10 Reasons The Leaf is Your Go-To Weight Loss Blog

There are thousands of weight loss blogs out there, with millions of articles and pieces of information—some of it real, some questionable. So how do you find the useful info among all the noise? Easy: Find a go-to weight loss blog you can trust—like Nutrisystem’s The Leaf!

The Leaf is stuffed with useful, factual and fun weight loss information from the experts at Nutrisystem, who have helped millions of people lose weight. Were ready with the tips, tricks and recipes you need to succeed, too.

The Leaf Overview: All About Our Weight Loss Blog

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Here are 10 reasons to make The Leaf your one-stop, go-to weight loss blog:

1. Our weight loss tips are backed by science, not fads.

Just like our Nutrisystem programs are designed by dietitians using the science of nutrition, the tips on The Leaf are based on real evidence for real results. Whether it’s giving you a grocery list that fights belly fat, teaching you the benefits of your phone for weight loss or just offering simple food rules that bring big changes, the tips on the Leaf have real science behind them and explain why you’ll see better results by following.

2. The Leaf has hundreds of easy recipes.

One of the most important parts of Nutrisystem programs is Flex Meals, meals you prepare on your own or order at restaurants. Preparing, ordering and eating Flex Meals doesn’t just help you lose weight. It provides a learning experience and prepares our members for life after Nutrisystem when they reach their goal. But you don’t have to be a chef: The Leaf offers hundreds of recipes for Flex Meals that are delicious, on-plan, and so simple to make. Click here to browse through our flavorful, fun recipes > 

3. We have valuable advice from people just like you—our Nutrisystem Success Stories.

Lots of people succeed with Nutrisystem, losing 10, 20, 50 and even 100 pounds or more. These people have been through the same struggles, challenges and setbacks that every person on a weight loss program has felt—and they still succeeded! They’ve shared their stories and tips with us and it’s all available here on the Leaf. If you’re a yo-yo dieter, read Mei’s story of finally sticking to a program that worked for her. If you’ve ever thought that you can never lose the weight, read Dean’s story of losing more than 240 pounds. And if you want to take back control of your life, read Erin’s story about how Nutrisystem put her back in the driver’s seat of her own story.

3 Tips for Finding Your Motivation

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4. We offer simple food swaps that makes healthy eating easier.

Losing weight doesn’t mean giving up the flavors you love. That’s why Nutrisystem creates healthy versions of your favorites, such as pasta, burgers, pizza, cookies, cake and more. And it’s not just Nutrisystem foods that let you keep your favorite flavors while living healthier. The Leaf provides healthy eating tips and swaps that help you reduce the amount of sugar in your diet, enjoy seasonal favorites without guilt, reduce your carb intake and even enjoy Halloween treats.

5. We answer your questions about succeeding with Nutrisystem.

If you’re new to Nutrisystem, you may have questions: What’s a Flex Meal? What are SmartCarbs? What can I eat when I go out? The Leaf has the answers! We give you helpful explanations and guides on how to build Flex Meals, dining out while losing weight and Nutrisystem terms like PowerFuel and SmartCarb. If knowledge is power, the Leaf will make you into a powerful, fat-fighting force!

6. Our fitness strategies fit into your real life.

Not a fitness fanatic? Not a problem. Instead of shaming you, The Leaf meets you where you are with short, 10-minute workouts, tips for staying fit when you’re extra busy, motivation to get you moving and even fitness tips for people who hate exercise. There are many ways to move your body and The Leaf will help you find one that you love—or at least like enough to do consistently!

Cardio vs. Strength Training: What’s Better?

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7. Our tips help you lose weight with less effort.

Losing weight and keeping it off is all about making healthy choices. The Leaf provides you with simple tips to make all that healthy decision-making even easier. With small tweaks you can make in your kitchen, weight loss tips that don’t involve diet or exercise and small steps you can take each morning and each day of the week, The Leaf makes it easy to get better weight loss results with less effort.

8. We help you live a healthy lifestyle.

Losing weight will make you look and feel great. However, it’s also important to create a healthy lifestyle. The Leaf celebrates your whole life being healthy with tips on getting better sleep, dealing with stress, having healthier skin and other non-weight-related information. The Leaf is a healthy lifestyle blog that can help you become the best version of you.

