If you’re a few pounds up and tried to lose weight, you’ve probably realized it’s not as easy as it seems.
However, you do it because “It’s only a few pounds,” and it will be just for a few months. But, what if you weigh 200 pounds, how do you lose weight?
Many people think it’s impossible and quit even before trying.
And, of course that in the same way that it’s not easy to lose a few pounds, it naturally won’t be easy to lose tons of pounds
But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
YES! Just like you read it! With enough will power and perseverance, it is POSSIBLE to lose weight when you weigh 200 pounds or more!
We understand if you are still skeptical. We know you have tried every diet and plan you have seen on the internet or TV.
Nevertheless, the fail has probably more to do with the lack of collateral knowledge and support you need to undertake this journey.
Yes, we know that it seems unbelievable.
That is why in this article, we want to bring you some tips, tricks, and ideas to support you in this weight loss journey.
Keep reading, and let’s go beat those 200 pounds! It’ll be totally worth it!
Beginning your journey: the fight against yourself!
As we said at the beginning, to lose weight when you weigh 200 pounds or more, the emotional or psychological factors are essential.
The first step is always harder to take, but that doesn’t mean that it will get easier.
Your mentality is essential, and you need to get in the mindset to lose weight.
In that sense, factors as stress play a dramatic role in the future of your journey to a healthy weight.
But, we’ll address this particular factor a bit further in the article. The first two things you need to understand are:
Weight loss must become a lifestyle change
Only dieting on a strict plan for a few months won’t be enough.
They may help you lose some pounds temporarily, but then again, you’ll fall back due to your poor and unhealthy habits.
Regular diets are not for you
All those plans you’ve followed and failed on, are designed for young or slightly overweight.
People that can increase their exercise levels without injuring themselves and only need to lose a few pounds.
Your case is entirely different when you try to lose weight at 200 pounds.
In this sense, you need to stop comparing yourself to others, especially “skinny” others, and focus on you; on your possibilities, your will power and your future.
Finding a program that addresses all your specific needs is a must for your case. (You can check out this diet plan that’ll kickstart your weight loss journey in less than 2 weeks).
How to switch your mentality?
In our article about the weight loss mindset, you may find the tricks you actually need to change your perspective into a positive one for achieving your body goals quickly.
But, to make it easier for you, we’ll make a quick list of the essentials for that part:
- Make a plan.
- Set realistic goals.
- Go step by step and take note of your achievements.
- Do not listen to negative thoughts and criticism.
- Foresee your success and where you want to be.
While there are other meaningful factors to change your mentality, these are the principal.
If you think it through, these all just do one thing for you: take you to where you want to be.
So, to make sure you are clear on that, start picturing yourself 2 years from now:
– You’ll be able to buy new and cute clothes that feel comfortable with your style, help you define your real image, and reflect what you are inside.
– You will feel lighter when you get on your feet, and you will gain agility when moving. Simple tasks that were hard for you, like picking up something from the floor, will become easy and comfortable!
– You will have a HUGE sense of achievement, boosting your self-esteem. The way you see yourself will improve, and you’ll feel proud and worthy!
– You’ll inspire others. Many don’t consider this fact, but when others see the change in you, they’ll feel empowered and even may thank you for that. You’ll feel useful and appreciated socially (besides just your friends and family).
As you can see, these are some factors that we usually don’t consider when we decide to lose weight.
For someone losing 5 pounds, they won’t be much different, but when losing 200 pounds or more, the contrast will be more than just noticeable.
Finally, maybe one of the hardest steps is discipline.
You may need some help in this part in the first months, as it will be hard to face all the obstacles.
But, once you’re deep in the journey, discipline will have to come from within yourself.
Remember that you can’t always be motivated, some days you’ll have to do it just because it’s your final goal, even if at the moment you feel like quitting.
Now that you know how to begin your journey, it’s time to get to our main topic on how to lose weight when you’re 200 pounds or more.
Tips to start losing weight when you’re 200 pounds or more
We already stated that what works for the rest, not necessarily is what works for you.
