You say to yourself, “I really want to lose weight!” 

But it’s always been so difficult for you and, well, how can you say this?

NOT FUN AT ALL. 

You’re always having to bunker down and go into full-fledged health mode, which means cutting out any and all sweets.

 You avoid going out to eat with family and friends because you’re afraid it’ll ruin your diet. 

And another thing you’re probably asking yourself…

Why am I so hungry all the time?! 

Basically, weight loss and being in a calorie deficit can be summed up in one word for you…

Miserable. 

Is this normal though?

Are things supposed to be like this?

I come bearing good news.

Things 110% don’t have to be like that and my mission with this article is to show you how to make losing weight fun and something you can actually sustain. 

I’ve put together a list of 7 practical tips for you so let’s get started on taking the suck out of weight loss.

1. Eat the foods you love 

Deprivation and weight loss are like being stuck in an elevator but having to go to the bathroom. 

The two just aren’t a very good combination.

I have this phrase when it comes to dieting:

If you can’t sustain it, you won’t maintain it (Your weight loss results, that is). 

How sustainable is your diet when you cut out all your favorites?

You might be able to stick with things for a little while and lose a little bit of weight.

But then, what happens?

Eventually, you reach a point where it’s like…

SCREW.

THIS.

You end up binging and overeating on all the foods you labeled as a big no-no for weight loss.

So how about a change?

Make weight loss fun and see more progress by dropping the all-or-nothing mentality you have regarding your diet. 

Stop labeling foods as either “good” or “bad” (there is no such thing) and practice moderation by incorporating your favorites into your diet. 

You like pizza?

Well, go ahead and get you a slice or two. 

Does the thought of a burger and fries make your mouth water?

Nothing’s stopping you from placing an order.

Don’t think you could survive in a world without donuts, cookies, or cake? 

You don’t have to because you can fit anything within your calories and still see tremendous progress.

Remember, weight loss just comes down to calories in vs. calories out. 

Consume fewer calories than you burn and you’ll lose weight.

You don’t have to cut out any one food or specific food group (**cough cough carbs **) to achieve that.

The key word in all this is “moderation.”

Say it with me now…

Mo-der-a-tion. 

The 80/20 Rule

This is a good way to practice moderation.

The 80/20 Rule simply says this:

You get 80% of your calories from more nutritious food like chicken breast, egg whites/eggs, sweet potatoes, fruits, veggies, etc.

And then the remaining 20% of your calories can come from your favorite “fun” foods like pizza, burgers, wings, and fries.

You can use this weight loss grocery list I created on your next trip to the store to add some structure to your nutrition and eat a more well-balanced diet that still includes all the foods you love. 

2. Make weight loss fun by reducing hunger

When your hunger levels are higher than Snoop Dogg after a smoke session, you’ll have a difficult time maintaining a calorie deficit. 

Here are a few ways to combat that:

Don’t slash your calories so insanely low.

Eat more than the 1,200-calorie crash diet you’ve tried in the past. 

That’s waaaaay too steep of a calorie deficit.

You wouldn’t feed most toddlers just 1,200 calories so that for sure is nowhere near enough for you as a full-grown adult.

I know you want to lose weight fast and think cutting your calories low is the quickest way to do that but we’re going for what’s sustainable here. 

Sustainable approach = sustainable results. 

So instead of slashing your calories so low, aim for more of a moderate deficit (about a 20% reduction from your maintenance calories).

Eat more protein, fiber, and veggies

You can make weight loss fun and significantly easier by incorporating more protein, fiber, and veggies into your diet.

