How To Finally Lose Weight (in the Next Month)

It’s almost this time of the year again.

It’s the holiday season, the most sinful time of the year. And after the huge remorse (and stomach pain) everybody is feeling afterward, there might be some New Year’s resolutions coming up.

On top of the list?

Losing weight.

I get it. I really do. When I was 14, my mother would try to bribe me with €5 for every kg (around 2 lbs), I lost.

That’s not exactly the best motivation to lose weight.

It didn’t work.

Instead, it would take me another 3 years to get in shape, 7 years to understand why, and 10 years to make it almost effortlessly.

During this time, I read over 30 books on nutrition, turned first vegetarian, then vegan, and had endless talks with my best friend who’s a licensed nutrition specialist.

Don’t worry. You don’t need to do all that (not even turning vegetarian, if you don’t like it) to achieve that faster. Way faster.

Here’s what you can really do to lose weight fast.

Implement Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent Fasting is the easiest way to avoid calories.

It’s so simple, it’s almost unbelievable. When doing IF, you only have two timeframes: in one you consume calories, in one you don’t.

Why? Because we are built that way.

Yes, our modern life enables us to eat whenever we want. That’s cool, but also unhealthy. We need breaks in between consuming calories to:

• digest what we have consumed
• lower our blood sugar again
• keep our insulin sensitivity high

Intermittent fasting helps us with all that and even some more, like:

• boosting growth hormones
• reduces calorie intake (in most cases)
• improves blood pressure
• longevity

Again, it’s so simple, it’s ridiculous.

I stopped eating breakfast entirely. Yes, the so-called most important meal of the day. Hint: it’s not.

Instead, I started consuming calories at 12pm.

And I stopped consuming calories at 8pm.

In this timeframe, I can consume foods and drinks with calories.

If that doesn’t work for you, don’t worry. There are many ways, how you can approach intermittent fasting.

Some, eat 1 day and fast 1 day. Others eat for 3 days and fast for 2 days. And there are even people eating only one meal a day, which only works for a very few people.

If you want to keep it super easy, do what I did.

Just skip breakfast for a couple of weeks, and you’ll see that you don’t need it (and lose weight).

Intermittent fasting is the easiest health hack, there is.

Focus on consuming nutrient-dense foods

Make whole foods your new friend.

Not the chain, but the actual foods. Whole foods equal nutrient-dense foods, and that’s exactly what you require.

Most bodies are depleted of nutrients. You need to restock them.

How? By eating lots of nutrients.

The easiest (and cheapest) way is to eat lots of nutrient-dense foods.

Here’s a simple rule to follow:

Don’t eat stuff that has ingredients you can’t pronounce.

If something comes out of a lab, it’s probably not healthy.

Yes, even if its packaging says so.

Seriously, when you want to keep it stupid simple, check the list of nutrients and don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce.

Now, you might ask if you just can’t trick the system and eat supplements in addition to your traditional diet.

I only ask you the following in return:

Why do you think did you reach the point where you want to lose weight?

Answer: Because you eat, what you eat, and it doesn’t work.

Eat whole foods. Eat them as often as possible.

And no, they don’t have to be vegan. But go for quality over quantity.

Whole foods are your new best friend.

Dedicate time for regular exercise

Besides nutrition, exercise is the second big part of losing weight.

But don’t get me (or the science) wrong. If you can only choose one (for whatever reason), choose the nutrition.

It’s significantly more important to eat healthy than it is to exercise.

Yes, you can burn a chocolate bar on the treadmill.

But have you ever tried it?

No? Let me tell you, it’s horrible.

Two years ago, my sister had a birthday party. She made cake, others brought cake, and it was a huge feast.

I overate.

Disgusted by myself, I decided to get up at 6am the next day and run a half-marathon.

Yes, I really did that.

By running 21 kms(!) I burned around 4 slices of cake.

Do you know what that means?

It means you’d need to LIVE on the treadmill to burn the junk food most people eat on a daily basis.

Back to the topic: exercise is still important.

Why? With lifting weights, you increase your muscle mass.

And muscle mass helps you burn fat when you don’t do anything.

Nice, right?

But before you get too excited, keep in mind that you need a bit of muscle mass to increase your basal metabolic rate.

Exercise helps you with body toning, too.

It keeps your body tight, and you just look nicer with a few muscles than you’d do being only skinny or skinny fat.

Exercising is important.

Create a routine around what works for you.

Over the years, the sports I do have changed. I started with playing soccer, then I tried American Football. I had a phase in which I ran a lot and for a couple of years, I’ve been doing Calisthenics and cycling.

Whatever fits you best.

Regular exercise is key to stay in good shape.

Monitor your progress

Keep a record of your development.

Yes, take some selfies in the mirror.

Yes, get a scale and write down your weight.

Monitoring your progress helps you stay motivated.

If you’re brave enough, you can even show your results to other people. They’ll hold you accountable. That’s a good thing.

When I started working out in the gym, we’d have regular check-ups in the group, with which I was going.

This helped us stay motivated because we knew that we had come a long way and could still improve on us.

Don’t overdo it.

First, nobody likes people blocking the mirrors in the gym admiring themselves.

Second, it’s not all about the weight.

Healthy eating and exercising should be about the fun.

Before you sigh: yes, there’s fun in it.

Trust me, you’ll feel way better looking at your decent body shape in the mirror and without suffocating if you take 10 steps.

Monitor your progress to stay motivated and hold yourself accountable.

Adopt sustainable lifestyle changes

The best tips are useless if they aren’t sustainable.

I can tell from my experience.

Over the years, I tried combining several sports, ate more, ate less, changed what I ate, and changed all the before again.

And the only things that stuck are the sustainable ones.

What does that mean for you?

It means, don’t try too much at once.

Start with intermittent fasting and eating mostly whole foods.

Then, do some sports you like.

It needs to be fun to become sustainable.

I would never be able to keep doing calisthenics, eating mostly whole foods, and fasting regularly when it wasn’t fun for me.

Make it fun for you, too.

But don’t give up too, quickly.

Take your time, try things.

Change things, and adapt to them.

Find what works for you.

Fun is an important factor in the whole equation. And yes, it might be no fun in the beginning to eat clean when you usually eat junk food.

I don’t deny that.

But it’ll change over time.

One example is my sister and I. In the past, we ate regular cake, with all the sugar you know and love. At some point, we started baking, and we stopped putting as much sugar in it, as the recipe suggests. We simply got used to it.

It’s still sweet enough, but not as instant diabetes sweet as it was before.

The same will happen for you.

Enjoy the process, have fun, and make it sustainable.

To summarize, here’s how you can lose weight fast:

• implement Intermittent Fasting
• eat mostly whole foods with ingredients you can pronounce
• exercise regularly
• keep a record of your progress to stay motivated
• enjoy the process, have fun, and make it sustainable.