5 Ways To Prioritize Self-Care And Weight Loss Simultaneously
It’s common to direct all focus on diet and exercise when trying to achieve weight loss. Sometimes, people will even go to lengths to lose weight using harsh weight loss methods while completely neglecting to empathize with themselves. One important factor when considering diet and exercise that is often overlooked is self-care.
Self-care is commonly described as the practice of caring for one’s own physical, mental, and emotional well-being. When you prioritize yourself, you’re more likely to adopt healthier habits and become more motivated to take good care of your body. Conversely, in a stressful situation, your body will release cortisol which increases appetite and inadvertently leads to overeating. We can deduce from this that if your mind is muddled by destructive ideas about yourself, shedding pounds will be particularly difficult.
Practicing self-care will encourage your body to reduce stress and successfully achieve weight loss. It’s crucial that you ignore the overly critical voices in your head and practice self-compassion instead. Let’s look at ways you can lose weight without compromising your self-care.
Engaging in Physical Activity
Working out can achieve multiple goals, from reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes to serving as a solid approach to self-care since it can improve mood and drastically reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression and is a common practice in Home Care Assistance. This happens due to the feel-good endorphins your body releases when it is active. Small exercises can contribute to boosting self-image and pose a good escape from frequent stressors.
To reap the most impactful health benefits, adults should aim for a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity, like biking, or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity, like running aerobic physical activity per week.
Getting sufficient sleep
No better way to maintain your mental health than to ensure that you get the right amount of sleep. Chronic sleep loss contributes to emotional vulnerability and negative thinking patterns, while sufficient slumber encourages mental and emotional resilience. This tends to happen because sleep disruption affects the body’s production of neurotransmitters and stress hormones and takes a toll on the brain. Ultimately, this will take a toll on your quality of life. A prolonged sleep loss will result in a plethora of long-term health issues and puts you at higher risk for a list of chronic diseases like high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart diseases, depression, and obesity.
Staying hydrated
A hydrated body will efficiently burn calories while reducing liquid calorie intake of pop, juice, alcohol, etc. Another interesting thing to know is that water can act as an appetite suppressant. You’ll notice that if you drink a glass of water prior to eating your meal, you are less likely to overeat and can possibly control weight gain.
Water will lubricate your joints, lowering perceived fatigue in hydrated people. In terms of self-care, staying hydrated keeps your memory sharp, your motivation intact, and your mood stable, which means you can also think through a problem more quickly and search for solutions.
Positive self-affirmation
How you’re either critical or supportive of yourself and perceive your worth is imperative in developing a healthy weight loss habit. Monitor the quality of your self-talk during stressful situations; you can determine whether you’re building yourself up or tearing yourself down.
Positivity and engagement in self-affirmation can reduce stress and burnout; however, a positive outlook can lead to lower rates of depression and distress. Being critical of your actions can lead to self-defeat. Many people experience emotional eating after being met with internalized negative self-talk. They may call themselves a failure which leads to eating comfort food choices compulsively. So work on boosting self-compassion.
Incorporate mini-movement breaks
You can always gain significant value from short bursts of movement, especially if you cannot find the time or energy to invest in a full-on sweat session.
Clinical psychologist Gary Foster, Ph.D., adjunct professor of psychology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and chief scientific officer at WW (formerly Weight Watchers), says, “Moving more does not have to be a lengthy commitment. It’s proven that activity, even moving for a few minutes a day, can have numerous health and wellness benefits, from aiding you on your weight-loss and wellness journey to giving you more energy and confidence.”
Bottom Line
Getting enough sleep will ensure sufficient slumber and encourages mental and emotional resilience. You can engage in physical activities to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety and can minimize the risk of many medical complications. Additionally, water is known to burn calories while also keeping your mind fresh and memory intact. Everyone also needs to incorporate positive self-affirmations and be supportive of themselves. Finally, if full sweat sessions seem like too much work, you can gain great value from short bursts of movement while ensuring that you do not risk burnout and compromise on your self-care. We hope this article helped.
