7 Realistic Home Remedies To Lose Weight

Are you looking for a home remedy to lose weight? Follow these 7 simple, doable steps, and you’ll be back on track soon.

Do you want to lose weight at home on your own rather than following a commercial weight loss plan? Maybe you have time constraints, such as caring for a loved one, or perhaps budget is a concern.

You can lose weight at home on your own, and this guide will show you the steps to follow to achieve a healthy weight.

How Can I Reduce My Weight At Home?

Just because you spend time at home doesn’t mean weight gain is inevitable. Here is a great list to get you started on a safe home remedy to lose weight.

Weight loss only happens one way, and that’s by eating fewer calories than you burn. So, while none of these will solve your weight issues on their own, adding them together can be influential in helping you eat fewer calories over time.

1. Add protein to your diet. Protein has been shown to increase fullness and reduce hunger. Focus on breakfast and aim for 20-30 grams of protein for your first meal.
2. Stock up on healthy foods and snacks. Junk food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. Keep nutritious foods on hand and processed foods out of the house.
3. Limit your sugar intake. Sugar is empty calories your body doesn’t need. Many people find that they lose weight simply by cutting back on sugar.
4. Drink water. When you are well-hydrated, you are less likely to overeat.
5. Avoid liquid calories. The body does not recognize liquid calories in the same way it does food that you chew. Set a goal of not drinking any calories.
6. Limit refined carbs. While most people do not need to go on a low-carb or keto diet, they do need to cut back on processed, white-flour carbohydrates. Focus on including whole grains like brown rice and quinoa.
7. Exercise 2-3 times a week. Move your body! Aim for 2-3 times a week of 20-30 minutes of activity. While at home, go for a walk or use an exercise video.
8. Watch your portion sizes. This is one of the biggest things I learned from the Weight Watchers program. My portions were massive when I was 100 pounds heavier. I’ve learned to cut back and give my body just what it needs.
9. Track what you eat. Research shows that keeping a food log will help you lose more weight than most other activities. Try Weight Watchers or an app like My Fitness Pal.
10. Pre-plan your meals. Plan your meals for the week (use our free meal planner and grocery list printable) and each evening, plan what you will eat the following day. Use this list of 65+ weight loss meals for ideas.

Why Do People Gain Weight When Stuck at Home?

You may be stuck at home and anxious. Since you aren’t going out, you may be working in your yoga pants, which makes it easy to pretend the weight isn’t creeping up.

You may be drinking more alcohol as a way to calm down and ease stress.

You may be so focused on home activities that you neglect taking care of yourself and your health.

All of these can lead to overeating and gaining weight.

Weight Gain is a Serious Concern

For many of us, weight gain is no laughing matter.

Most people don’t think about a few extra pounds as a big deal. They figure they’ll lose the weight once life returns to a normal kind of pace.

But if you struggle with unwanted pounds, you know this is no joking matter.

As someone who is maintaining a 100-pound weight loss, maintenance is a big deal to me. I am committed to maintaining my weight, and I have to actively work at it.

This isn’t a vanity issue, although I’ll be the first to say I enjoy how I look much more at 140 pounds than at 250 pounds. Instead, for me, my weight loss journey is a spiritual journey. It’s a heart issue.

My mental health is reflected in how I’m doing with my food choices and my weight, so when I see the scale creeping up, I know there’s more going on below the surface.

What Should I Do To Lose Weight At Home?

The quarantine we all experienced a few years ago is an excellent example of how staying home can lead to weight gain.

When the situation hit, I’ll first say I struggled with food. Added to the virus stress, my mom died just a few days before the shelter-at-home orders were given, so I was on a real emotional roller coaster.

While I didn’t do it perfectly, and my weight did go up by a few pounds, I never stopped paying attention and actively working on managing my food choices.

I’m happy to say my weight slowly went back down as I continued with healthy habits, and I’m at my maintenance weight range.

Below are the steps I took during this time, and I think you’ll find them extremely helpful, too.

While these strategies do require intentional effort, they are realistic. You can do this! Don’t expect yourself to do them perfectly, but be mindful of how each small choice adds to a more significant long-term result.

Crisis-Proof Your Weight Loss

Because we believe so much in this importance, my business partner, Becky (who has also lost 100 pounds), and I put together several resources to help you stop gaining weight during crises.

Calming Prayer – This free audio and written download will guide you in a prayer to calm anxiety.

Crisis-Proof Your Weight Loss is a course that guides you through making realistic changes during a crisis so you don’t derail your healthy goals.

Back on Track Checklist—If you are a binge eater, this checklist will help you know exactly what to do the next day or meal to get back on track.

7 Tips –  Home Remedy To Lose Weight

Have you gained weight since being at home? Are current events or your personal life causing you to stress, eat, and gain weight?

Don’t panic. Here is the help you need to get back on track.

1. Develop a Daily Routine

When you are in crisis mode, it becomes incredibly easy to let one thing slide into the next, which often means snacking mindlessly, skipping meals, overeating later, and increased stress eating.

Guess what? So do you.

Few of us do well without some type of structure in place.

Use this free daily action plan printable if you need a way to organize your days.

