We have many role models in IL Community who have successfully shed their weight with a positive frame of mind and by maintaining good diet and fitness discipline. We bring you such motivating weigh loss stories and their tips for you to get inspired to help you with your weight loss goals.
Pman16 is a well-known inspiration who has shed weight and has shared several weight loss tips. Here are her key tips and strategies!
I lost all my pregnancy weight (from 2nd delivery) of 20lbs and back to my pre-preg shape. In fact, I look much better than I was at that time. I am a south Indian vegetarian and tried to stick to home made food during the entire journey of my weight loss. It took almost an year for me to achieve this with the online help of Shiva Choubey in her weight loss thread.
My Tips
Mind Game: Before you begin your weight loss program, train your mind positively. This is very important. Getting tempted to food will happen for sure, so get prepared with all the required information needed to overcome this. For me, health is top priority and I read all kinds of health related stuff to keep me motivated.
Diet and exercise are the 2 key elements of weight loss. Try to understand your strength and act accordingly. In my case, I am lazy to diet but can exercise and try many options. So, I decided to join a gym and add spice to my workout sessions.
Mere walking or mere dieting does not help a long way. For a person who does not exercise at all, walking can be a good option to begin with. If you do not have options, then increase the intensity of walking to see results.
Strength Training: Many Indian women do not even know about this or have not attempted unless it is too late. It is a misconception that we will look like men (biceps/triceps) and muscle building is only for men. NO!! In simple words, strength training is incorporating/lifting weights in your exercise routine. This will help you to give a lean and toned look.
Soups,Salads,Fruits & Nuts : Apart from the regular food which I ate during my weight loss journey, these 4 played a major role in improving my skin complexion also. Winter is the best time to lose weight as you can have many kinds of hot soups.
Time Management: Many of us say that we do not have time to start a weight loss program or continue it. Pause for a while and give it a serious thought. The lady of the house is a queen (in my opinion) and should look and feel the best to take care of other members. Losing self-confidence can have serious side-effects.So, gear up and plan your schedule. This is not impossible girls. If I could do it (with 2 kids) then you too can!
Understanding Food Priorities: Each of us have some weak points related to food.While some of us cannot control sweet cravings, I cannot stop drooling when I even think of chaat items….pani puri,pav bhaji . Try to limit the intake of such foods once in a week or once in 2 weeks max.
Patience: You need lots and lots of it. With many other commitments to cater to, expect slow results when it comes to weight loss. After joining a gym, do not be disappointed if you don’t look like Aishwarya Rai in just a month.
Water: Drinking water is very important. I basically forget to drink water and cannot drink more than 1 liter in a day. So, I had a glass of buttermilk alternatively for every glass of water. This reminded me to drink water every time I had a glass of thin low fat buttermilk.
Choose your Diet: Im basically a rice eater. Giving up rice totally and switch to rotis or oats is what is impossible to me.People who lost weight might say oats/rotis is the best or only solution to lose weight. Do not panic. Understand your body and its requirements. Eat what suits you. If some Baba asks you to drink Lauki (bottle gourd) juice, do not blindly follow it.
I took great care in eating a balanced diet. Fruits helped me a long way in improving my complexion and buttermilk kept my body cool. Many diets which I tried earlier ended up in having many pimples on my face. So this time I had lots of cooling stuff like cucumber,buttermilk, moong dal etc.
Other Tips: I used to reserve the weekends strictly for family and not bother about diet or exercise. So, effectively I had only 5 days of the week to prove myself. So after eating out on weekends, I used to start with rotis on Monday. On roti days, I would have 2-3 rotis, salad, curd raita (with spinach or cucumber mostly) and dal/sabji. Then I used to promise myself a rice plate for every 2 days of wheat. It could be any day of the week. I switched to moong dal instead of tuvar because it reduces my body heat.
The Diet that I followed
Total Water Intake for the Day : 2-2.5 litres of water and mostly 2-3 glasses of buttermilk.
Making rotis almost every day is easy if we have the dough ready. I usually make it in bulk and freeze it.
Preparing buttermilk daily is also a hassle for me. So I use this ready-to-drink available at the grocery stores. Apart from Indian stores (in US) even some of the mexican stores have it. This is very thick so I add 3/4ths water to 1/4th cup of buttermilk. It comes in plain and mint flavors. The name is Karoun’s yogurt drink.
Eating green veggies is very important. I make palak paneer (i grate paneer as I dont like pieces)in bulk and freeze it.
Snacking is the biggest temptation during weight loss journey. Healthy snacks do not leave us with guilt.
Workout for the Day:
Gym 3 days – calorie burn 300-400 every session; lifting weights twice a week; including ab-crunches.
Chose the correct exercise:
If you have a heavy upper body compared to lower body, concentrate on the upper body first. Like in my case, I had lean legs but had a heavy upper body.So treadmills were never fascinating to me as I cannot walk more than 10mins. So I aimed at toning my upper body first while losing weight. This helped me to have a proportionate body and not losing further weight from below.
Hope my tips help you in achieving your weight-loss goals. Good Luck!