In that sense, you may find here some recommendations that sound off for you. Don’t worry! Even if they seem contradictory, the tricks are just adaptative to your current weight, so it’s possible to start losing.
These will change after you start reducing your weight and might be more strict when you feel you can handle rougher work.
However, you have to start somewhere and, in cases like yours, less is more sometimes.
So, let’s check what you should discover if you weigh 200 lbs and want to lose weight.
Exercise: when and how?
Ok, so, you probably think that the first step you should take to start losing weight is exercise, right?
Wrong! It is on mobility that you should be focusing right now, instead of exercising.
What does that mean?
It means that, even when you do need to get away from a sedentary lifestyle, training may be counterproductive for your health and your resilience.
Body overload: more risk than results
Your body structure, meaning bones, muscles, and joints are not designed to support that kind of weight.
Much less are they prepared to be submitted to intense movement. And much lesser when you haven’t been moving for a while.
So, start training with a program that we know is not designed for your case, which includes jumps, running, etc. and you will more likely result in overloading your body.
This, in consequence, will cause injury, and when you’re 200 pounds or more, these injuries may be truly severe.
Sense of failure: don’t sabotage your own progress
On the other hand, trying to accomplish these exercises will be frustrating, probably make you feel dizzy, throw up, or even faint.
They will make you feel like a failure and become a high risk of you ditching your weight loss goals.
Besides, if you do a bit of research, you’ll find out that exercise is only a tiny part of losing weight – while it’s positive for many other health reasons -.
What you need to focus on is your diet, and we’re not talking about entering a “soup diet” or anything like that, we’re just talking about the kind of food you eat daily. We’ll address that next.
So, if I can’t exercise, how do I start losing weight when I weigh 200 pounds?
Every day we move around. We’re from here to there and we bend to pick something, etc
Have you noticed how many times you avoid these small movements?
Perhaps you ask someone to lift that for you or to bring you that stuff from the other room. Maybe you also have a small fridge in your bedroom to avoid walking to the kitchen. You hire someone to mow the lawn. You have a trolley for grocery shopping. And the list goes on!
If you start doing all these things on foot, if you start walking more, you’ll notice the difference rather quickly.
At first, it will happen as with anything else; you’ll feel it’s too much.
Bu, start by walking to the kitchen and fixing your garden yourself. Then, go grocery shopping on foot.
Walking is so underrated!
If you start adding more steps on your daily routine, sooner than you think, you’ll notice how your mobility improves, and your scale goes down.
After you gain some control of your body, then you’ll be able to exercise comfortably.
Healthy eating: changing your habits one step at a time
So, ok, here’s the real deal…
The fundamental factor to truly change your life and the answer to: “I weigh 200 pounds, how do I lose weight?” is in the food you eat.
YES! Your diet is the secret to really start losing weight no matter your current weight.
And maybe you’re thinking that’s not true.
But according to several studies, including one run by Current Biology, exercise makes no significant impact on your weight if you don’t fix your nutrition.
In that sense, you need to understand some things:
Processed and ultra-processed foods
They’re NOT healthy and won’t help you lose weight, even if they say “non-fat,” “diet,” etc. in the label.
You need to check the nutritional facts, and you’ll find chemicals, sugars, sodium, and excess fat.
AVOID these foods as much as you can.
Refined flours must go too
These carbohydrates turn into sugar and are easily stored as belly fat. So, they need to go too.
You need to eat whole foods
Anything that comes directly from the ground or the source is acceptable, at least to begin with.
Changing your habits will drastically impact your weight, so instead of buying bags of salad or candy fruit.
Try eating raw organic salads, whole grains, and berries. Just add more of these foods and less of the previous two.
These three points are essential, and you may ask yourself why?
Because they’re the cure to several side-damage that you have in your organism when you weigh 200 pounds or more.
Hormone imbalance
Understanding why all your body functions are off!
Ok, maybe not ALL of them, but many of the vital hormones in your body are receiving wrong signals and, in consequence, not working right.
