The Recipe for Weight Loss: Simple Ingredients for Lasting Results

No, this isn’t a recipe for cabbage soup.

It’s not a recipe for some magical meal that will melt fat, build muscle, and finally get you to your goal weight.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect diet or button you can press to achieve weight loss.

That doesn’t stop people from falling victim to extreme diet and exercise plans to achieve their goals. The thing about these extreme fad diets is that most of the time, they fail.

While you may drop weight in the beginning, maybe even get to your goal weight if you can stand to keep it up long enough, but eventually, real life creeps in and you can’t maintain the extreme lifestyle forever.

Fad diets and unreasonable exercise plans do not set you up to maintain weight loss, because they are simply not sustainable. So when you inevitably fall off the wagon, all of that weight comes back, and you are back where you began.

There is a better way.

Instead of a recipe for cabbage soup, we are bringing you a recipe combining science-backed, sustainable strategies to lose weight and maintain it long after you hit your goals.

This recipe is flexible, personalizable, and most importantly, effective!

Ingredient #1: Balanced Nutrition You Can Stick To

There are about a million fad diets out there, and they all claim to be the best way to lose weight.

One diet wants you to eliminate all carbs from your life. Another suggests you consume nothing but juice for a week. One wants you to eat like a caveman, but you’ve never hunted and your gardening skills are not up to par.

The biggest problem with all of these diets is that they just aren’t realistic.

We live in the real world, where you don’t always have time to make dinner after work, you meet up with friends for happy hour, you eat a hot dog at your favorite team’s game, and you attend birthday parties and enjoy a slice of cake.

What you need is a diet plan that allows you to eat the foods you enjoy, focusing not on restriction, but moderation.

Calorie Deficit

If weight loss is your goal, the main thing you need to focus on is achieving a calorie deficit. Put simply, you should burn more calories than you consume in a day. How you consume these calories is up to you.

However, if you blow 1800 calories on chips and ice cream, you probably won’t feel very satiated, because these foods are calorie dense and lack nutrition.

This is where moderation comes in.

Moderation

In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan writes, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” We like this advice because it is simple and gets straight to the root of a healthy, sustainable diet.

Most of what you eat should be whole foods, including protein from lean meats, poultry, and fish, fiber from plants, legumes, and whole grains, and healthy fats from nuts and seeds, olive oil, and fatty fish.

This doesn’t mean that you should restrict yourself from ever consuming “unhealthy” foods, rather that they should be the exception rather than the norm.

Mindfulness

Food is not just fuel. It is cultural, it is social, and it is celebratory. Letting go of restriction lets enjoy the other side of food, like birthday cake at a party, stadium food at a sports game, or a dinner to celebrate your best friend’s engagement.

This doesn’t mean you should binge on these foods, but rather enjoy them when the moment calls for it. You achieve this through a practice of mindful eating.

Mindful eating simply means slowing down and savoring your food. Chew slowly, taking in the taste, texture, smell, and temperature of your food. Slowing down and paying attention helps you to recognize satiety cues.

Listen to your body and honor it’s cues, eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full.

Ingredient #2: Movement That Fits Your Lifestyle

Physical activity can help you lose weight, but it also helps to regulate your mood, increase your metabolism, give you energy, help you sleep better at night, and strengthen your immune system.

Extreme weight loss plans can put an external pressure on you to overdo exercise. You might participate in an activity you hate, just because you think you should.

Or maybe you love exercise, but you do it so much that you overwork yourself, leading to injuries, fatigue, and burnout.

Much like extreme dieting, overexercise is not sustainable. Whether you become injured or simply burn out, eventually you fall off the wagon, and that weight comes creeping back.

Do what you love

The best form of exercise is the one you actually enjoy doing.

If you love dancing, sign up for a dance class. If you love swimming, start doing laps. If you love yoga, join a studio or just roll out your mat and follow along to a YouTube video.

The point is, if you actually like what you are doing, you are much more likely to show up each day and do it.

Consistency

At the end of the day, consistency matters way more than intensity when it comes to exercise. You don’t have to run the farthest, lift the heaviest, or jump the highest to get a good workout in.

In an exercise class I took recently, my coach said “The results are in the everyday grind, not in your PR’s.” And it’s true.

You win each and everyday you show up for yourself. Your goals happen in the blink of an eye, and the high you get from achieving a big goal only lasts so long.

You still need to find a way to keep showing up.

Start small

If you are new to working out, the quickest way to quit is by going too hard too soon, whether you suffer an injury or just mental burnout.

Conversely, the best way to solidify a new habit is by starting small and giving yourself room to grow.

It’s difficult to go from not working out at all to hitting the gym five days per week, so don’t start there! Start by adopting one good habit that you know you can be consistent with.

Go for a 10 minute walk, join a weekly workout class with a friend, or start stretching while watching your favorite show at night. Let yourself get used to this new habit and add on to it as you grow stronger and more confident.

Ingredient #3: Mindset and Mental Health

Have you ever had a stressful day at work and treated yourself to the McDonald’s drive through instead of cooking dinner?

Have you ever cried over a tub of ice cream after a breakup?

Have you ever been so tired after cramming for a test that you woke up with only enough time to slam the biggest cup of coffee you could find before running to class?

