As a health and wellness professional, I help people to prevent or manage chronic illnesses and diseases by implementing lifestyle modifications. What people tend to forget is that being obese is considered a chronic disease. Decreasing your body fat is essential to improve the quality and longevity of your lifespan. In the United States, 40.3% of our population is considered obese.
If you want to change your body composition in 2025, the first step is to improve your daily lifestyle habits. This method is inexpensive, doesn’t require a trip to the doctor’s, and helps your body restore natural function without the side effects of other methods to help you lose excess body fat.
My goal for this post is to show why achieving weight loss is more than just calories in vs. out. Also, there needs to be a mindset that should be switched from the scale to changes in body composition. As someone who has always had more muscle than the average woman, I have always been labeled as overweight because of my scale weight, but healthy since my body fat percentage is at 25%. The traditional mindset of “losing weight” by paying attention to the number on the scale must be thrown in the trash, and the new way of measuring progress needs to be in how your clothes feel.
If you have the goal of decreasing your body fat, then you need to think about why you have this goal in the first place. The reason is that when you have a reason as to why you want to decrease your body fat, this will continue to keep you motivated. Hence, I created my hoodies that state, “Remember Your Why,” to help people stay motivated mentally. Weight loss goals are mentally challenging because I have seen time and time again when I have clients step on that scale, and they see their weight has stayed the same, it has only gone down 1 pound in a month, or maybe it even went up how defeated those clients are emotionally. Don’t be upset when you have worked to change your lifestyle habits, but the scale doesn’t show this accomplishment. The scale is the devil when it comes to helping people feel good about the effort they have put into implementing a healthy lifestyle. This is why I became a certified nutrition and health coach to educate people on shifting their mindset to non-scale victories they have achieved and that true progress is measured in a change of body composition as the scale means absolutely nothing.
As you embark on your weight loss journey this year, please consider your willingness to change your daily habits and how many habits you will change at once. Most people think that they can handle a complete overhaul and change all of their habits at once. Some succeed in the short term but give up quickly because they feel restricted in what they can and can not do to achieve their results. Long-lasting results and the demise of yo-yo body changes occur when you focus on one habit at a time. This method works because clients can understand how changing their habits helps them to feel better daily, how they can moderate the “bad habits” to include in their lifestyle and control them for long-term success.
Long-term weight loss is achieved by shifting your mindset away from the scale. When I complete consultations with weight loss clients, they are completely blown away because they have been misguided throughout their journey. Other methods only work for the short term, hinder your body’s normal functions, and cause more harm than good, which means you end up right back where you started with your weight loss goals.
I have helped clients learn why they haven’t been able to lose weight before, that their mindset should be focused on body composition change, and that losing only 1-2 lbs per week rather than 10 in one for long-lasting change is great progress. Weight loss is very challenging mentally, emotionally, and physically. Our society has made it way more expensive and overwhelming when it has to be, but I’m telling you, there is a simpler way.
One of the key components to achieving a long-lasting weight loss goal is to have a personalized nutrition plan. The reason being is because each and every one of us have a different BMR. BMR stands for basal metabolic rate and is directly correlated to lean body mass. I have yet to meet with a client who has the exact same BMR as another. BMR is the biggest contributor to your total daily energy expenditure and is the bare minimum amount of calories you should intake in a day. I have shown so many clients that the main reason they aren’t able to change their body composition when they are following a diet that is in a caloric deficit is because that deficit is below their BMR and is putting their body into survival mode which makes them accumulate more body fat rather than lose it.
Our bodies need all three essential macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. They are called essential because our bodies can not create these nutrients internally; they must be received by the foods we consume. Protein needs are based on weight and lifestyle, carbohydrate intake needs are based on lifestyle and fat needs are based on what is left in the daily caloric intake after calculating protein and carbohydrates. Protein and carbohydrates are the frontrunners for weight loss goals.
Once you have your personalized nutrition plan, it’s easy to break it down into four individual meals to fuel yourself throughout the day and complete your weekly meal plan.
When implementing fitness for weight loss, the focus must be on strength training. Strength training helps you increase your lean body mass, which increases your fat-burning rate at rest. You should complete two days of traditional strength training and one HIIT session per week for total body fat loss. Cardio can be implemented on off days to maintain cardiovascular health and keep your daily movement in check.
To make sure that you are on track with your weight loss goals, it is best practice to keep a log somewhere to make sure you are continuing to overload your muscles and fuel your body with what it needs to shed the fat. I am not an advocate for logging your food long-term, but it is great to start your weight loss journey this way to let the data guide you through your personalized nutrition plan. If you don’t log your journey, then you are walking into it blind, expecting to see changes, but you might be disappointed in the end. Logging can also help your coach make changes based on the data to further personalize your plan to guarantee results.
This is why my clients receive all of my programs through my app. They can follow the program easily, which provides accountability and guidance. I also collect data so that when we have their progress calls, I can make suggestions to see consistent change.
Change is always a journey with ebbs and flows, but the important thing is to stay consistent or to get back on track when life events disrupt your schedule. To help you throughout your journey, I recommend hiring a wellness coach or finding a buddy to go through this journey with you. The process is less mentally, emotionally, and physically overwhelming when you have someone to guide you. When those setbacks do happen, remember that you can only control yourself and get back on track when you can. It’s always about progress, not perfection.
Remember that this journey is more than just calories in vs. calories out to change your body composition. You need to ensure that you have good sleep hygiene, healthy stress management coping skills, and good hydration, as all of these can also contribute to slowing down your progress. This journey is not just about improving your physical health with personalized nutrition and exercise but also your mental and emotional health, which is why I call myself a wellness coach instead of just a trainer. Figuring out how to put together your personal wellness puzzle is key to achieving not just your body composition goals but overall well-being. Your health is more than just aesthetics; it is about learning what makes you happy and who you are. Everyone’s journey is completely different, so I create customized programs for my clients to follow instead of cookie-cutter programs that tend to be purchased but never completed.
Now that I have laid out all of the necessary tools to achieve your body composition goals, it’s not time for you to reflect on your journey in 2025. Start with habits you are ready to change now and then slowly build on top of them to completely rebuild your daily lifestyle. The best part is that you are completely in control of what this looks like and that, in the end, you have created a version that is sustainable for you to continue with for the rest of your life.
As always, I am here for a complimentary initial consultation at any time to help you figure out your personalized plan. Feel free to also go over to my programs page to check out my Comprehensive Health Transformation Program, My 6-week Lean Bod Program that is just a click away to get started, or read more in my Guide to Weight Loss that gives you access to my Masterclass for free with your purchase to ask me questions directly.
Good Luck in 2025!
Cheers,
Coach Lynde