Natural Methods to Lose Weight - Strategies That Actually Work

Over the decades the art of losing weight naturally has become lost. Between the weight loss programs, fad diets, crash diets, and rapid weight loss methods it seemed like all methods of weight loss were prescribing unhealthy and unsustainable weight loss.

In this article, we discuss natural ways to lose weight. We cover diet changes, lifestyle adjustments, mental health, common myths, and the science behind it all to help you navigate the nonsense to achieve your weight loss goals for long-term success.

Dietary Changes to Lose Weight

The biggest determining factor for weight loss is nutrition. While exercise can burn calories and body fat, consuming fewer calories is more effective. Furthermore, high-quality foods are densely packed with nutrients that support many of our body's organs and systems. Below, we discuss dietary changes that can be made for sustainable weight loss.

Add Protein to Your Diet

Adding protein to your meals is essential during weight loss. Protein is well known for preserving and building lean muscle mass. However, what many people don’t know is that it can be used to increase satiety and boost our metabolism. This is achieved through thermogenesis where the body burns energy to create heat.

The recommended daily protein intake is approximately 1.2–1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. This can be achieved by adding 25–30g of protein including meat, poultry, fish, nuts, and seeds to each meal. Doing this will ensure each meal is filling, reducing snacking and hunger.

Prioritize Whole, Single-Ingredient Foods

Whole foods are the cornerstone of weight loss and improving well-being. The opposite of processed foods which add fat, sugar, and salt, whole foods remain largely unaltered from their natural state, helping them to retain their nutrient density.

Whole foods include meat, fish, poultry, eggs, full-fat dairy, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. These provide vital nutrients while reducing total calorie intake.

For example, whole grains such as quinoa, oats, and brown rice are complex carbohydrates and contain fiber. Complex carbohydrates regulate blood sugar and energy levels, while fiber improves fullness and can promote gut health.

Whole foods containing complex carbohydrates are loaded with nutrients that keep us fuller for longer. This reduces hunger, leading to fewer calories consumed throughout the day, leading to long-term health.

Limit Processed and Sugary Foods

Limiting processed and sugary foods is vital during weight loss. Process foods are typically calorie-dense while containing fewer nutrients. Sure, they can taste great, but they often spike our blood sugar, leading to energy crashes and hunger between meals.

For example, refined carbohydrates such as white bread, pastries, cakes, and breakfast cereals contain many calories but have little nutritional value.  Furthermore, refined products are associated with medical problems including obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and cancer. These foods should be consumed in moderation or on special occasions.

Increase Fiber and Omega-3 Intake

During weight loss prioritize foods rich in dietary fiber and omega-3. Fiber is a non-digestible carbohydrate found in complex carbohydrate foods such as oats, broccoli, chia seeds, lentils fruits, beans, apples, and bananas. Fiber decreases the rate of glucose absorption, providing a slower release of blood glucose levels. It also acts as a bulking agent for stool, which improves gut health.

Omega-3 fatty acids are found in salmon, mackerel, sardines, walnuts, flaxseed, chia seeds, and soy and support heart, brain, and eye health while providing anti-inflammatory properties.

Stay Hydrated Throughout the Day

Maintaining hydration is crucial during weight loss. Water has many roles in the body, lubricating our joints, regulating temperature, and promoting balance in the body's systems. When we are dehydrated by 1–2% we can experience impaired mental processing and memory. A deficit of 4% impairs performance and can lead to headaches, irritability, and body temperature.

Increasing water intake supports weight loss by decreasing the food intake and increasing lipolysis (the breakdown of fats).

Drinking a glass of water reduces the amount of food consumed, lowering our calorie intake, while supporting digestion and gut health.

When we enter a calorie deficit, the decrease in food intake can make it feel like something is missing from our routine. During this, boredom or thirst can present as hunger, often leading to snacking. Consuming water can help alleviate boredom, and improve satiety in these moments, helping to manage daily calorie intake.

We recommend consuming 2,200 milliliters each day. This will ensure you are supporting your body's systems while curbing hunger.

Lifestyle Adjustments for Weight Loss

Adjusting our lifestyle alongside improving our nutrition can significantly impact weight loss. Below, we highlight the changes you can make.

Practice Mindful Eating

One of the easiest ways to optimize your lifestyle for weight loss is by practicing mindful eating. Meal times are meant to be a time when we relax and enjoy our food in the company of our family and friends. However, the modern world has us busier than ever and food is shoveled down, with little notice of taste, portion size, or satiety. As you’d expect, this can lead to eating larger portions, which can lead to weight gain.

