyday routine can be an effective way to reintegrate it into your life.
In addition to selecting fitness activities that are well-suited to your current strength and stamina levels, make an effort to exercise at the same time every day. This will help make exercising seem like an organic part of your usual itinerary as opposed to a cumbersome outlier.
If ever there were a good time to tackle your weight loss goals, it’s spring – especially if you hail from a colder part of the country and have been largely sedentary throughout the winter months. While this may strike you as an immense undertaking, making progress on your weight loss goals needn’t be a drain on your time, energy or finances. Anyone looking for effective ways to shed those excess pounds this spring should consider the pointers discussed above.
