Weight Management Management

Managing your weight—whether you’re trying to lose, keep it off, or maintain long-term—has less to do with motivation and more to do with consistency across the right areas.

So let’s tackle this issue through the lens of our four pillars of health and fitness: lifestyle, sleep, nutrition, and exercise.

Together, they can help us create a framework for sustainable weight management.

Lifestyle

Our modern world is set up for increased chronic stress and reduced daily movements (what I believe are essentially the two components of this lifestyle bubble).

This is what I call the “lifestyle slider.”

Simple tweaks like taking walks in your free time, creating more definitive separation between work and home, or finding active hobbies can go a long way to shifting our slider from high-stress-low-movement to low-stress-high-movement. 

When it comes to lifestyle, small wins can really stack up.

Instead of trying to “fix everything” (e.g. quitting your job and moving to Hawaii) look at where your life nudges you and try to reverse the nudge.

Sleep

Sleep is the unsung hero of weight management.

Poor sleep ramps up hunger hormones and cravings (maybe just because an hour less sleep means an hour more of doing whatever it is you do when you’re awake), makes you less likely to exercise, and reduces your daily activity through fatigue alone.

Seven to nine hours of quality sleep each night helps regulate metabolism, improve recovery, and reduces mindless eating the next day.

Small adjustments like putting your phone away before bed or keeping your room cool(er) and dark(er) can go a long way to a restful night of sleep.

Nutrition

You don’t need to eat perfectly, but you do need a pattern you can repeat and stick with long-term.

Build most meals and snacks around protein, fiber (i.e. fruits, vegetables, legumes, etc.), and whole foods.

Leave room for foods you love, but in portions that feel satisfying—not excessive.

Awareness matters more than restriction.

Side note: this is a great time for me to plug our Nutrition Basics program which starts the last Monday in September!

Exercise

It doesn’t really matter what you choose—strength, aerobic work, yoga, pilates, team sports—deliberate exercise might not be a great strategy for taking weight off, but it’s a terrific strategy for keeping it off long-term.

The key with exercise is to not drain yourself every session in the hunt for caloric burn.

Fat-torching workouts will typically leave you hungrier (and more permissive) than you otherwise would have been.

Instead, try establishing a schedule that allows for a few dedicated strength days, supplemented with some other stuff that you genuinely enjoy doing.

You don’t need to leave yourself in a puddle of sweat every session, but some structured exercise is great way to ensure that you’re moving your body and feel great most days.

If you’re looking for sustainable weight management, there’s no need for a perfect diet, crazy workout routine, or that thing where you dunk your head in a bowl full of ice and Saratoga bottled water.

You simply need to build a stronger foundation.