Mindful eating on the other hand is slow and deliberate, helping us to become present, and focused on the process rather than the outcome. Portions are controlled and each bite is chewed thoroughly and savored, decreasing hunger. Slowing down decreases stress, activating your parasympathetic nervous system, lowering heart rate, and improving digestion.

Establish a Consistent Sleep Routine

Establishing a consistent sleep routine plays a powerful role in weight loss and overall health. As close to the magic that we have, sleep helps maintain physical and mental health. It can improve cardiovascular health, mental health, cognition, memory, immunity, reproductive health, and hormone regulation.

Regarding weight management, poor sleep can increase the hunger hormone ghrelin, and decrease the satiety hormone leptin. This leads to increased appetite, making it difficult to maintain a healthy weight. Furthermore, sleep deprivation has been linked to high blood pressure, obesity, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and impaired immune function.

Aim for 7–9 hours of sleep alongside healthy sleep practice including:

• Set sleep and waking times
• Establish sleep routine
• Reduce screen time 30–60 mins before sleep
• Engage in regular exercise
• Remove TV or screens from the bedroom
• Remove clutter from the bedroom
• Avoid caffeine (after 3 pm), alcohol, heavy meals before bed

Following these steps will help you control your hunger, and improve your overall health.

Limit Liquid Calories and Alcohol

Liquid calories and alcohol can eat up your daily energy expenditure. Drinks such as soda, full-fat coffee, milk, juices, and alcohol are calorie-dense and often contain little nutritional value. For example, here is a list of each drink and their calories.

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None of these drinks alone will ruin your diet, however, consuming more than one can add up. A 330 ml Coca-Cola only has 139 calories, which may not sound like much, but it accounts for 7% of calories for an average adult and contains 35 grams of sugar. This spikes and drops energy levels in a short amount of time, which can increase hunger.

Reducing your liquid calories and replacing them with water or low-calorie alternatives such as sugar-free versions can help reduce calorie intake, making it easier to stay within your daily limit and stabilizing energy levels.

Exercise and Physical Activity

Exercise and physical activity are powerful tools for managing weight. Not only are they great for burning energy and body fat, but they can also reduce stress and negative emotions which can lead to emotional eating.

Strength Training and Its Role in Metabolism

Exercising such as resistance training sessions can burn energy and increase energy expenditure for up to 48 hours post-workout. Meanwhile, yoga and Pilates can increase energy expenditure, and promote mindfulness. As mentioned, this improves emotional regulation and feelings of happiness.

Benefits of Cardio for Weight Loss

Cardio exercises such as walking, running, cycling, and rowing can expend energy and help you stay within your calorie deficit. Aerobic exercise has been shown to decrease fat mass and total body mass. Combined with resistance training it also increases lean muscle mass.

Between 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity is recommended for optimal health. This is approximately 30 minutes per day for five days.

While this may sound like a lot, consider heading out for a moderate-intensity, 30-minute walk. This can help you disengage from life stressors, help you decompress, and improve your mood.

Everyday Physical Activities like Walking or Taking Stairs

Incidental exercise such as walking and taking the stairs can greatly increase your energy expenditure. Stair climbing is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and cancer, highlighting how effective it can be for our health.

Walking up conveniently placed stairs can seem insignificant, but can increase heart rate, and load bones and muscles, providing valuable opportunities to improve health.

Stress and Mental Well-being

Stress and mental health have major negative impacts on physical health and well-being. Poor mental health can result in physical inactivity and damaging behaviors such as usage and reliance on alcohol and other substances.  These factors not only impair the ability to lose weight but also maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Below we discuss the importance of managing stress and helpful management techniques to help you regain control of your mental health and your weight.

Poor mental health and stress are linked with sleep disorders and an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Importance of Managing Stress Levels

Managing mental health and stress can help improve weight control. Poor sleep and stressful environments result in our body releasing the stress hormone cortisol, which can increase appetite and the consumption of palatable foods.

Stress, depression, and anxiety can lead to increased and decreased food intake which can make it difficult to maintain a healthy weight. Individuals who eat less during times of high stress may deprive themselves of vital nutrients, which can also be followed by binge eating. Meanwhile, those who eat more tend to reach for calorie-dense foods, which increases daily calorie intake.

Quality sleep, mindfulness, and exercise can all be used to manage stress. Quality sleep can decrease cortisol. Meanwhile, exercise can lower stress, and release feel-good hormones serotonin and dopamine, providing a sense of reward, regulating mood, positive emotions, and feelings of happiness.

