How to Loose Weight Without Dieting

If you think I’m gonna tell you to eat junk and still be able to lose weight, then it’s best you stop reading right now.

And before I continue it’s important to mention that I’m not a nutritionist and all that I’m sharing below is based on my personal experience. I’ve been there and done that! I’ve done the diets, restricted my calories, counted my fat grams….lost the weight, gained some of it back, then lost it again….you know the story….and sadly it’s probably your story too.

But guess what my years of experience have taught me? DIETS DON’T WORK!!

This subject makes me so angry!! I want to shout it to anyone who will listen (and several who won’t). If you want to lose weight you need to stop dieting. Literally!

It doesn’t make sense right? Especially if you’re someone that has been on some sort of diet for most of their life. You can’t even imagine being able to eat what you want and not put on weight….and now here I am attempting to convince you that you can even lose weight without dieting??

Think of all the people around you that are on a diet a lot of the time…I’m not talking about a bride getting ready for the big day…I mean the person that always seems to be dieting….are they slim or overweight? I guarantee 9 times out of 10 the answer is overweight!

Now think of the people you know that never diet…they may cut down a bit or workout more if they put on weight or want to look their best for a special occasion…but most of the time just eat what they want. Are they slim or overweight? 9 times of 10 they are slim…and even if they are overweight it would be very little and they are generally happy with their appearance and confident.

You might be wondering why aren’t enough people telling you diets don’t work. The short answer is because the dieting industry makes A LOT of money and they want you to continue believing that YOU are the reason the diet failed, not that the method itself flawed. So you continue to try again and again.

I hope now I’ve made my point clear…and I repeat DIETS DON’T WORK…let’s move on to the tips.

Dieting makes you lose the connection you have with your body’s hunger and satiation signals. You also lose the ability to know what your body is wanting to eat. You can’t eat what you really want because you’re on a diet. And on “free days” you eat “forbidden food” that you may or may not crave on that particular day. By stopping the dieting cycle you can go back to eating intuitively. And when you eat what you really want and when you are hungry, you will eat less I promise you, because you will be satisfied more quickly.

Writing down everything you eat in a day will help you be more aware of your food intake. But instead of just writing what you eat, also include your hunger level between 1 and 10 each time – 1 being so hungry you will faint and 10 being so full you can’t move. Ideally, you want to be between a 3 and a 7. In addition, it’s important to note what you were feeling at the time, especially if you ate when you were not particularly hungry. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with eating without hunger as long as you are fully aware of that. Make a note of feelings such as angry, bored, sad, worries, anxious that drove you to eat, and then make a note of how you felt after you ate. Did the feeling go away? And if it did, for how long? Could you do something else next time to help that feeling go away?

The journal would look like this…and here’s a link if you’d like to use it yourself . Or check out this notebook that I found on Amazon which I admittedly stole the title of.

If you’re not a fan of journaling, you can take pictures instead. You can either do it with an accountability partner or even create a group on whats app and send pictures of everything and anything you eat! Otherwise, download the app YouFood. I used it a couple of years ago and it really helps.

When I was at university, I weighed more than I weigh now…about 6kg more. I was already aware that dieting was a waste of time, but not fully. One day I joined by tall skinny German friend for lunch. I can’t remember what I ordered exactly…but it was probably a sandwich or pasta. But I was shocked that she ordered a slice of apple pie with ice cream!! What?! She had dessert for lunch and she was skinny? How does that work? That was an eye-opener for me…and I started observing all the naturally slim people around me.

I have a post where I get into more detail about fasting, and you have probably come across the concept of intermittent fasting or 16:8 (fasting for 16 hours and eating within an 8-hour window). I have personally found 16:8 not to work for me in the long-run and prefer to make sure I wait at least 12 and ideally 14 hours from evening meal before I eat my first meal of the day. So if my last meal was finished at 8 pm in the evening, I won’t eat breakfast until close to 10 am the next day. The fewer hours of the day you have to eat, the less likely you are to overeat.

I must admit this is one tip I am not applying myself. Studies have shown that people who eat more slowly tend to weigh less, and those who have slowed down their eating over the years seem to have lost weight. But all studies aside, everyone I know that eats slowly is slim! Try your best (I will try too!) to chew your food 20 times before swallowing, and always put down your utensils and don’t pick them up until you’ve finished properly chewing and swallowed what was in your mouth.

Did you really think I will leave exercise out of this list? But let’s not call it exercise…let’s just call it movement. Get into the habit of “moving” every day. When it’s a daily habit, you stop questioning whether you will or won’t exercise. Muslims who pray 5 times a day for years don’t question “shall I pray today or not?”…it’s just part of your day that it happens almost automatically. And if you don’t exercise you feel something is missing. Need more motivation to get moving? Read this.

On digestive rest days, or fasting days, I eat very little, in the range of 600-800 calories only…although I don’t specifically count calories. I may even go without eating for 24 hours. This may seem like “dieting” to you…but let me explain why it’s not.

The main goal is to give your digestive system a rest..to have a mini detox…to give your body a break in order to do what it does best. Your body naturally eliminates toxins, but if you’re always eating and it’s always busy digesting…then your body can’t detox properly.

First of all, I would do a Muslim fast from sunrise to sunset. It’s much easier and less hunger throughout the day. I’m sure most of you would agree that on a Muslim fast hunger seems like less and comes and goes. But if you’ve had a coffee in the morning and some water…and then didn’t eat anything until lunch time…how hungry would you be? A lot I would imagine.

So this is how what my food intake would be on that day…let’s assume sunset was at 6pm..

6pm Warm water with lemon juice

6:30pm Vegetable Juice (80% veggies, 20% fruit)

8:30pm Vegetable soup with some chopped herbs

9pm Herbal tea and a teaspoon of honey

6pm Warm water with lemon juice

6:30pm Vegetable soup with some chopped herbs

8:30pm Metal Detox Smoothie

9pm Mushroom Hot Chocolate

And that’s it! On some days I might be more hungry so I would have some pumpkin seeds with my juice, or celery and carrot sticks with the soup. Instead of the herbal tea I might have a Dairy-Free Hot Chocolate or a Mushroom Golden Latte.

How can these digestive rest days help you to lose weight? First off, the calories are much less and if you do that once or twice a week your calorie intake for the week or month is lower overall which might lead to weight loss…assuming you eat normally on the other days. However those days also help your digestive system work better, you will find yourself sleeping better on those days. You will also appreciate your food a lot more and eat less on the following days especially. However there is no sense of deprivation, all you need to keep in mind is the next morning you can have whatever you want, and focus on how light and cleansed you feel.

Those are my tips, hope you find them useful. Don’t forget to leave me your comments below, would love to know your thoughts.