Being overweight or obese puts you at risk for numerous obesity-related medical conditions, including sleep apnea, heartburn, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis and heart disease. However, as you lose weight, the risk of these conditions is reduced. To lose the weight, you have to make healthy lifestyle changes, but you can make most of these changes without leaving the comfort of your home. The goal of your lifestyle changes is to eat fewer calories than you use each day so that you can lose fat. By eating 500 to 1,000 calories less than you use daily, you can expect to lose weight at a healthy rate of one to two pounds per week.
Step 1
Remove or hide all unhealthy foods in your home. If these items are out of sight, there is less of a chance that you will turn to them when you get hungry. Cookies, chips, snack cakes, soft drinks and any other high-calorie foods or beverages can cause you to consume too many calories without getting enough nutrition from them, which may lead to weight gain.
Step 2
Plan out your meals daily or weekly to ensure you eat enough fruit and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy products. According to MyPyramid.gov, the exact number of servings for each food group depends on your activity level, gender and age.
Step 3
Cook your foods in a healthy manner. Baked, broiled and steamed foods are suitable for weight loss, but frying foods and sauteing them in butter can add fat grams and calories to your otherwise healthy foods.
Step 4
Stay away from unhealthy beverages. Soft drinks and other sugary drinks are likely to contain too many calories that you could use on healthier options. Water, zero-calorie flavored water, skim milk and all-natural fruit juice are some alternatives to unhealthy beverages.
Step 5
Exercise at a moderate intensity for a cumulative total of two hours and 30 minutes weekly, notes MayoClinic.com. Some exercises you can do at home include jogging in place, following along with an aerobics video or walk up and down the stairs, if you have them.
Step 6
Add strength training to your routine twice per week. Push-ups, lifting dumbbells, squats and lunges are all good strength-training exercises you can do at home.
Tips and Warnings
- Start a food and exercise diary to keep track of what you eat, drink and do each day. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, there is a chance you will hit a weight loss plateau, which means your weight loss will stop and level off, even though you are still following your healthy lifestyle plan. A food and exercise diary can help you determine where you can tweak your program to get you back on track for more weight loss.
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