Addressing the causes of stress and negative mental health can stop it from blowing out into a binge, helping you to manage your daily calorie intake.

Incorporating Relaxation Techniques Like Meditation

Mindfulness and relaxation techniques are powerful tools for reducing stress and improving mental health. Techniques such as mindful eating, meditation, and yoga can improve emotional regulation, and decrease irritability, fatigue, and sleep disruption.

Building Resilience Against Emotional Eating

Developing resilience is incredible for addressing emotional eating. Emotional eating is eating in a way that comforts us during times of high stress, fear, sadness, and negative moods. It’s often indiscriminate, which can lead to binging, excessive consumption, and weight gain.

Resilience refers to the ability to rebound from stress. Resilient people tend to be optimistic, emotionally and socially sensitive, and can address issues without losing perspective. This can be fostered through mindfulness, a practice that focuses on the present, increasing attention, awareness, and flexibility.

Bringing ourselves into the present not only reduces emotional eating, it can benefit our physical health, decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer while increasing longevity.

Scientific Perspectives on Weight Loss

Over the past decade, more people are becoming aware that weight loss comes by entering a calorie deficit. This scientific perspective has vaguely been understood, however, the dieting and weight loss market would have you believe there is a magic formula and quick-fix pills.

While many of us understand these methods are unsustainable and even harmful, they offer quick results, making the traditional and safe method of a calorie deficit seems less appealing.

Below, we highlight scientific perspectives on weight loss to show you why a calorie deficit is the safest and most effective way to drop those extra pounds.

Evidence-Based Strategies for Natural Weight Loss

A calorie deficit. Many understand it and few practice it. As mentioned, this is consuming fewer calories than our body burns, which can lead to weight loss.

Daily energy expenditure of the body’s tissue and organs at rest is known as our basal metabolic rate. This is the amount of energy used at rest. This can be determined by factors such as age, gender, height, and weight.

For example, a 40-year-old woman, 170 cm tall weighing 80 kilograms will have a basal metabolic rate of 1,502 calories/day. This is what she burns at rest. This means she must consume fewer calories to lose weight. Here a calorie deficit of 1,300–1,400 should consumed to lose weight.

To make this achievable, fiber and protein should be prioritized to improve fullness alongside complex carbohydrates to provide sustainable energy.

Understanding How Metabolism Affects Weight

Basal metabolic rate can differ based on several factors including age, gender, height, and gender. As we age energy expenditure decreases due to loss of water, bone mineral density, and fat-free mass. Meanwhile, muscle mass declines by 3–8% per decade after 30, highlighting further decreases in body mass. Men typically have a higher metabolic rate, not specifically due to gender, but rather due to body composition as they have a larger body mass.

When there is a change in body composition, bone, and muscle mass, resting energy expenditure decreases, meaning we burn fewer calories If this is not accounted for in our nutrition or exercise plan, then we are susceptible to gaining weight.

Common Myths and Misconceptions About Weight Loss

The theory of weight loss is a simple one; eat less and move more. However, many fad diets would have you believe you should be starving yourself to get incredible results. Below, we discuss the common myths and misconceptions about weight loss.

Debunking “Quick Fix” Solutions

The dieting and weight loss industry was worth USD 224.27 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 405.4 billion in 2024 by 2030. Thriving in an unregulated market, weight loss and supplement companies prescribe quick-fix solutions, with just enough science to make you believe they are selling the real deal.

From liquid-only cleanses and meal placement bars to cutting food groups, and diet pills, they offer little more than a severe calorie deficit. This makes us consume fewer calories than we burn through basic human function, which does help us lose weight, but at the cost of our health as many result in nutrient deficiencies and plummeting energy levels.

Here they use scientific principles of a calorie deficit and dress it up with buzzwords like ‘energize’, ‘cleanse’, and ‘detox’ to fool you into starving yourself. Sure, this can help you lose weight, but like a period of severe calorie and food restriction, you will get hungry, binge, and regain the weight.

A 2020 study revealed that women who used diet pills or laxatives for weight loss had higher odds of receiving their first eating disorder diagnosis within one to three years of use.

Regarding detox diets, there is little evidence to support their effectiveness, while they are harmful due to the lack of minerals, vitamins, and dietary fibers leading to stress and fatigue.

The process of unhealthy weight loss methods demonizes and damages our relationship with foods and treats it as something to be avoided. These diets offer quick fixes, but their unsustainable framework sets us up to fail. Sadly, those who fail and chronically diet are five times more likely to develop eating disorders than people who have never dieted, experiencing feelings of guilt, self-blame, irritation, sadness, and anxiety.

