Can you lose weight without taking up exercise?
While exercise plays a crucial role in maintaining overall health and fitness, it is not the only way to lose some weight. In fact, many people have successfully dropped some kilos without breaking a sweat in the gym. But how exactly can you do that? In this blog, we’ll explore some tips and strategies that can help your weight loss journey without hitting the gym as well as the benefits and potential drawbacks of relying solely on diet to achieve your weight management goals.
Anyone who has ever tried losing weight knows that it’s no easy task. In fact, weight loss often seems like an uphill battle. But there is one secret weapon that can help you in your quest to shed those extra kilos: exercise. Exercise can help you drop weight and prevents weight gain in several ways.
While exercise has many benefits, eating healthy foods with a healthy diet is also key to weight loss. While exercise and physical activity is helpful at boosting your metabolism and keeping your physical and mental health in check, it is possible to burn more calories without extra exercising!
There may be many reasons why you can’t hit the gym or participate in exercises on The Healthy Mummy app to drop weight. Maybe you’ve had an injury or operation or suffered from another health-related issue that restricts your movement. It’s important to remember that working out helps you burn calories and build muscle, but it is NOT mandatory in order to decrease weight fast.
In fact, there are lots of ways to lose kilos without exerting yourself.
In this post, you’ll learn:
- Ways to lose weight without exercise
- Healthy Mummy results
- Healthy Mummy’s advice for other mums
Jump ahead to find out more:
Can you lose weight without exercising?
Weight loss requires getting complete nutrition from your food intake while not eating more than you actually burn in terms of calories. This may sound simple, but many people focus too heavily on dramatically reducing their calorie intake and carbohydrate and fat intake and crash or fad dieting rather than eating healthy foods while managing portion size.
This is impossible to maintain for any prolonged period of time. Often, when you restrict your food intake and eat fewer calories, you can end up seeing weight gain rather than weight loss because you often feel hungry. Feeling hungry can lead you to eat more or eat high-calorie foods to urgently satisfy those hunger pangs!
Weight loss without exercise in 8 simple steps
Here are eight sensible ways you can lose weight without having to do any exercise…
1. Don’t eat above or below your BMR calories
If you’re starting a weight loss journey you want to make sure it’s it in a healthy and sustainable way, like the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge plan. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the number of calories you’d burn if you stayed in bed all day. This is an important number to know on the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge, firstly so you’re aware of how much you can eat and still drop kilos, portion control is important here.
Secondly, so you know how much you must eat to maintain metabolic health – you must never eat below your BMR calories, as this can send your body into energy-conserving starvation mode which is not helpful for weight loss. Calculate your BMR here.
2. Plan your meals ahead of time
Try to get into the habit of spending a little bit of time on a meal plan as this will help so much during the week. If you’ve made a plan for healthy meals, taking portion size and snacks into account for the week, done the shopping and even got ahead with some meal prep on the weekend, you are so much more likely to stick to it!
Don’t forget to mindfully plan for healthy snacks. Eating the wrong snacks can easily de-rail when trying to lose weight fast. The 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge has heaps of healthy snacks to choose from.
3. Keep your WATER up!
When you’re out and about and on the go with a trusty water bottle in hand, it’s easy to remember to keep your water intake up. It’ll also help you replace sugary beverages when you get thirsty and aren’t at home. Water is an integral part of weight loss, flushing out our system and keeping our digestive system in good shape.
Keep your water bottle next to you and every time you feel like opening the fridge or grabbing a snack, take a big gulp of water and trick your brain into thinking you’re eating. Water can help prevent overeating as we sometimes mistake hunger for thirst. Grab a two-litre water bottle and try to get through it during the day so you know how much you’ve drunk. 15 ways to up your water intake
4. Go to bed 10 minutes earlier
According to research, chronic sleep deprivation can cause hunger cravings and mood disruptions to occur more frequently. So getting a good night’s rest is integral to weight loss along with a healthy diet and exercise. Even heading to bed just 10 minutes earlier can help your overall sleep patterns, keep you on track with your goals and improve how you feel during the hours you are awake.
5. Take deep breaths
Simple breathing exercises that allow the diaphragm to contract properly can help you to increase oxygen in the body, improve metabolism and support weight loss.
No time to exercise? Try adding yogic breathing for 10 minutes into your day by breathing in through your nose and allowing the belly to rise fully. Then, slowly breathe out through your mouth, relaxing the chest and belly. Or try one of the audio meditations in the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge App. Diaphragmatic breathing can improve circulation, reduce stress, curb food cravings, increases the uptake of oxygen and increase the body’s fat-burning potential.
