Losing Weight Naturally Without Exercise: How I Lost My First 30 Pounds

In my last post, I shared the emotional side of my journey- how I got to my highest weight, what it felt like, and what finally pushed me to make a change.

Today, I want to walk you through what I did to lose the weight. This post is all about what actually worked for me. I didn’t follow a diet or cut out my favorite foods. I wasn’t even able to exercise. What I did was start small, stay consistent, and build habits that worked for me. These are the changes that helped me lose my first 30 pounds naturally.

The Journey To Losing 30 Pounds Naturally

I didn’t lose 30 pounds by following “a plan” given to me or cutting out foods. It was about me figuring out what worked for me.

When I first started this weight loss journey, I knew that dieting would not work. I had known that for years by this point. I had dieted so much of my life and I was done with it. While I had lost 40 pounds years before, this time was different. This time around I was a mom and had limited time. I decided that I wanted to seek out some structure… so at first I tried two different approaches that claimed to be “lifestyle changes and NOT a diet.”

The first approach had me measuring food in color-coded containers, and telling me how much of different types of foods to have in a day. The second approach was all about plating food in a very specific way, controlling when and in what amounts I could eat carbs, and following a bunch of other rules. Neither worked to help me build a lifestyle change, and shocker, I didn’t lose a single pound. Whether they called themselves “lifestyles” or not, they definitely felt like diets to me.

That’s when I realized something important: I needed to create a structure that worked for my life.

How I Lost My First 10 Pounds

The first real shift I made was starting to meal prep. Before, I would just eat small snacks throughout the day- a lot of the time, eating whatever my daughter didn’t finish instead of sitting down for a full meal. I had to realize that I was worth taking the time to make and eat a full meal.

Changing My Mindset Around Eating Out

I also cut down on eating out. I did not eliminate it, but I just changed my mindset around it. I wouldn’t just eat out because it was convenient. If I wanted to have a meal out, I would but I wouldn’t let it be a default choice because it was easy and I didn’t feel like making a meal. That’s how my weekly sushi night tradition started. To this day, it’s one of the only times I eat out and I truly love it! If life happens and I need a quick meal on the go, I will allow myself to eat out, but it’s no longer a habit.

Making Meal Prep A Weekly Habit

Meal prepping became something I did every week, which helped me stay consistent without having to think about what my next meal would be all the time.

The First 10 Pounds

The first 10 pounds did not come off quickly, but they did come off. This was proof to me that I was on the right track.

How I Lost My Next 20 Pounds

Learning How To Balance My Meals

The biggest game changer in my journey was learning how to balance out my meals in a healthy way.

Before I was eating healthy foods, but I didn’t know how to make a balanced meal. Most of my meals were too carb heavy or too fat heavy, and most didn’t have nearly enough protein. I was eating healthy foods, but I had no real balance.

Once I learned how to build a balanced plate with protein, carbs, fat, and fiber everything became easier.

• I felt more satisfied with my meals, instead of constantly needing a snack.
• I had more energy and I wasn’t constantly feeling jittery.
• Eating healthy started to feel simple, instead of something that I had to overthink.

Instead of always guessing, stressing out, and overcomplicating my meals, making a meal for myself was no longer stressful.

Listening To My Body

I also learned to listen to my body. Instead of waiting until I was starving to eat, I started learning to recognize early hunger signals so I wouldn’t find myself overly hungry, potentially overeating at the next meal because of it. I started being very intentional about bringing snacks and meals with me when I left the house, so I wouldn’t end up getting way too hungry or just eating out because I didn’t have food with me.

Using Food Tracking As A Tool: Not As A Way To Restrict Myself

At a certain point after I had lost close to 20 pounds, I felt like I could do more to potentially to lose more weight a little bit faster, even though I was making progress. While I was losing weight, it was very, very slow. I was okay with this as long as I was making progress, but I felt like if there was something simple that I could do to make that progress even better, I wanted to try it. That’s when I decided to start tracking my food, not as a way to restrict myself, but as a way of tracking my daily habits when it came to my eating. I wanted to see if there were areas that I could improve, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions that I could have made.

Tracking helped me gain a clear picture of what I was eating and how it all added up calorie-wise. It showed me where I needed more protein, where I was eating too little or too much, and where I could potentially make adjustments to help me achieve my goal, while still feeling satisfied.

Staying Consistent Through An Injury

The timing could not have been better, because about a week into tracking my food, I got injured. I was completely sedentary and in a boot, unable to move around much. During this time, it was important to me to focus on what I could control, which was my nutrition. Tracking helped me continue my progress even though I was forced to be completely sedentary. It kept me aware of what I was eating and allowed me to make intentional choices and continued to prove to me that nutrition could take me far in this journey.

Not Restricting Calories: Just Being Sure To Stay Balanced Through It All

One thing that I was firm on when I started tracking was that I would not restrict food. Just because I was more sedentary than I was before, I still vowed to never put myself in a situation where I was doing something that, long-term, would be unsustainable for me. Instead of eating less, I focused on continuing to eat balanced meals that made me feel my best, while tracking my food daily to make sure that I was not overeating or emotionally eating because of my circumstance.

Simplifying Meal Prep

I also started incorporating more vegetables into my meals and focused on making meal prep not just a must, but something I simplified a lot. While meal prep was non-negotiable from the beginning for me, I was still spending way too much time prepping and making meals that took way too long to make. I was recreating recipes that I found online from blogs, Instagram, and YouTube that were not realistic for my life, because they took way too long to make and used way too many ingredients.

I realized that I had to simplify the way that I prepped and cooked daily meals. I stopped making intricate recipes during the week and saved those fun recipes for the weekends when I had time and wanted to invest that time in that way.

I shared what my meals looked like for a full day using meal prep here.

Batch Prepping

Another thing that helped me simplify the way I ate was batch prepping different foods that I enjoyed. This allowed me to cut down my time in the kitchen and still have variety in my meals. Once I simplified my prep, things became even more sustainable.

These Habits Made A Big Difference

All of these changes together helped me lose my next 20 pounds. With them, I developed a way of eating that actually fit my life, that I could stick with happily.

Just The Beginning…

The first 30 pounds is just the beginning for me. I am proud of how far I have come, but I know there is a lot more ahead. What matters though is that I am building a lifestyle that works for me- one that I can keep up with long-term. If your journey is anything like mine, progress won’t be fast, but consistency will get you to your goal, one day at a time.