Addressing Misunderstandings About Diets and Calories

Many diets would have you believe that there are good foods and bad foods when this is not the case. While consuming large quantities of certain foods can lead to negative health outcomes and increase weight, labeling them as such does little to deter most people and simply makes them feel guilty for consuming them.

A healthier perspective is to view foods as nutrient-dense, and calorie-dense. Nutrient-dense foods tend to be whole foods that undergo little processing. These contain vital nutrients that support our health and are typically low-calorie.

Calorie-dense foods, on the other hand, are processed and contain little nutritional value and should only be consumed in moderation to avoid weight gain.  In saying this, a calorie is a calorie. Protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram, and fat contains 9 calories per gram, regardless of the food they come from. Processed foods often contain large amounts of fat, which is why they are calorie-dense.

This is vital for understanding healthy, sustainable weight loss. A Balanced diet is just that, a balance between the nutrient-dense and calorie-dense. While it is simple enough to go cold turkey and cut your favorite sugary or fatty food, over time it can feel restrictive, impairing adherence.

Consuming calorie-dense food on special occasions while accounting for it in your nutrition plan can keep you sane during long stretches of healthy eating. Rather than thinking of them as bad foods, you can simply add them to your daily intake and acknowledge them as high-calorie, sometimes foods. This will help you maintain your calorie deficit while enjoying the foods love, without the guilt.

Preparing for Your Weight Loss Journey

Eating a balanced diet and sticking to a calorie deficit are the cornerstones of weight loss, however, without realistic goals, they may not be realized. Below we discuss how to prepare for weight loss to ensure you are losing weight healthily and sustainably.

Setting Realistic and Achievable Goals

Setting realistic and achievable goals can ensure you are clear on what you want from your nutrition plan, This can be done using the S.M.A.R.T. method, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based.

For example, say you would like to lose 10 pounds before the summer holidays in 8 weeks. Let’s place this into S.M.A.R.T. format.

• Specific: Lose 10 pounds before summer in 8 weeks
• Measurable: Scale weight, measurements, clothing sizes
• Achievable: 10 pounds is achievable (losing 1–2 pounds/week is healthy)
• Relevant: Summer Holiday
• Time-Based: 8 weeks

Identifying your S.M.A.R.T. goals at the beginning. These help you become laser-focused on your goals. Making it relevant and achievable, can motivate during low moments, while being time-base provides urgency.

Building a Support System

The strange thing about trying to lose weight is that it can be a lonely place. While many people understand the importance of maintaining a healthy weight, few truly encourage our endeavors. This makes for a challenging process during those moments when weight loss becomes stagnant and motivation wanes.

Building a support system consisting of other friends trying to lose weight, with healthcare professionals, or community groups can provide much-needed encouragement to achieve your goals.

Losing weight with a friend can keep you locked with your training and nutrition. Healthcare professionals can offer support and dietary recommendations, and community groups can provide support and help you feel like you are not alone in the process.

Tracking Your Progress in a Healthy Way

Monitoring and tracking your progress is essential when trying to lose weight. In the beginning, it can tempting to gloss over this part, however, you will be missing a golden opportunity to record baseline measurements for scale weight and measurement which can illustrate how far you have come. Monitoring your progress from the beginning sets the tone for your entire weight loss journey.

Recording your weight, measurements, clothing sizes, and energy levels from the first session, you make a big initial step toward achieving your S.M.A.R.T. weight loss goals.

We recommend tracking your progress from the first session and checking in every two to four weeks. This will help you monitor your progress without obsessing over the small fluctuations.

Conclusion: Embrace Natural Weight Loss for a Healthier Lifestyle

Weight loss has become a billion-dollar juggernaut fueled by fad diets and quick fixes. Based loosely on facts, they attempt to market their way to record profits, while many of us struggle with the consequences of weight regain and declining health.

Fortunately, over the past decade, trainers, health professionals, and researchers have begun to fight back, providing evidence-based, healthy methods for weight loss.

Prescribing calorie deficits, balanced nutrient-dense diets, and exercise routines, they present reliable, sustainable weight loss programs that will not only help you achieve your goals but improve your overall health.

If you are looking to lose weight, avoid:

• Diet pills
• Detoxes and cleanses
• Quick-fixes
• Unproven secret weight loss method

Instead, focus:

• Prioritizing protein and fiber
• Performing a healthy calorie deficit
• Practicing mindfulness and mindful eating
• Drinking 2,000 ml water per day
• Getting seven to nine hours of sleep each night

Align these elements and watch your energy levels increase as you achieve your weight loss goals.