Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! It's common for brides-to-be to want to look and feel their best on their big day. Over 70% of engaged women feel the need to lose weight before their wedding, aiming to shed around 7 to 10 kilos on average. While it's tempting to seek quick fixes, sustainable strategies are key to achieving your goals in a healthy way. This article provides doctor-approved wedding weight loss options, from lifestyle shifts to medical support.
Start Early and Plan Ahead
Losing weight gradually sets you up for long-term success. Starting a few months before the wedding allows ample time to make gradual changes and avoid crash diets. Think of bridal prep as your preseason strength training, just as athletes prepare off-season to stay strong and eat well. It’s a good idea for brides to plan ahead and do the same.
Set Realistic Goals
When it comes to weight loss, it's important to set realistic goals. Fad wedding diets may seem tempting when you’re desperate to squeeze into your grandmother’s wedding dress. There’s a lot of pressure to look good walking down the aisle, but a wedding crash diet and other extreme measures can backfire. Low-calorie diets or extreme fat loss plans may promise quick results, but however far fewer calories can be harmful to your health and lead to yo-yo dieting. Instead, anchor your progress with smaller, achievable goals - like cooking dinner at home three or more nights a week or hitting a certain number of steps a day for a week. Smaller wins can build momentum and confidence.
Prioritize Nutrient-Rich Foods
A balanced and nutritious diet is the foundation of any successful weight loss plan. Instead of chasing the “perfect“ wedding diet (spoiler: it doesn’t exist), practice portion control and aim to build meals around whole foods. Make sure your meal plan includes plenty of whole grains, lean protein, healthy fats, and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Aim for 5 to 9 servings of fruit and vegetables each day. Avoid or limit foods that are high in added sugars, unhealthy fats, and processed foods. You already know that highly processed junk foods are the worst foods for weight reduction. The issue is that these foods are often high in added sugar, refined wheat, and trans fats.
Protein, in particular, plays a key role. It can help you feel full longer and preserve lean muscle while you lose fat - both of which are helpful for lasting weight management. Increase your intake of lean and omega-3-rich proteins such as turkey, eggs, and seafood. Eat lean proteins and low-carb vegetables, which are extremely gratifying and beneficial for a shorter length of time. Including low-carb vegetables in your diets, such as spinach, broccoli, and cabbage, can help you get amazing results with less effort.
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Stay Hydrated
Drinking enough water and staying hydrated is crucial for weight loss and is part of any healthy diet plan. Drinking water helps keep you hydrated, aids digestion, and can even help curb your appetite. Water removes toxins from your body and will help rejuvenate your tissues. There is considerable evidence that increased water intake leads to weight loss. That is because adequate hydration can change eating behavior by helping to regulate appetite, leading to fewer calories consumed. Adequate hydration can also help improve metabolism and reduce body fat. Drink 12C water per day.
Don't overlook what you drink. It’s not just alcohol, nonalcoholic drinks from lattes to colas can also lead your calorie count to creep up. Avoid drinking sodas and juices high in sugar content.
Incorporate Physical Activity
A healthy diet and regular exercise is essential for weight loss. Find an workout routine that you enjoy, whether it's brisk walking, jogging, swimming, dancing, or yoga, and aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week. Don't forget to add strength training exercises to your fitness program to help build lean muscle mass and boost your metabolism. Research suggests that combining strength training and cardio is especially effective for fat loss. Beyond structured exercise, you can try incorporating more general movement into your day, like a morning walk or doing physical chores (think yard work or tidying up the house).
Simple Exercises to Incorporate:
- Brisk Walking: Walking is a low-impact exercise that can be easily incorporated into your daily routine. Aim for brisk walking, where you're walking at a faster pace and breaking a sweat.
- Jumping Rope: Jumping rope is a fun and effective cardiovascular exercise that can help you burn calories and improve your coordination. It can be done anywhere, and all you need is a skipping rope.
- Bodyweight Exercises: Bodyweight exercises are simple yet effective for building strength and toning muscles. Some examples include push-ups, squats, lunges, and planks. You can do these exercises at home or at the gym, and they require little to no equipment.
- Dancing: Dancing is not only a fun way to celebrate, but it's also a great form of exercise. Whether it's taking a dance class, hitting the dance floor at a club, or dancing in the comfort of your own home, dancing can help you burn calories and tone your muscles.
- HIIT Workouts: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts are short, intense workouts that can help you burn calories and boost your metabolism. They typically involve a combination of cardiovascular exercises and bodyweight exercises performed in quick succession with short rest periods in between.
Remember to always consult with a healthcare professional or a certified fitness trainer before starting any exercise routine, especially if you have any health concerns or limitations. It's important to listen to your body, start at your own fitness level, and gradually progress to avoid injuries.
