Are you looking for a home remedy to lose weight? Follow these 7 simple, do-able steps and you’ll be back on track before you know it.
As I’m writing this post, we are several months into the orders to stay at home due to the coronavirus. Now, things are starting to open up again but with limitations. Most people are still staying home the majority of the time, and when we go out things look different.
Have you gained weight while under stay at home orders due to shelter at home orders? Now is the time to stop quarantine weight gain and get back to your healthy living goals.
How Can I Reduce My Weight At Home?
Just because you are spending 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 eating few calories than you burn. So while none of these will solve your weight issues on its own, adding them together can be powerful in helping you eat fewer calories over the course of time.
- 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.
- Stock up on healthy foods and snacks. Junk food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. Keep healthy foods on hand and processed foods out of the house.
- Limit your sugar intake. Sugar is empty calories you body doesn’t need. Many people find that they lose weight simply by cutting back on sugar.
- Drink water. When you are well-hydrated, you are less likely to overeat.
- 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.
- Limit refined carbs. While most people do not need to go on a low carb or keto diet, most of us do need to cut back on processed, white flour carbohydrates. Focus on including whole grains like brown rice and quinoa.
- 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.
- 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.
- Track what you eat. Research shows that keeping a food log will help you lose more weight than most any other activity. Try Weight Watchers or an app like My Fitness Pal.
- 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 During Quarantine?
When we first started quarantine, there were a lot of jokes flying around like how everyone is “gaining the Covid 19” or the “quarantine 15”.
Why are people gaining weight during quarantine?
You may be stuck at home and anxious. You weren’t going out so you are 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.
In some places in the world, healthy produce wasn’t available and the strange feeling of seeing empty shelves may have led you to pounce on buying chips and cookies before they were all gone.
Gyms and other fitness locations were closed. Maybe you were getting less exercise and even more so, less daily life activity since you weren’t walking into the office, around shopping, or to the local coffee shop.
All of these can lead to overeating and gaining weight.
Weight Gained During Quarantine is No Laughing Matter
For many of us, weight gain is no laughing matter. Sure the jokes are funny and it helps to share and know we aren’t alone.
A few extra pounds might not seem like a big deal to most people. They figure they’ll lose the weight once life returns to come kind of normal.
But if you struggle with unwanted pounds, you know that 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 maintain 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 I did 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?
When the quarantine first hit, I’ll be the first to say I struggled with food. Added to the coronavirus 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 is back down again 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 do be mindful of how each small choice adds up to a bigger long-term result.
Crisis-Proof Your Weight Loss
Because we believe so much in the importance of this, my business partner, Becky (who has also lost 100 pounds) and I put together several resources to help you stop gaining weight during crisis situations. This could be the current situation with Covid or other life crisis that happen.
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 time of crisis so that you don’t derail your healthy goals.
Back on Track Checklist – If you are a binge eater, this checklist will help you with 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 sheltered at home? Are current events in the world 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 and then overeating later, and increased stress eating.
When the coronavirus hit, schools closed, and we were all told to stay home, one of the first things I did was develop a structure and schedule for myself and my family. We have children with special needs and I’ve learned from years of parenting them that they need firm structure and routine.
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 to lose 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 ahead. Don’t allow the current situation to be an excuse not to plan meals.
If you prefer a done-for-you plan, check out our 7 Day Basic Weight Watchers meal plan or we highly recommend Once a Month Meals for help with batch or freezer cooking.
3. Track Your Food
I’m a firm believer 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 and we teach women to track 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 to lose 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 get it off 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 you’ll stay there for the next month. Your job is to stay as close as you can to your current weight. Don’t lose, but don’t gain.
Do this by figuring out your calories to maintain. (You can use this calorie calculator to guide you.) Then, once you have a month of maintaining under your belt, you can make a realistic plan that involves cutting your calories in a small way that is sustainable.
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 either eat all the junk food everywhere or to 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 are eating for pleasure instead of nutritional value. It’s okay to include these in your weight loss plan. Both 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 we 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 on them. 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 that you will eat them away from home or only purchase 1 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 end-all-be-all to weight loss. In fact, it really doesn’t help all that much at all. 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 to lose weight, exercise 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.
When the coronavirus hit, I made a goal that I would get outside every single day. Living in Western New York where we had snow into mid-May this wasn’t always easy, but I’ve kept to my commitment. Sometimes it was just a 5-minute walk up and down the block, but in some way each day I’ve left the house to move my body and enjoy nature and it’s amazing how much it’s improved my mood.
7. Pray.
I know that not everyone who reads our website is Christian (and all are welcome here!), but for me, 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, click here to learn about how to pray for weight loss and here are 30 specific ways to pray for you weight loss.
Prayer is a great 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 and you’ll be amazed at your transformation.
Home Remedy To Lose Weight Checklist Printable
Download this free checklist to get back on track with your healthy living goals during quarantine or any type of life crisis.
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Now that you have a plan in place, weight gain doesn’t have to be part of your quarantine experience. In fact, you can come out of this stronger (and lighter) than ever before.
How will you stop gaining weight during the stay at home orders? Share about it in the comments below.
More Weight Loss Articles You Will Love
A Coronavirus Prayer – Use this prayer to find God’s peace during COVID-19.
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 the story of 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 stuff that’s tough to share.
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