Are you struggling to maintain energy levels during weight loss process?
Healthy eating makes you feel great. However, you should expect a temporary drop in your energy levels once you start a weight loss plan.
Don’t quit just yet, because once your body adjusts to the new and healthy lifestyle, your energy levels will go back to normal. Here are some useful tips to help you identify the reason for your drop in energy and the changes you need to make.
1. Prepare For an Adjustment Period
During your weight loss journey, you might be tempted to adopt numerous new habits immediately. Keep in mind that weight loss isn’t a short term transition. If you want to lead a healthy lifestyle, you need to prepare for gradual and long-term changes. If you cut out specific foods or start doing strenuous exercises, you will feel drained and that might force you to quit altogether.
However, rather than dropping your calorie intake drastically, you can start cutting out a lesser amount. Next, you can increase your calorie deficit each new week. That way, you can allow your body to adjust to the new eating patterns gradually while maintaining the energy levels.
2. Monitoring Your Calorie Intake
The recommended calorie intake for women is 1200 per day, while men should take 1700 calories daily to guarantee effective and safe weight loss.
Of course, that doesn’t mean your calorie intake needs to be that low. If you take the same amount of calories for a week and feel lethargic, you can add the calories back by taking nutritious foods. The goal here, is to find a balance such that you’re feeling energized with as little calorie intake as possible, allowing you to lose weight.
3. Add More Iron to the Diet
By continuously taking low iron into the diet, you’re likely going to develop deficiency anaemia, causing low energy levels in the body. To counteract this, you need to take foods rich in proteins and iron.
These include, lean red meat, poultry, beans and nuts. For men who are 19 years and above and women aged 51 years and above, the requirement is 8mg or iron every day. Women aged 19 to 50 should take 18 mg every day.
4. Nutrition Should Be the Main Focus
It’s possible to reduce your calorie intake while consuming processed foods with excess sugar and sodium.
Yes, you will lose weight but your energy levels will be affected considerably. The same will not happen if you take whole grains, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, or lean proteins. These foods contain minerals and vitamins that support normal body functions. You should include more fresh foods in the diet and decrease your consumption of packaged foods to boost your energy levels considerably. You could also use supplements to help with improving energy.
5. Eat Regularly
Do you take a long time between meals? Do you skip meals? Well, this causes issues with your metabolism leaving you famished. If you take food when you’re not feeling hungry tricks the body to assume you’re not starving yourself.
Eventually, the body establishes a healthy metabolism allowing you to reach a healthy weight goal.
6. Exercise
Don’t jump into exercises too fast, especially if you haven’t worked out to a good fitness level. That’s because jumping into strenuous exercise leaves your body very exhausted.
Rather, you should exercise enough to challenge your body but not to exhaust yourself or being too sore to move around. You can start with exercises that take 15 to 30 minutes such as walking around 3 times every week.
Eventually, you can push through tough workouts and get back your energy levels.
7. Get Enough Sleep
Your energy levels will be drained if you don’t get enough sleep. Eventually, your motivation to exercise will be drained and you will lose focus on your weight loss journey. The recommended sleep duration for adults is 7 to 9 hours every night. Try out different sleep patterns to discover the right time frame where you can feel rested.