Manage Stress
Planning a wedding can be stressful, and stress can impact your weight loss efforts. Dealing with seating charts and caterers can interfere with your sleep and trigger hormones that increase fat levels. Stress and panic are two of the leading causes of binge eating, which results in weight gain and may hinder or halt your weight-reduction efforts. Prioritize self-care and make time for activities that bring you joy and help you unwind. Throughout the weight loss and wedding planning process, try to speak to yourself with kindness, even on days when you fall short of your goals. Progress isn’t linear, and your worth isn’t tied to a number on the scale. While easier said than done, it’s essential to find ways to look after your mental health and unwind regularly, whether that’s through mindfulness and meditation, journaling, or simply saying no more often to carve out some me time. If you’re noticing anxiety bubbling up, it could also be worth seeking therapy.
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Get Enough Sleep
Sleep plays a crucial role in weight loss and overall health. Sleep seven to nine hours per night or until you feel well-rested. Sleep deprivation is associated with higher rates of obesity. Lack of sleep can disrupt your hormones, increase cravings for unhealthy foods, and affect your mental health and energy levels. Aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep a night.
Seek Support
Losing weight can be challenging, and having a support system can make a big difference. Consider enlisting the help of a registered dietitian, a personal trainer, or a workout buddy who can provide guidance, motivation, and accountability. With Hers, you can get access to monthly check-ins with your provider to evaluate your progress. They offer tools to track your weight loss progress, water intake, protein intake, and more. They also have over 100 healthy meal plans and recipes developed with nutritionists, behavior-change tools, bite-sized lessons, and expert guidance on fitness, sleep, nutrition, and stress reduction. You will have ongoing access to and unlimited messaging with your care team.
Be Kind to Yourself
Remember that weight loss is a journey, and there may be setbacks along the way. Be kind to yourself and practice self-compassion. Setbacks are normal when trying to change habits of a lifetime. Accept this, and it will help you have the right attitude to get back on track when a slip-up does occur. Ignore the pressure to look “perfect” on your wedding day. Setting a goal to get healthy, feel great, and lose weight is totally fine. There’s no singular best diet or best weight loss plan for a wedding - what works for one bride might not work for another.
Medical Support
For some brides, losing weight takes more than making lifestyle changes and building healthy habits. If you’ve struggled with your weight, have a BMI (body mass index) in the overweight or obesity range, or have a related condition like high blood pressure (hypertension) or PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), you may want to explore weight loss medication as an additional tool. Weight loss medications may be worth exploring if you’ve been struggling to see progress with lifestyle changes alone. A healthcare provider can help you figure out which option is best for you and talk through potential benefits and risks.
Avoid Crash Diets
Crash diets are not effective for long-term weight loss for numerous reasons. A meta-analysis of weight loss studies showed that over half of the weight lost during crash dieting was regained within two years, and more than 80% of the lost weight was regained in 10 years. This research suggests that only one in five people who are overweight manage to maintain long-term weight loss. Crash diets that omit food groups can lead to nutrition imbalances and deficiencies, which can be detrimental to wedding day planning. Eliminating essential nutrients through crash diets can be harmful. Crash diets can negatively affect you by promoting extreme calorie deficits. Calorie deficits often result in muscle loss rather than fat loss. Crash diets can impact your hunger and satiety hormones by increasing your appetite and making you crave calorie-dense foods. That is a natural process that helps your body maintain energy and prevent malnutrition. Avoid fad diets and quick-fix solutions. Diet pills and meal replacement shakes might promise rapid results, but they can come with some serious side effects like poor skin, hair, and nails, digestive issues (constipation or diarrhea), dizziness, and fatigue.
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Focus on Long-Term Sustainability
Think long-term: If you have weight to lose and want to lose some of this for your wedding - the focus should also be on keeping this weight off long-term. It’s not about crash dieting, losing the weight, and then regaining it all on your honeymoon. Weight cycling-losing and regaining repeatedly-can be harder on your health than staying at a stable weight. In fact, it can slow your metabolism and make future weight-loss attempts more difficult. This is a big weight loss mistake that you want to avoid. Give yourself plenty of time: Ideally, start about a year in advance. Avoid jumping into a crash diet 12 weeks before the big day-it’s not worth the stress. The lead-up to your wedding should be fun and exciting, with moments like menu tastings and hen parties to enjoy. Starting early allows you to make small, gradual changes that add up over time. Don't starve yourself or skip meals. To keep your energy, mood, and concentration stable, aim for at least three meals a day to meet your basic needs. When you restrict yourself, it often leads to overeating or binge eating later, creating a harmful cycle of restriction and over indulging.