5 Easy Hacks to Lose Weight (without the gym)

As hard as it can seem, there are a myriad of different ways one can lose weight. There are many weight loss tricks or hacks out there Below is an old old picture of my progress with weight loss.

While I always recommend tracking your macros to completely understand how to manage your food consumption, the principles below are great to see some initial progress –

Hack #1 – Skip a Meal

The underlying condition behind fat loss is a basic caloric deficit. What this means is that to maintain our weight, we have to eat a certain number of calories per day. Those, are our maintenance calories. To lose weight, there needs to be a reduction in those calories. That’s it. It’s literally that simple. Though this is easier said than done.

Imagine this as a regular day for you –

Meal 1 (Breakfast) – 500 calories

Meal 2 (Snack) – 300 calories

Meal 3 (Lunch) – 500 calories

Meal 4 (Snack) – 200 calories

Meal 5 (Dinner) – 500 calories

Total – 2000 calories (Again, this is just an example. Your day could look completely different.)

What I’m recommending is skipping any ONE of these meals. You could substitute this with a zero/low calorie replacement. What I would do is replace breakfast with simple black coffee with Splenda and almond milk or replace any snacks with zero calorie drinks like a Diet Coke. Then, for example, your day would look like this. This works if you skip breakfast –

Meal 1 (Breakfast) – 0 calories

Meal 2 (Snack) – 300 calories

Meal 3 (Lunch) – 500 calories

Meal 4 (Snack) – 200 calories

Meal 5 (Dinner) – 500 calories

Total – 1500 calories

At a deficit of 500 calories/day, you’d stand to begin losing weight pretty easily. As an alternative to this method, you could try Hack #2.

Hack #2 – Replace a meal

If the above method seems a tad bit too extreme for you, there’s a pretty simple alternative. Let’s use the same example for a typical day from the last hack –

Meal 1 (Breakfast) – 500 calories

Meal 2 (Snack) – 300 calories

Meal 3 (Lunch) – 500 calories

Meal 4 (Snack) – 200 calories

Meal 5 (Dinner) – 500 calories

Total – 2000 calories

Now, imagine replacing those snacks or a meal with lower calorie alternatives. I recommend doing a protein shake as a replacement. My recommendation is ON Gold Standard if you’re not lactose intolerant. If you are, they have a pea protein version as well. The pea protein is slightly higher in calories but not by much.

Another recommendation is fruit. Whatever you like as long as it’s a controlled portion.

Now this is what a day with the replacements look like –

Meal 1 (Breakfast) – 120 Calories (ON Protein Shake)

Meal 2 (Snack) – 300 calories

Meal 3 (Lunch) – 500 calories

Meal 4 (Snack) – 95 calories (An apple)

Meal 5 (Dinner) – 500 calories

Total – 1515 calories

With some simple adjustments, we were able to achieve a very similar deficit. If neither of these methods seem to fit, let’s move on to…

Hack #3 – Get more steps in

Moving away from food for a second (don’t know if I ever could), let try to fit some exercise into our day. I’m not talking about the gym though. I promised I’d keep this gym free and I intend to keep that promise. Though, just adding in a few extra steps a day could make a huge dent in that calorie deficit we need.

I’d recommend getting a fitness tracker and tracking your steps. There’re many options out there. I use an Apple Watch but any other device would probably be just as good.

The whole idea is to burn more calories so I would make a conscious effort to just add in steps to any part of your daily routine where you could. Examples of this are –

1. Walking your dog
2. Walking to get groceries
3. Taking a walk in the morning as soon as you get up
4. Walking more around your work space
5. Going on walks with your partner

The more steps you can add in, the more calories you’ll burn. For our next hack, let’s get back to food for a bit (thank god) –

Hack #4 – Identify what you can Replace

It’s time to take a microscope and take a look at our food habits. Let’s take me for example. I absolutely love Starbucks. It’s actually part of my daily routine. I always grab a cup on my way to my office. Starbucks has a variety of options. Let’s take a look at 2 options I’m presented with when I walk through their doors –

Option #1 – Venti Chocolate Cookie Crumble Creme Frappuccino

Total – 550 Calories

Or…..

Option #2 – Tall Cafe Latte with Splenda as desired

Total – 110 calories

I obviously choose the latte every time. What I’m encouraging you to do here is to make smart choices whenever you can. While that can be applied to life in general, I sincerely mean it in the context of our food. If you’re eating out, research the food options in advance. If there’s something you eat everyday, analyze it with a microscope. See if you can make some smart substitutions.

Hack #5 – Audit and Control your Fridge

This actually builds upon my love of habits. This is also something James Clear talks about in his book “Atomic Habits”. Brilliant book and one I highly recommend if you’re looking to improve your habits.

As my final hack, I recommend going to your fridge and taking out every high calorie temptation you have in there. Remove access to the temptation and the temptation ceases to exist.

When you go out shopping, make a list. Then, go ahead and buy only from that list. This saves you time, money and calories.

Make sure that your home is free of any big calorie dense foods. It is of vital importance that you take smart decisions about what you bring into your home.

That’s it for this post. If you want daily tips and tricks for fitness, mindfulness and relationships follow us on Instagram!

lose weight. lose weight.