Your mental health plays an important role in your health and weight loss journey, because it’s so much harder to maintain good habits when times are hard.

Often we turn to emotional eating to fill a void or skip a workout to veg out on the couch when we’re feeling tired.

Instead of letting your mental health get the better of you, you need to start being proactive about treating your mind with the same care that you do your body.

managing stress

Finding methods to manage your stress and practicing them every day prevents you from reaching total burnout along the way.

Exercise is a great way to relieve stress, stabilize your mood, and give you energy. Think about going for a walk on your lunch break or getting up to stretch throughout your work day.

You should have other outlets to relieve stress as well though, whether it’s a hobby you love, a journaling practice, or a weekly phone call with your best friend.

Sleep

One thing we don’t prioritize enough when it comes to our health is getting enough sleep.

Sleep allows your body and brain time to recover, recycle waste, and create new neural pathways. Further, sleep restores your hormone balance and even helps strengthen your immune system.

Sleep is a vital part of your stress management plan because sleep helps to regulate cortisol, the hormone responsible for stress.

Aim to get about 7-8 hours of sleep every night by creating a bedtime routine that relaxes you.

Mindset

Weight loss forces you to confront a lot of bad habits and form all new ones. At times, this can be difficult and even emotional.

What you need to remember is that weight loss is a journey. It doesn’t happen all at once, and it will take time to adjust to your shifting lifestyle and body.

None of these habits should feel like a punishment, rather an act of self love. You should be your own biggest cheerleader, making sure to celebrate your wins and feeling proud of each and every step you take closer to your goal.

Showing up for yourself consistently is hard, so make sure you are taking care of your mind as well as your body.

Ingredient #4: Medical Tools That Work With You

Medication can be a valuable tool to help you on your weight loss journey.

Obesity related illnesses are a huge risk to your health, and are prevalent in today’s society.

When you are overweight or obese, you face an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and more.

What is even harder is that our lives are more stressful than ever. People are juggling work, family, and social obligations on top of financial hardship, political instability, and personal hardship.

It’s not always reasonable to expect that we can do it all and take care of our health.

Medications have been developed to act as tools to take some of the work out of weight loss. That simply means it’s easier to stay on track.

GLP-1s

GLP-1s, like semaglutide or tirzepatide, are one of the newest medications on the market, approved by the FDA in 2023 for weight loss.

Originally marketed for diabetes patients, GLP-1s (glucagon like peptide-1) are analogues of a hormone secreted by your intestine during digestion.

These medications help to stimulate insulin production, stabilize blood sugar, and slow gastric emptying. This slowed digestion keeps you feeling satiated, acting as an appetite suppressant.

Many patients report that these medications reduce the “food noise,” they normally feel, taking away the desire to eat out of boredom or stress.

In other words, you eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full, without having to think about it so much.

While effective, these medications are a tool, not a solution. They make it easier to stick to a healthy diet, but don’t excuse you from doing the work.

You must still exercise, manage your stress, get enough sleep, and eat a balanced diet— the medication just takes some of the pressure off.

Ingredient #5: Accountability and Support

Even the strongest people break down without the right support system.

A weight loss journey can feel isolating. You are doing a lot of hard work to unlearn toxic behavioral patterns and instill good habits. That’s hard work, and work you shouldn’t have to do alone.

Our support systems help to hold us accountable, celebrate our wins, and hold our hands through our failures. They can coach you, cheer you on from the sidelines, or simply lend an ear when you need to vent.

finding an Accountability buddy

Connecting with a friend who has similar goals can change the game.

For example, I have a friend who attends the same gym as me and we schedule a workout together a few times per week.

When I don’t feel like going, I know that there is another person counting on me to show up, and it becomes easier to put on those running shoes and get in the car.

If we have a hard day, we treat ourselves to coffee after to vent about how tired and sore we are. When we hit a new PR, there is someone there cheering the other on.

Even if you can’t align schedules with someone that often, having a friend you can check in with can make all the difference, even if it’s just a text bragging that you made it to the gym that day.

Professional help

You should always be communicating with your general practitioner when you are on a weight loss journey so that they can help monitor your health through physical exams and bloodwork.

Sometimes you can benefit from other professionals as well, though.

Maybe you invest in a personal trainer to really up your game at the gym.

Maybe you talk to a dietician to help you come up with a meal plan that works for your lifestyle.

At TeleHealthNP, we offer continuous support throughout your weight loss journey, helping you to come up with a plan you can sustain, and being available for any questions or concerns you have along the way.

In whatever form, support from your community throughout your weight loss journey is proven to increase success, and to maintain that weight loss long term.

Putting It All Together

The recipe for weight loss doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. No measurements, special skills, or culinary degree is required.

At the end of the day, it takes five simple ingredients to make up the perfect recipe for weight loss: nutrition, exercise, mindset, medication, and accountability.

Every person is unique, with their own tastes, interests, and lifestyles. The best part of this recipe is that you can customize it to fit your own life.

Use these guidelines to build a plan that is personalized, flexible, and most importantly, sustainable.

And if you need extra help, you can always reach out to us at TeleHealthNP to create a plan that works for you!