I am not a doctor so please don’t take this as medical advice. 

Many years ago I “got in the zone” and lost 30 lbs in a couple months. I had gained a lot of weight the first year I was out of college and living in New York City. I was working non-stop, drinking most nights and there was a 24 hour McDonalds across the street from my apartment building. It was a recipe for major weight gain.

After 3 years in the city, I transferred “home” and started to slowly adjust to a more normal way of life. I still could not get the weight off even though I was constantly telling myself to stop eating so much. I was also exercising pretty regularly but nothing was happening. This is when I finally figured out how to get into the Weight Loss Zone.

If you talk to anyone that has lost a significant amount of weight in a rather short period of time, they will tell you that they understand what I am talking about when I say “the zone”. Here are my tips on how to get in the weight loss zone so that you see results.

1. Eat basically the same things at each meal. Sure you can mix it up slightly but what you want is for there to be hardly any decision making in your head. You don’t want to have options where your head is thinking…”hmm, what should I have for lunch today?”. You want it all laid out, for example, for lunch today is my turkey sandwich with hummus spread and a small bag of pretzels. A weight loss system or plan could work here but I just figured out what calorie range I wanted to be at and put together some normal meals that came to that amount of calories. I can’t remember exactly but I think my breakfast was a bowl of cereal, lunch was turkey sandwich and pretzels, I can’t remember my snack and a lean cuisine for dinner. Then my popsicle trick (click here) for after dinner.
2. 3 days uninterrupted. You do not want to start at a time where you know you need to go to a business dinner the next night or if a friend is having a big party that weekend where you know you will probably blow your momentum. You need to start to feel some success so that you have strength to get yourself through the tough situations. Here is what I did. I started on a Monday that I knew I had no major plans during the week. I ate food that was pretty healthy, exercised every day (I took a 45 min speed walk which was 15 mins longer than my normal amount) and did my popsicle trick. I remember that after the first week I had a hardly any results and was a little frustrated but then 10 days into it I had a big drop and then it started slowly and consistently coming off. When you start to see some success you have the strength to go to a dinner out and make the right choices.
3. You have to want to feel a little bit of hunger. This is important!! I am the type of person that makes sure I never feel hungry. If I think it may be a longer time until I get a meal I will overeat or have a snack. I do everything in my power to never feel hunger but during the time I was losing weight this weird thing happened. I enjoyed feeling a little bit hundry. In my mind, it meant I was succeeding. Alert: this is where I say that too much of this is unhealthy but a when you are losing weight you need to be ok with slight hunger.

After losing almost 30 lbs I went back to eating regularly. I wasn’t overeating or in an unhealthy environment at that time so for me going back to my “normal” eating was just maintenance. I was easily able to maintain the weight loss. This way of losing weight was good because my weight gain was from a temporary change in environment and in my normal environment I was able to maintain my normal weight very easily. So I just needed to have a short period of time to get myself back to my normal weight.

I hope this helps someone. If anything, it has reminded me how to get myself into a zone to accomplish anything.

Good Luck!