How to Safely Lose Weight Without a Diet.

We all know from experience that fad diets don’t work for the long term. Yes, you can lose weight quickly by following the newest diet craze, only to gain it all back, usually with interest. Did you know that there are ways to lose weight without dieting or even exercising?

Now I am huge fan of exercise because I believe that it helps us maintain muscle mass and strength.

Dieting seems to be the only antidote to weight loss as shown by the many many different diets we have available. However, most diet plans are restrictive, they are boring and incredibly difficult to sustain over time.

There are other ways to stay in shape instead of tracking your calories and macros or avoiding carbs or eating unsatisfying, tasteless, boring, bland foods. Even worse, most diets will restrict you on the amounts of foods you can eat, leaving you never truly feeling full and satisfied.

It is true that most trainers and gym owners would say you absolutely need to hop on a structured diet plan to lose weight. However, this is not true.

Think about it. Dieting has only been around for less than 200 years. It only became popular in the mid 1800s with one of the very first well-known diet plans known as the Banting diet. This diet was essentially one of the very first low carb diets.

And since then the diet industry has exploded. There are now hundreds if not thousands of different diet plans for you to choose from.

What’s more? There are billions of dollars in the fitness and dieting industry. What’s even more interesting is that since the 1800s obesity has grown just as much as the diet industry has. So what’s my point, you may be asking?

My point is that before the concept of dieting even existed there were exponentially more people that were in shape, maintaining a healthy weight their whole lives. What’s even more fascinating is that as the diet industry almost matches the rise of in obesity rates.

This simple fact proves that dieting in its restrictive, over structured form is not necessary to maintain or get a healthy weight.

So does this mean that we could just ignore your diet altogether and just eat anything at all?

Certainly not! There’s no denying that what you eat and how much you eat are probably the most important factors that contribute to how much you weigh. Your diet is also a primary determinant of your body composition. It is said that you cannot outrun your fork. And it’s true.

You can’t outrun a bad diet

Now since your diet is one of the most important factors when trying to lose weight without dieting let’s get deeper into the subject. And I’m not going to give you cheap little tricks that simply won’t work.

Tips like using a body wrap or drinking lemon water or eating your meal slower. Instead in today’s article, I want to show you how you can actually lose weight and have a proper diet without dieting.

You can be sure that these simple changes may not be as attractive as the idea of a magic pill, they do actually work.

How to Lose Weight Without Dieting

#1. Focus on nourishing

The first way to lose weight without dieting is to focus on nourishing your body. It’s a powerful way to maintain a healthy weight long-term.

Diets usually call for you to take something away or to restrict. On the other hand eating to nourish your body involves taking steps to give and add to your diet.

Restrictions lead to cravings for exactly what it is that you’re restricting. Having a proper diet without actually dieting involves eliminating all restrictions. So instead of restricting you should be prioritizing.

What do I mean by prioritizing? Ice cream for example should not be a high priority when trying to nourish the body. Instead, single-ingredient natural sources of carbs, proteins and fats should be your main priority.

Foods that grow from the ground and come from the earth, single ingredient foods are naturally filling, naturally high in volume while being low in calories.  And they’re easier for your body to break down and use.

This is why being overweight was very uncommon before processed food became readily available. These man-made foods which are now everywhere all around us are stripped of most of their nutrients. And those nutrients are replaced with additives and flavor enhancers.

Consistently eating these food degrades the natural balance between our appetite, our fullness, our hormones and the amount of total calories we eat. It also impacts how well our body can use the types of calories that we do wind up eating.

So don’t restrict yourself from eating tasty foods but only allow yourself to eat these junk foods after you’ve satisfied your hunger with natural single ingredient foods.

This means that every meal of yours should be loaded with healthy single ingredient foods that you can find in the grocery section on your local store.

These foods will eliminate your hunger, reset your taste buds and significantly lower your desire for the processed foods that lead to weight gain. When you’re full you won’t want the junk food that you were desperately craving when you were hungry.

Even when you do want them you’ll want significantly less allowing you to manage calories without ever having to even track them.

Summary: Focus on eating whole, unprocessed, single-ingredient foods as much as possible.

#2. Stick to the most feeling foods

The second tip to lose weight without dieting is to sticking primarily to the most filling foods. The most filling foods are vegetables, protein, slow-digesting high-fiber carbs and healthy sources of fat.

Vegetables take up a lot of volume in your stomach while costing very few calories. So make an effort to eat vegetables before starting your main meal even if you don’t want to.

Protein is also very filling just like vegetable. Slow digesting carbs as well as healthy fats also slow down the rate at which your food travels through your digestive system. This will helping you feel fuller for longer.

When you feel full you don’t have to spend all day fighting a battle with your hungry mind.

Eat these four macro foods when you get hungry. Then wait 15 minutes before moving on to whatever it is that you truly thought you were craving. The reason is that after those 15 minutes I can guarantee you that your hungry mind will become much more silent.