2. Plan Meals.

While you are organizing, take a few minutes to plan your meals for the next few days, or even better, the next week. Use The Holy Mess meal plan and grocery planner to guide you. Meal planning is one of the best home remedies for losing weight.

Yes, it’s harder to shop for groceries. True, some items might not be available. But you can still do your best to plan. Don’t allow the current situation to be an excuse not to prepare meals.

If you prefer a done-for-you plan, check out our 7 Day Basic Weight Watchers meal plan or try meal prep or freezer cooking.

3. Track Your Food

I firmly believe that keeping a food log is one of the best ways to lose weight. This can be tracking calories, such as with My Fitness Pal and similar apps, or counting points with Weight Watchers.

Becky and I run a program called Faithful Finish Lines for Christian weight loss. We teach women to track their weight as part of the program. We even encourage our members to pre-track, which means planning what they will eat the next day. Faithful Finish Lines is one of the best home remedies for losing weight.

Even writing what you eat into a journal for a few days has been proven to help with weight loss because tracking brings awareness.

If you are currently working from home or home all day, consider having eating windows during your day when you allow yourself to eat or “kitchen open/kitchen closed” times. This creates more structure and helps you not graze on snacks all day.

4. Maintain Your Current Weight

Okay, this one might surprise you. Are you ready?

During a crisis, STOP trying to lose weight. Instead, work to maintain your current weight.

I can already hear the arguments. “But Sara, I’m so overweight it’s unhealthy!” or “But I just gained 15 pounds. I have to get these off, stat!”

Here’s the pattern I see again and again.

Women go into panic mode when they gain a few pounds. Scared, they do whatever they think is necessary to lose weight quickly. They become irrational. They cut their calories so drastically (such as to 1,200 per day) that it’s not something they can sustain.

After a few days, they become overly hungry, feel deprived, and binge.

A month or two later, they come to our Facebook group or email me lamenting that they’ve “done everything and keep gaining weight.” But the truth is that they are overeating sometimes, and that’s why they are gaining weight.

Here’s a better approach. Whatever your weight is today, decide to stay there for the next month. Your job is to stay as close as possible to your current weight. Don’t lose, but don’t gain.

Do this by figuring out how to maintain your calories. (You can use this calorie calculator to guide you.) Then, once you have a month of maintenance under your belt, you can make a realistic plan that involves cutting your calories in a small, sustainable way.

5. Eat Healthy Food & Some Treats

Focus on eating mostly healthy foods, but allow yourself some treats, too. Again, the temptation during a crisis is to eat all the junk food everywhere or cut calories so drastically that no treats are ever allowed.

Neither of these is realistic or able to be maintained long term.

A treat is any food you eat for pleasure instead of nutritional value. It’s okay to include these in your weight loss plan. Becky and I are maintaining a 100-pound weight loss, and we eat treat foods every week and often every day.

We encourage women to eat treats at least 3 times a week in our program and work on how to do that in ways that do not lead to binging on them. If there are foods you know are too dangerous to keep in the house because you’ll eat the whole box or bag, don’t buy those foods right now.

Instead, find foods you enjoy that won’t trigger you to binge. You might not always need to cut out these foods, but for now, it’s a safer strategy. If you do want to eat these foods (like ice cream or chips), plan to eat them away from home or only purchase one portion size.

6. Move Every Day

One of the big things I’ve learned since getting to my goal weight is that exercise is not the be-all and end-all of weight loss. In fact, it really doesn’t help all that much. Yes, it burns calories, but it also increases hunger, so most people eat back anything they burn from physical activity.

However, exercise isn’t just a home remedy for losing weight; it is super-important for other reasons, like heart health, longevity, stopping depression, and more.

During a crisis, I encourage you to make it a goal to move your body every day in some way and, if at all possible, do it outside.

7. Pray.

I know that not everyone who reads our website is Christian (and all are welcome here!), but faith is an integral part of my weight loss journey. This is a spiritual process, and I’ve quickly learned that I must rely on God for strength. I can’t do it on my own.

If you haven’t prayed for weight loss before, here are 30 specific ways to pray for weight loss.

Prayer is an excellent home remedy to lose weight!

I also encourage you to join our free 7 days of weight loss prayers challenge.

Make God the center of your weight loss; you’ll be amazed at your transformation.

Now that you have a plan, weight gain doesn’t have to be part of your quarantine experience. You can come out of this stronger (and lighter) than ever before.

How will you plan to stop gaining weight during the time you spend at home? Share about it in the comments below.

More Weight Loss Articles You Will Love

5 Ways You Self-Sabotage Your Weight Loss (and How to Stop) – Do you try to lose weight only to find yourself sabotaging your own efforts? Do you wonder why you do this? Click here to find out.

7 Christian Weight Loss Affirmations – Use these affirmations to keep God at the center of your weight loss journey. With free printable note cards.

Free Printable Water Tracker – Track your water intake for healthy living.

100 Pound Weight Loss Before and After – Here’s how I lost (and am keeping off) over 100 pounds.

Things I’ve Embarrassed to Tell You About My Weight Loss Journey – Truth time. This is the real deal about my weight loss, even the tough stuff to share.