6. Drink our Healthy Mummy Smoothies
Our Healthy Mummy smoothies are the perfect solution to the busy mum’s breakfast and/or lunch and take just two minutes to make.
They give your body essential nutrients, including protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals and will aid satiety and fullness until snack time. Plus, they’re breastfeeding-friendly and are 96 per cent sugar-free and 100 per cent fructose and artificial sweetener free. Buy your smoothie tub here!
7. Avoid the triggers
If you have certain people or situations that lead you to choose unhealthy foods over healthy foods, it’s time to make some changes. If you always grab Chinese with a colleague for lunch or always head to a café for a chocolate mud cake with a girlfriend – you need to change those behaviours, so you can reach your goal of losing weight. Make suggestions for healthier options – why not take turns bringing in a healthy lunch for you and your colleague, or use a smaller plate for every meal?
And make some healthy snack food at home to bring for those catch-ups with friends? It’s important to notice the triggers that lead us to choose unhealthy foods or high-calorie high fat foods and change this eating behaviour so that you achieve your goal of losing weight.
8. Cut out one thing at a time
If you feel as though your junk food cravings are too big to tackle all at once, try cutting out the unhealthy foods in your diet one at a time. You could start with ditching sugary drinks for the first week, then sugary foods, then other favourites, chips or unhealthy fats, this will reduce the number of calories consumed – all the while topping up what you do eat with new, tasty options so that you don’t feel as though you are missing out. So if you really love blueberries, be sure to keep them in the house so that you can ‘indulge’ whenever you feel like it. If you love dips, make your own healthy versions which are low in calories so that you can tuck into them at any time. Try keep the unhealthy foods out of sight!
Mum loses 14kg without exercise and reverses her health issues
Christine Eccles was not able to exercise regularly, but she still joined the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge, did the Keto meal plan and has lost 14kg! She’s also managed to reverse some of her health issues. The Queensland-based grandma first discovered The Healthy Mummy in 2018 after reading the incredible weight loss story of Cicily, who has lost 56kg through the 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge. Remarkably, she’s also managed to reverse some of her health issues. “I ordered Healthy Mummy Smoothies, Sugar X, numerous clothing items, drinking cups and snacks and I joined the 28 Weight Loss Challenge app and Facebook support group to access recipes and exercise videos,” she says.
“I was then diagnosed with Scleroderma, a rare and incurable autoimmune disease, non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and although I used the smoothies regularly for the next few years, I was letting my disease take control and I spent most of the next few years inactive and in bed.”
In Sept 2020, Christine, 49, was booked in for a hip replacement and she says she knew that she had a choice, keep gaining weight or use the opportunity to control her eating, as exercise was not an option. “By seeking advice from other Healthy Mummies, I decided on the ‘warm turkey’ approach, where you make changes slowly, in order to not feel restricted and give up early,” she says. “I took two weeks to reduce rather than cut out takeaways, two weeks to reduce processed foods and meal sizes and two weeks to cut out sugars and sweeteners. After doing all that, I lost 5kgs with no exercise.”
Christine is a HUGE fan of the keto recipes on the App
In Dec 2020, Christine started her first Challenge on the app, using the low-carb meal plan, then keto. “I was excited when The Healthy Mummy created a keto menu. I still enjoy my Choc Fudge Smoothies and use Control X Berry and Sugar X on the occasions I have a craving,” she says. “My typical day starts with bacon and egg variety dishes, chocolate and peanut butter cups, cheese, nuts, eggs or coffee cheesecake for snacks, caesar salad or smoothie for lunch and meat and green veggies for dinner (varieties).”
Christine’s health issues have improved dramatically
“I might have lost 14kgs so far and over 25cm but the most important things I have lost are the inflammation, pain, liver cirrhosis, leaky gut symptoms and my negative thoughts and lack of moving,” she says. “From XL to M and 18-20 to 14-16, off my anxiety medication and ready to start the Healthy Mummy 12 week challenge to lose the remaining 11kgs.”
Christine’s advice for other mums
1. Motivate yourself
“My advice is not to wait for motivation, it can’t just be found, you need to make a change, acknowledge the change and then your motivation will appear to keep going.”
2. Move as much as you can
“Moving a little is better than nothing at all.”
3. Find someone to join with you
“I recently moved my daughter and grandson back home to help me and in the first week she lost 5kg and she loves the tummy smoothies and has friends also now joining up. It’s great to do this journey together.”
Are you ready to become a Healthy Mummy?
If you’re starting a weight loss journey, why not book an online consultation with one of Moshy’s expert Aussie doctors? Moshy provides expert support from Australian doctors and dietitians where and whenever you’re free.
Join Moshy today and become part of a community of thousands of women supporting each other on their journey to look and feel their best.