Summary: Stick to the macro nutrients: proteins, vegetables, healthy sources of fat such as avocados and slow-digesting high-fiber carbs.

#3. Reset your natural fat burning hormones

You’ll want to reset your natural fat burning hormones. Just by eating real food you’ll be making huge progress towards resetting your body’s natural hormones. But by also throwing in a few days a week of weight training you’ll boost testosterone levels, increase your growth hormone and increase insulin sensitivity.

Without a balanced hormonal profile it becomes almost impossible to burn fat and keep it off. Weight training is the only activity that creates hormonal changes in the body that help both men and women burn fat while maintaining or gaining muscle.

Strength training with weights will also help increase your metabolism while at rest allowing you to continuously burn more calories throughout the entire day. The point is if you want a healthy hormonal profile strength training with weights is one of your best bets.

Summary: Add strength training to your routine to balance your hormones and increase insulin sensitivity.

#4. Find the perfect meal frequency

Finding the perfect meal frequency that is unique to you is one of the ways to lose weight without dieting. This will keep you from feeling hungry. It will also keep you from overeating throughout the entire day.

For me it works really well to simply have just one meal a day. However some people may find themselves extremely hungry all day if they don’t eat. These types of people may do better with small meals throughout the day because otherwise they’ll just binge late at night.

A diet that makes you feel like you’re starving is unsustainable and it will lead to failure. The same thing can be said about a diet that feels like a burden because it constantly requires your time and attention. You want your diet to fit well with your preferences and your lifestyle.

If you happen to be the type of person that is busy throughout the day and would prefer to eat less frequently it can actually save you a good amount of calories throughout the day if you decide to do that. If you’ve always eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner and you want to try to eat only once or twice a day.

However this is not for everyone and this meal frequency is will take time for you to adapt to your lifestyle. But once you become accustomed to it, it’s much less difficult. You will still be able to eat healthy foods that want, without feeling deprived.

Again once you get used to it your cravings for food throughout the day will drop. Eating only once becomes a lot easier than you would think. The point is if you prefer larger meals and have a good tolerance for fasting for longer stretches of time try to eat less frequently.

On the other hand if you prefer to eat every couple of hours just make sure that you’re sticking to smaller meals.

Summary: Get accustomed to eating a frequency that works for you. Eat smaller size meals if you eat more frequently. Eat larger meals if you eat less frequently.

#5. Drink water only

Another way of naturally losing weight is to drink only water.  Now I know that it’s recommended you drink adequate amount of water throughout the day.

I’m saying drink water only no not because drinking water will make you somehow lose weight. It seems like everyone including many experts are convinced that drinking water leads to more fat loss.

However just because you drink a gallon of water each day doesn’t mean that you’re gonna be burning any more fat. I’ve seen so many people measure every last drop of water that they have throughout the day and then they eat some junk like cookies before bed.

Again drinking more water will not make you lose more fat but by only drinking water you avoid all those sweetened drinks that would add a bunch of excess calories to your diet.

By avoiding juices, sodas and even things like Gatorade and vitamin water, you can significantly reduce how many calories you take in per day without even thinking about it.

So the obvious question is what if you can’t stop drinking these juices and pop?

Try avoiding them yourself for some days. By avoiding them for only a few days your desire for all kinds of sweets will decrease.

Summary: By choosing to drink water only instead of processed juices and sodas, you naturally reduce that amount calories you’re taking in each day.

#6. Leave only healthy foods in plain sight

Of all the tips we’ve given above on ways to lose weight without dieting, probably this is easiest one to follow. To lose weight naturally without dieting, keep healthy food out in plain sight.

We eat what we see and if you leave a bag of chips out in the open, you’ll probably reach for those chips first thing when you get hungry.

On the other hand if you leave a bowl full of fruits out you’ll probably reach for some fruit. For this reason take all your junk food and put it somewhere out of plain sight.

This way instead of unconsciously munching on junk food you can eat your single ingredient foods first before deciding that you actually want to eat the foods that are less filling but higher in calories.

Summary: When you go shopping for grocery, avoid buying processed foods. If you don’t have it your fridge or they are out of reach, you will not be tempted to each them.

Conclusion

I know that these 6 tips on how to lose weight without dieting may seem simple. However, they are not by any means magical. But when you actually apply them it becomes easy to lose weight and stay lean year round without restricting yourself or counting calories all day long.

You’ll reset your hormone, you’ll fix your metabolism, decrease daily caloric intake, you’ll increase fullness and by prioritizing you’ll still be able to enjoy your favorite junk foods in moderation after you’ve already taken the edge off of your hunger.

What if you want to lose weight without dieting or exercise due to injury? These same steps can help you achieve your weight loss goals.

What are some of the ways you have lost weight without following a crazy diet? Share your experiences with us in the comments below.