 Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach. I'm gonna preface this video with the fact that I have a cold. I've been sick now for quite a few days. So if my voice is raspy, if I sound congested, if my nose is red and dry and awful, it's because I have a horrible cold. I actually came back from my trip to Atlanta. Couple days later got sick and have been pretty sick ever since with a not fun cold. So I am managing that with medication and rest and lots of water. But I apologize in advance if I sound a little bit raspy. But I wanted to film today's video for you because this is a topic that is really, really important to me as a weight loss and nutrition coach, as someone who's lost and maintained a 140 pound weight loss, I've put together the best and the only tips you need to know about to lose fat. Now there's a difference between weight loss and fat loss. I wanna do a whole video on the difference between the two, but we're going to focus on seeing that scale go down by losing fat. And these tips are going to help get you there and also help you maintain that weight loss. So I'm really excited to share my top tips with you. So if you're excited to give this video a big huge thumbs up, make sure you're subscribed. Your bell notification is turned on because I upload five videos every single week. Now check out the description box down below for nutrition coaching. I do offer personalized macros and calories. This is what I follow to lose 140 pounds, highly, highly recommend. And then I have one-on-one coaching for support, to ask questions or to talk with me directly. Links and discounts to my favorite things and my Facebook group. It's free, it's an amazing supportive community. Come on over and join us or all down in that description box. So let me share with you my top tips and the only tips that you need to know to shed excess weight. If you're struggling to lose weight and keep it off, these tips are going to be very beneficial. I live and die by these tips. These are things I did to lose my weight and these are things I continue to do to this day to maintain that weight loss. Tip number one, manage your hunger. This is so incredibly important. When we are losing weight, when we're losing fat, we're in a caloric deficit. The only way to lose weight is to be in a caloric deficit. Not following keto, low carb, Octavia, the only reason any of those diets work is because you're in a calorie deficit. All you have to do is be in a caloric deficit to lose weight, but when we're in a deficit, we're typically hungry. This can be the piece of a weight loss journey that sabotages us. We go day in and day out, never satisfied and always hungry. So it's really important to manage your hunger the best way that you can. Hunger is a normal response to reducing calories. When you eat less, your fat cells release more hunger hormones, which increases your appetite. Higher protein, high fiber meal plans are best for controlling your hunger and appetite. I talk time and time again about reaching a protein goal every day. That's because this is going to help regulate your hunger. It's going to keep you more full and satisfied so that you're not starving and then you don't make the best food choices. You want to really watch your consumption of simple carbohydrates, processed carbs like white bread, bagels, muffins and donuts for breakfast and try to incorporate those slow digesting carbohydrates like rolled oats, sprouted bread. Absolutely eat carbohydrates and lose weight. I actually follow a pretty high carb diet and have been very successful with weight loss. Make sure that you're incorporating protein with every single meal in snack and really watch your fiber. Make sure as a woman you're getting between 35 and 50 grams of fiber every single day. Those two things together, protein and fiber will help you manage your hunger. Tip number two, make sure that most of the carbohydrates you're consuming every day have fiber attached to them. This goes back to those simple, highly processed carbohydrates. Now, can you eat those? Absolutely. No food is bad or good. No food is off limit. But the majority, 80% of the carbs that you consume daily should have fiber. This reduces sugars and white flour, pastries, white bread, candy juice, et cetera, in your diet. This helps you to choose carbs that better support your appetite and nutritional needs. The more fiber in your diet, the better. I have spoken with other nutrition coaches and dietitians that say that all that they worry, that all that they track is fiber. They make sure that they're getting their 35 to 50 grams a day. They don't track anything else because if we're focused on fiber, we're focused on whole real food, which leads to better sustainable weight loss. Fiber helps improve your blood sugar control, helps lower your cholesterol and reduces your risk of chronic diseases such as things like diabetes, colorectal cancer and heart disease. If you do have diabetes, it's even more important to make sure that the carbohydrates that you're consuming have fiber attached to them. This is going to help with your insulin resistance. Here's some great food examples that are rich in fiber that you should be including. Legumes like dried beans, lentils, vegetables like Brussels sprouts, broccoli, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes and fruit, apples, berries, oranges and pears. Nobody gained weight eating fruit. So if someone is telling you not to eat fruit, some dietitian nutritionist coach, find a new one immediately because fruit is an excellent source of fiber and the sugar in fruit is very different than the sugar in a snickers bar. Tip number three, and this is so incredibly important. I wish that I could put this in bold bright light and that is focus on healthy behaviors, not the number on the scale. Now, I know when we're trying to lose weight, we aren't focused on the scale. We want to see that scale go down and that's absolutely reasonable. However, the scale is only one very, very small measurement of your overall success. Instead of focusing on that number, how about focusing on making good food choices, moving your body, healing your relationship with food and exercising regularly? These things will lead to way bigger results than that number on the scale. Replace a goal like lose two pounds a week with specific mini goals like eat one cup of veggies at dinner, walk 20 minutes a day or keep a daily food log. If you're disappointed with your weight progress at weeks end, reflect on how well you stuck with each goal. If you made healthy changes, congratulations. If you fell short, then ask yourself what you can do better next week, but only place a very small amount of your overall success, your motivation, your drive to keep going on the number on the scale. You have to remember it measures mass. It doesn't know what the mass is made up of. It could simply be that you need to go poop. It could simply be that you ate more salt or that you're inflamed or your muscles are broken down and