How to Lose 50 Pounds and Completely Transform Your Life

January 16, 2014 By Tony Schober, CPT 2 Comments

50 pounds is a huge weight loss milestone. Losing that much weight will forever change your life. Here’s how to be the person you always knew you could be.

Manage Your Time Expectations

Losing 50 pounds is going to take time. It’s not going to take 1 month, 2 months, or even 5 months. If you’re not OK with that, then you should go ahead and stop reading now, and continue doing what never works for you. However, if you’re ready to change your life, I’m about to show you the basis of what needs to be done to accomplish that lofty but reachable goal.
1 year. That’s how long it’s going to take you to lose 50 pounds the right way. That’s about 1 pound of weight loss per week. It’s possible to lose the weight faster, but it takes time to create new habits and learn about your body.
Sometimes weeks will go by without any weight loss. It will take some experimenting with various calorie intakes, activity levels, and eating patterns to find what best works for you and your lifestyle. You must be patient.

Change Your Mindset

It’s time to starting acting like the person you’re going to be. I realize you don’t know who this person is going to be yet, but losing 50 pounds is going to change you more than just on the outside. The way you think, act, and feel is also going to radically change.
Being fit and healthy is a state of mind. Your physique is a result of your thoughts and actions. Your goal then should not be to focus on your physique, but instead focus on your decision making process, your fitness education, your habits, your relationship with food, and what keeps you motivated.
This is what’s going to help you lose 50 pounds and keep it off. Your success is not going to lie in the details. It’s going to lie in the main 20% of your efforts that will get you 80% of your results [1].

Remove the Word “Diet” From Your Vocabulary

Attempting to lose weight by following yet another diet is not what’s going to help you lose 50 pounds. There’s a reason why diets haven’t worked out for you so far, and it’s not because you haven’t found the right one. Diets can be effective for short-term weight loss, but are flawed in so many ways.
Start replacing the word “diet” with the phrase “lifestyle change“. The latter is going to be what gets you to your goal. Remember, it’s your current lifestyle that made you who you are today, and it’s changing this lifestyle that’s going to get you to where you want to be.

Say Goodbye To the Cardio Section

Your first inclination is going to be to want to jump on the cardio equipment, go running, or so some other kind of steady-state cardio activity. Don’t do it. The cardio machines are not essential to your weight loss success. However, strength training is.
Strength training is what’s going to transform your body when you pair it with proper nutrition. Strength training will be what builds muscle so that you have muscle tone and definition once your body fat gets low enough. Strength training is what’s going to boost your metabolism at all hours of the day.
There is a place for traditional cardio training, but it shouldn’t be the priority of your weight loss program. It is to be used as a tool for creating an energy deficit.

Slowly Create New Healthy Eating Habits

This is where the magic happens. Change is the hardest aspect of weight loss, and it happens through a period of transition. Change isn’t sudden. You don’t just flip a switch and become a different person. You slowly and methodically take small steps in the direction you want to go. Eventually, a snowball effect happens and your lifestyle transition becomes complete.
Work on changing 1-2 of your eating habits at a time. Focus solely on these goals and make an action plan to accomplish them. Trying to lose 50lbs is a lot harder than trying to drink an extra glass of water each day. Losing 50 pounds is going to come from the accumulation of many of these smaller action goals.
Once each of these new changes becomes habit, it’s time to move on to the next change. Make these changes as big or small as necessary. Just make sure you block out the noise and focus only on that one single goal.

Focus On Food Quality Over Quantity For the Time Being

One of the first pieces of information prospective weight losers set off to find out is how many calories they should eat to lose weight. Now, this is very good information to have, but it’s not always necessary to have this number in hand.
An initial 50 pound weight loss is not the same as losing the last 10 pounds. The latter will require you to dial in your calorie intake so that you can manipulate that final bit of fat off your body. The prior can mostly be lost simply by changing the types of foods you’re eating.
By making a shift from eating calorie dense processed foods to a diet that is 80% nutrient dense whole foods, you end up creating a calorie deficit automatically. Whole foods are packed with fiber, water, and nutrients, and therefore fill you up and manage your blood glucose levels better. Eating less than you previously were is a side effect of healthful eating.
Focusing your efforts on these basic steps: being patient with your weight loss; changing your mindset; prioritizing strength training over cardio; slowly creating new habits, and eating more quality food will get you to your 50 pound weight loss goal. Don’t concern yourself with the confusing details, and this time next year you will be a completely different person.