• Protein: If you want to stay full and satisfied, protein has you covered like an umbrella in the rain. It’s also essential to building and retaining muscle mass. Muscle allows you to burn more calories at rest. Last but not least, another reason to make sure you don’t skip out on the protein is that it speeds up your metabolism. So foods like chicken breast, turkey breast, etc help you burn more calories without you even having to do anything. 
• Fiber: More fiber means you’ll be less constipated, more full, and improve your overall health. The less constipated is pretty self-explanatory. Weight loss-wise, it fills you up (similar to protein). Overall health-wise, here are a couple examples of what eating fiber can do for you: For every 7 grams of fiber you eat, you lower your risk of heart disease by 9%. And for every 10 grams of fiber you eat, you lower your risk of breast cancer by 5%.
• Veggies: They’re high-volume, meaning you can eat A TON of veggies without it costing you that many calories. And from a health perspective, you already know vegetables are good for you.  

Have lower-calorie alternatives of your favorites 

This will allow you to:

Eat more of your favorites for the same amount of calories (thus, making you fuller).

Orrrrr…

You can just eat the regular serving size and save calories (because the lower-calorie version contains fewer calories).

It’s a win for you no matter which way you look at it.

Here’s a list of lower-calorie alternatives to some of your favorite fun foods.

Trust me, some options out there taste like straight-up cardboard mixed with sandpaper so I obviously made sure not to include them on the list 😂 

The options below actually do taste good:

• Bolthouse Farms Condiments & Salad Dressings
• PB2 Peanut Powdered Peanut Butter
• Ole Xtreme Wellness Wraps (large tortillas)
• Live Carb Smart Bread: I’m not telling you to go keto or limit carbs but this bread will save you some calories. This brand also has hamburger and hot dog buns.
• Dannon Light + Fit Greek Yogurt or Oikos Triple Zero Greek Yogurt 
• Gatorade Zero or G2 
• Diet soda
• G. Hughes Sugar-Free BBQ Sauce
• Halo Top Ice Cream
• Egg whites: You can definitely still eat whole eggs (remember, no food is off limits) but if you plan on having 3 eggs, for example, maybe cut back to one and use egg whites to make up for the rest. 
• Turkey sausage
• Turkey bacon 
• Low-fat or fat-free cheese 
• Light mayo 

4. Set realistic goals

If you want a surefire way to NOT make weight loss fun, have unreasonable expectations. 

It’s admirable to have lofty goals but realize you won’t achieve those goals or your dream physique overnight.

Beethoven didn’t become a master composer after a few piano lessons.

Tiger Woods didn’t win a Major Championship after playing a few rounds of golf.

Gordon Ramsay didn’t follow a few recipes and then all of a sudden become a 5-star chef. 

The main point I want to get across to you is that you need to have patience and be consistent over the long haul if you want to see meaningful progress. 

Don’t expect to just snap your fingers and have instantaneous results.

Weight loss is kind of like dropping pebbles in a bucket.

Each day you’re in a calorie deficit, you get to drop one pebble in. 

Any one day by itself obviously won’t seem like a whole lot.

But over time, all the pebbles you’ve dropped in add up to amazing progress. 

When it comes to setting your goals, I would highly encourage you to focus on process goals rather than outcome goals and here’s why…

An outcome goal would be something like “I want to lose 20 pounds by January 1st.” 

The number of pounds you want to lose is the outcome, hence the name “outcome” goals. 

It’s nice to have goals like wanting to lose 10, 20, 30, etc pounds.

But what happens when you don’t reach your goal in the time frame you expect?

Or it’s going slower than you’d like?

You get disappointed.

You get frustrated.

You become discouraged. 

You go down this rabbit hole of “Maybe this whole weight loss thing just isn’t in the cards for me.”

And that’s not a very fun or productive way to look at things.

Process goals, on the other hand, are things like:

I will strength train three times per week and focus on applying progressive overload.

Or…

I will shoot for between 7,500 and 10,000 steps every single day.

When you focus on process goals, there’s no stress or pressure of having to achieve a certain outcome in a certain time frame. 

The cool thing is that when you focus on being consistent with process goals the outcome goals you have end up taking care of themselves.

You may not lose the weight in the EXACT time frame you want but consistency leads to progress and progress leads to long-term results.