retaining fluid from your workout. And if you only base your success on the scale, you're going to get discouraged really quickly and give up really quickly as well. And that just leads you to not reaching your overall goals. Your health is a lifelong journey that involves way more than a number on a scale. Next step is another tip that again, I wish I could put in bright lights and that is no food is better good and no food is off limits. When you label foods as bad or good, then you fixate on these foods. You tell yourself you can't have them but then you crave them more, which typically leads to binging. Did you know that restricting or eliminating a food or food group is the number one cause of binge eating on that particular food or food group? Focus instead on choosing the right portions of healthy foods. You know that I live and die by the 80-20 rule. 80% whole real healthy food, 20% fun foods, foods that you enjoy. This paired with a healthy exercise routine will lead to long-term weight loss results and you're not going to be depriving yourself of your favorite foods in the process or depriving yourself for so long that you overdo it and binge on those foods. Instead allow yourself to incorporate those foods into your daily and weekly life. Allow yourself to go out for dinner once a week. Allow yourself to have a small dessert every day. Weight loss does not come from being 100% perfect because nobody's 100% perfect. And if you say that you're going to stop eating sugar, stop eating carbs, stop eating cakes, stop eating chips, you're just setting yourself up for failure. You're not perfect, so you need to allow yourself some grace. And following that 80-20 approach, I'm telling you it works and it allows you to still enjoy your favorite foods and in the process heal your relationship with food. Stop being guilty about food that you eat. Food has no moral value. Food is food. You're not bad because you had pizza for lunch and I'm not good because I had salad. Stop placing a moral value on food and I promise you your relationship with food in the process will heal itself and you'll be able to not only lose weight, still enjoy your favorite foods, but keep it off long-term. Next up is spend your calories wisely. Now, calories and calories out is how you lose weight. And the reality is you could eat Twinkies all day long and if you're in a calorie deficit, you're going to lose weight. However, there's a lot to be said about the types of calories that you're eating. Your diet consists of things like fast-acting carbohydrates, lots of sugar, trans fats, those are the foods that your body is going to be craving. Now, if you ate all of these foods in a caloric deficit, you are going to lose weight, but your health is going to suffer. These are high-calorie foods with little nutritional value. So again, we want to focus on eating whole-meal foods 80% of the time. All of these sugars, all these processed foods, added sugar, trans fats, these just lead to overall weight gain and really truly the inability to lose weight. Eat foods that are high in lean protein and healthy fats and fiber and you'll feel satisfied throughout the day and will rarely get cravings. This will help you maintain a lower calorie level which will lead to weight loss. In 2022, I lost 90 pounds focusing solely on calories and protein. By having a protein goal every day, I automatically made better food choices which kept me more satisfied in my caloric deficit and led to a 90-pound weight loss in one year. Never once did I feel like I couldn't have my favorite foods. I incorporated them daily but I made sure that I spent the majority of my calories wisely and I made sure that I fueled my body. This is really important for overall weight loss success. And lastly is plan tomorrow's meals today. Planning ahead will stop you from grabbing the first thing that you see, making sure that you're choosing better foods, making sure that you're reaching your protein goal and that you're remaining in a calorie deficit to see weight loss. When you wait to plan your dinner until dinner time, you're more likely to go off the rails, maybe going to fast food, ordering pizza, or just grabbing the first thing you see in your fridge or freezer. When you're sitting down for dinner tonight, plan your dinner for tomorrow. Make sure that you have healthy foods on hand. Grocery shop once a week, make a solid list and make sure you're bringing in all of those healthy foods into your house to set your meals up for success. By planning tomorrow night's dinner tonight, it will allow you to take things out of the freezer, maybe chop up vegetables to have them on hand or have something ready to throw in your crock pot tomorrow morning for your family. You don't have to plan every single thing out to the tea, but at least making sure that you're planning your dinners every day will help you stay in that caloric deficit and reach your weight loss goals. Make sure you have healthy foods on hand and those are the foods that are front and center. Have a bowl of fruit out on your counter, not a bowl of candy. Have your potato chips at the back of your cupboard and your healthy snacks at the front. This is going to help you see and grab healthier options and by planning just a little bit today, will lead you to success tomorrow. I live and die by these weight loss tips. These are truly the only weight loss tips that you need to know. They have led to my weight loss. They've helped me maintain that weight loss. They've healed my relationship with food and really truly, I don't diet. This is just my lifestyle and that is our end goal. Like I said, I do want to put a video out about the difference between weight loss and fat loss and I also want to share with you how I healed my relationship with food. So those videos will be coming in the future, but these tips are really going to help you get a jumpstart on your fat loss journey and help you maintain that long-term. Nobody wants to go through a caloric deficit, go through the effort of losing weight just to gain it all back. So make sure that you're making those lifestyle changes to keep it off long-term. Of course, I want to hear from you. Let me know down in the comments what are some of your tips that have helped you be successful on your weight loss and fat loss journey as well. And if you enjoyed today's video and found it helpful, give it a big thumbs up, subscribe, turn your bell on because I upload five videos every single week and I have some really great content coming your way in 2024. Don't forget to check out the description box for personalized macros and calories. Again, highly, highly recommend. This is what I did to lose and maintain my weight loss as well as one-on-one coaching for accountability to ask questions or talk with me directly. Links and discounts to my favorite healthy things as well as my Facebook group are all down in that description box. Happy Sunday, friends. Here's to a successful week and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.