Wondering how to lose weight without exercising, or if it’s even possible?
The easiest and fastest way to lose weight is through a combination of diet and exercise. However, if you detest working out or if your physical condition prevents you from doing so, there are ways to lose weight without exercise.
Sticking to a healthy, low-calorie diet will get you to your goal weight faster than exercise alone will. In fact, according to weight loss experts, losing weight is 75 to 80% diet, and 20 to 25% activity related.
So don’t use being unable to stick to a fitness regimen as an excuse for carrying excess pounds. If you take in fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight, with every 3,500 calorie deficit equal to one pound. This is regardless of whether the shortfall is due to eating less, exercising more, or a combination of the two.
In the next section of this article, we will look at an overview of how to lose weight without exercising.
How to Lose Weight Without Exercising Overview
Your starting weight will play a role in how quickly you lose your excess pounds. The higher your pre-diet weight, the faster you will slim down. If you have a naturally fast metabolism, you will lose weight faster than if your
metabolism is slow. Regardless of this, losing weight without exercising will take time.
Eating small amounts of low-calorie food often rather than two or three larger meals each day has proven to be the best way to fuel the body and to keep the metabolism running. Try to regularly include foods that boost the metabolism in your diet. Fat burning foods won’t burn a lot of extra calories, but they can make a difference over time, and they are good for you.
To prevent further weight gain, improve your sleep quality and try to keep your stress levels under control. Aim for seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. People who regularly sleep fewer hours tend to gain weight due to an increase in ghrelin and a decrease in leptin, two hormones that influence appetite. The stress hormone, cortisol, rises when we’re stressed. Cortisol boosts hunger, increases insulin levels, and causes blood sugar levels to drop. When this happens, we crave sugary and fatty foods.
If you want to lose weight without exercising, at least try to move more. An active lifestyle provides far more benefits than just fat reduction. Included among these is lower blood pressure, therefore a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, improved mental clarity, and stronger bones.
A lack of exercise can also result in muscle loss. This is of particular concern with long-term weight loss, which will be the case if you have a lot of weight to lose. Under these circumstances, your body will begin to use muscle for energy when it runs out of fat stores. Along with not being visually appealing, with a reduction of muscle mass comes a loss of strength. Less lean muscle also means a slower metabolism.
Next, we will look at some tips to lose weight without exercising.
Tips to Lose Weight Without Exercising
- Overhaul your diet
To lose weight without exercising, you will need to overhaul your diet. Give up eating processed and sugar-laden foods, and base your diet around lean proteins, vegetables, and whole grains. If you cut 500 calories a day, you can expect to lose one pound a week. If you typically eat a lot of junk food, you may be able to cut 1,000 calories per day. In this case, you should drop two pounds a week.
- Log your food intake
Make a note of everything you eat and drink for a week, and how many calories it contains. Do this as soon as you’ve finished eating. If you only write everything down once a day, you will probably forget about incidentals and the exact amount you’ve consumed. Put what you typically eat onto your plate, then use a spoon, a measuring cup or a kitchen scale to determine the serving size.
Next, calculate how many calories the foods contain. The easiest way to do this is to use an online food calculator or an app. Writing down what you’ve eaten, weighing it and figuring out how many calories it contains is tiresome, but most of us tend to eat the same foods often. And, once you know the calorie count of each food, you will see where you can cut back or make different choices.
With everything written down, you may also see patterns that provide insight into your eating habits. For example, if you don’t eat until you are famished, you might find that you overeat or make poor food choices. Being aware of this, you will be able to make changes that will result in weight loss.
- Calculate your caloric requirement
Along with calculating how many calories you’re taking in, it’s important that you understand your basic caloric needs. If you don’t have access to a device that calculates your daily calorie burn, there’s a formula you can use that is reasonably accurate.
Multiply your weight by 10 is you are an adult female, or by 12 if you are an adult male. The number you get will give you a good idea of how many calories you need per day, without exercise, to maintain your current weight.
If you weigh 250 pounds, you are probably taking in around 2,500 calories per day. If you cut two hundred calories per day to an average of 2,300, it will take you approximately twelve months to lose twenty pounds. You could then cut another two hundred calories to lose twenty pounds over the course of the next year. For some people, exercising will then be a possibility, as when carrying less weight movement usually becomes easier and more enjoyable.
Final Words on Tips to Lose Weight Without Exercising
If you really don’t like exercising, try to incorporate several five to fifteen minute bursts of moderate-intensity movement every day. This could be putting on your favorite up-tempo music and dancing, taking your dog for a brisk walk, using the stairs rather than the elevator, or getting stuck into the housework with gusto. The possibilities are endless.
Combine this with a healthy, low calorie diet, stress management strategies and solid sleep, and it will be easier for you to lose weight without exercising.