This imbalance also causes your body to be unable to lose weight by counting calories or cutting portions. Let’s take a look at them:
Insulin
You’re most likely insulin resistant due to a large amount of sugar you consume.
This means your cells can’t absorb the glucose fast enough, your liver converts the sugar into fat and stores it in your body.
Cortisol
Stress hormone (remember we mentioned stress?).
When you are continually anxious, your body releases too much of this hormone and becomes unable to rest properly.
In this sense, your body never recovers, and you feel exhausted all the time. Your mood changes and chances are you will be having cravings.
Your body needs to make up for the tiresomeness, and it will claim for guess what? TREATS!
Leptin
Perhaps the most essential of all, leptin lets your brain know when you’re full.
But, when you overeat all the time and are obese, your mind just can’t get more of the signals.
It’s too exhausting and goes off, so it never receives the signal to stop.
You’ll never know when you’re not hungry anymore and will keep binge eating.
Thyroid and estrogen
When many hormones are imbalanced, these tend to suffer changes too.
Too much estrogen will make your body resistant to losing weight.
And, if you combine it with disordered thyroid, your body slows down the calorie-burn rate.
When you weigh more than 200 pounds, more than of these hormones are going to be off.
That imbalance is the prime reason why only exercising won’t be enough to lose weight when you weigh 200 pounds or more.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for a medically-assisted weight loss, then you may want to check out Medical Weight Loss and Beauty in Pasadena, California. The team offers a wide selection of weight loss solutons to help you be your best self!
Fixing your gut: the inner enemy you didn’t know!
Don’t worry! Your gut is not going to turn against you! It’s just swollen and probably leaking.
This means that it loses the ability to process your food and starts leaking toxins to the rest of your body.
And what is the cause? All those unhealthy food we mentioned before!
So, to fix your gut and make it work again, you need to drop them for at least a month
Especially, keeping carbs to the minimum possible is essential, even when you’ll add them again after (in less quantity of course).
But that’s not it! You also need to consume probiotics and prebiotics to restore and nurture your natural intestinal flora.
Raw non-sweet yogurt, apple cider vinegar, and germinates are an excellent source of both pro and prebiotics.
Once you fix the imbalances in your body, the effect of consuming whole foods will start showing.
Your organism will be fed with the necessary macro and micronutrients, and receive the vitamins and minerals it needs.
At this point, you won’t need to count calories or cut your portions. Solely by changing these small habits for a few weeks, you’ll see the success coming!
After you get to a safe weight, then you can start implementing nutrition regimes and begin exercising.
But; you won’t need us to tell you that; your body will demand those by itself!
Water and drinks
We won’t stop too much in this one.
You need to keep hydrated, or your body will absorb more fat because the enzyme that metabolizes the fat, lipase, only works when you are hydrated.
Also, processed drinks are filled with sugar, even juices, or “diet” drinks.
It happens the same with the food, and you’re more likely to drink your calories if you’re not drinking natural liquids.
So here, our advice is clear: stop consuming processed drinks and replace them for water.
Drink water instead of any drink you can, and when you drink something else, make sure it’s natural and without sweeteners.
Finally, avoid alcohol at all costs, at least at the beginning.
They are filled with calories, usually drank with other liquids that add more calories ad when you’re drunk, you are more likely to ditch your diet.
Rest and peace, the only way down!
Finally, we have come to the last step to begin your journey if you weigh 200 pounds and want to lose weight.
Rest is as necessary as any of the other factors we already mentioned.
When you rest, the levels of stress go down, while it is during sleep that your body and muscles recover.
Only by recovering your muscular mass, you’ll start burning calories faster and have an emotional balance to prevent stress from taking you off track.
Be sure to sleep 7-9 hours each night, and while your scale starts going down, you’ll also start sleeping better!
Many different aspects of your life improve when you weigh 200 pounds or more and lose weight.
Make sure to start taking action TODAY! Even if it’s just making yourself take a few more steps, or getting rid of all those unhealthy snacks. One day at a time and sooner than you think, it will be worth it!
For a step-by-step detailed weight loss program, take this short quiz now to get a custom plan according to your body goals.