So the weight WILL come off, there’s no question about that.

You just have to be consistent and trust the process and all the hard work you put in.

5. Stop trying to perfect

You don’t make weight loss fun when you expect perfection out of yourself. 

It’s similar to setting unrealistic goals…

Do you think it’s realistic to be on top of your nutrition 100% of the time?

Do you think it’s reasonable to expect yourself to never miss a workout?

You don’t think there will be a day when, for whatever reason, you have to skip the cardio session you had planned?  

Things aren’t always going to go 100% how you want them to.

When you expect perfection, you’re guaranteed to just end up feeling deflated because no one can be perfect on this weight loss journey.

But good thing weight loss doesn’t come down to being perfect.

As I’ve mentioned, it comes down to being consistent.

Take comfort in knowing that results are produced by what you do most of the time, not all the time.

If you binge one weekend and go over your calories, don’t freak out and feel like you’ve erased all your progress (You definitely haven’t).

Get it out of your head you have to exercise super hard to “make up” for what you ate.

One weekend of not-so-good eating won’t undo all the progress you’ve made, the same way one weekend of being 100% on point with your diet won’t make you skinny, lean, or super ripped. 

Wanna know what you do in a situation like that?

You dust yourself off and hop back in the saddle, keeping in mind that consistency (not perfection) drives results.  

6. Have a plan

If someone made a soup guaranteed to not make losing weight fun, failing to have a plan would be one of the main ingredients. 

Don’t make the mistake of trying to just wing it all the time like a comedian at an improv show. 

You need directions to get to where you’re going if you want to actually, well…

GET THERE.

Imagine this:

You’re standing on one side of a valley and your weight loss goals are on the other side.

How will you get across to your goals?

You build a plan and use that as a bridge.  

Your plan can’t just be “I’m going to eat healthy and workout a little to lose weight.”

You need to have specific steps to take and measures in place if you actually want to achieve your goals.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• How many calories will I eat per day and how will I keep track? Will I use an app like MyFitnessPal or just keep track manually? 

• Will I use refeed days while in a deficit? 

• How many times per week will I workout? How often will I switch up my workout routine?

• When will I go grocery shopping each week and meal prep?

• How will I navigate weekends so that I can prevent weekend binging? 

Those are just a few examples but you get the idea of what kinds of things go into creating a successful plan.

7. Sleep, sleep, sleep

If you want to make losing weight fun, start sleeping like a koala.

Okay, maybe don’t go that far but odds are, you’re not getting the amount of sleep you should be to optimize your weight loss results.

When you don’t get enough sleep, it does two primary things:

1.) You increase hunger hormones (like ghrelin) and decrease hormones that make you feel full (like leptin and peptide YY). 

That’s a recipe for overeating and then, ultimately, weight gain.

2.) You’ll be more tired, fatigued, and you’ll have less energy. 

Less energy = workout performance slippage. 

You get to the gym and an hour-long workout seems like an eternity.

The amount of weight you normally lift now feels like you’re carrying the weight of the entire world on your shoulders.

When you’re not performing well in the gym and getting the most out of your workouts, progress suffers. 

You aren’t able to build or maintain the muscle you need to lose as much fat as possible and give your physique that toned and more defined look. 

You new parents out there, I know the ideal 7-9 hours of sleep each night is a total pipe dream.

But just try to get as much sleep as you can.

Even if you can only eke out 30 minutes to an hour more, something is ALWAYS better than nothing and it can make a sizable difference. 

Wrapping up how to make losing weight fun 

Weight loss and feeling miserable don’t have to be one and the same.

But that’s something you already know after reading about the ways to make losing weight fun we covered in this post. 

From incorporating your favorite foods in moderation to having a plan and setting realistic goals (process > outcome ones), you can make your weight loss struggles a thing of the distant past.

And if you ever need a refresher, just come right back here for some inspiration and motivation about what you can do to make weight loss fun!

Until next time ✌🏾