9. The Leaf isn’t just a blog.

The Leaf isn’t just your go-to weight loss blog. It’s also your friendly, responsive source for weight loss information on social media. Nutrisystem’s Facebook and Twitter pages are loaded with content from The Leaf. There’s always someone to answer your questions on these platforms—whether it’s about a Leaf recipe, a Nutrisystem food or just for more information on one of our science-backed tips.

5 Reasons Nutrisystem is the Best Diet Plan to Become Your Best You

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19. The Leaf is new every day.

Are there new recipes, tips and inspiration on the Leaf today? If the day ends in “y,” then the answer is yes! Make The Leaf your first blog stop each day to help you succeed on your weight loss journey. We’re your go-to weight loss blog!

The post 10 Reasons The Leaf is Your Go-To Weight Loss Blog appeared first on The Leaf.

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Music and Weight Loss: What the Research Says

The idea that some good tunes can actually have an impact on your weight loss just may be music to your ears. But it’s more than just an idea—it has scientific backing. Several different studies have looked at the way in which music can impact everything from the effectiveness of your exercise routine, to one’s overall health. They all seem to point to the same fact—that music matters. Find out how music can help you reach your weight loss goals on your Nutrisystem journey.

Music to Lose By: 13 Songs Guaranteed to Get You Moving

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Music Helps You Burn More Calories

A lot of the research focuses on how music impacts one’s workout routine—and it’s quite encouraging. For instance, research published in the Journal of Exercise Physiology Online, demonstrates that people exercising with fast tempo music had a higher heart rate and increased respiratory rate—all of which adds up to more calories burned.

Good Tunes Makes Exercise Enjoyable

In addition to burning more calories, different research, out of Brunel University London, has revealed that music makes exercise more enjoyable. The results, which were published in the journal Psychology of Sport and Exercise, found that listening to music led to a 28 percent increase in enjoyment (compared to no auditory). This is important as music could inspire you to work out longer, leading to even more calories burned.

10 Ten-Minute Workouts

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Listening to Music Helps You Stick with Your Goals

Similarly, music can also help you stick to a program for the long-term. A study, from Fairleigh Dickinson University, found that listening to music while exercising helped participants adhere more closely to their workout regimen and lose more weight. According to MedicineNet, the 2005 study followed a group of overweight and obese women during a 24-week period of exercise. Half of the women listened to music of their choice. While all participants lost weight, weight loss was higher for the music listeners.

Moving to Music Helps Increase Your Happiness

If you’re someone who loves music (as most people do), then this is probably quite obvious to you—music makes you happy. Specifically, dancing to music has been shown to be a great way to boost your mood. A study, published in the International Journal of Neuroscience, showed that 12 weeks of dance sessions raised serotonin (the neurotransmitter contributing to feelings of happiness) and contributed to enhanced mood.

6 Reasons to Crank Up the Tunes Today

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Tips for Incorporating Music Into your Routine

There’s no question that music can have a positive impact on your workout routine and overall health. It is a great way to potentially increase results with your weight loss plan. We’ve rounded up a few important takeaways so that can use music to your benefit.

• Choose music that you like. Enhance your workout and get motivated by listening to your favorite tunes. Choose music that personally motivates you and remember that it is very subjective. While you might be inspired by “rock,” your friend might be inspired by “hip hop.” Headphones are certainly a wonderful creation!
• Create a playlist that fits your routine. Use music to boost your workout by coordinating it with the activity you’re doing. According to The Sport Journal, research displays that synchronizing your tunes with “repetitive exercise is associated with increased levels of work output.” For instance, a slow and steady beat might be more helpful for a weight-lifting session, while something with a faster tempo would be ideal for an aerobic workout. You might even consider which songs motivate you the most to tackle that hill on your run and which help you run at a faster pace on the straightaways.
• Do your musical homework in advance. As you gear up to incorporate more music into your routine, take some time to create playlists and maybe even venture outside of your typical line-up. Find songs that really inspire you and update your playlist accordingly. With some advanced preparation, you’ll be ready to make the most out of your workout!

The post Music and Weight Loss: What the Research Says appeared first on The Leaf.

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How to Get Moving When You Really Don’t Want To

Yes, of course you know you should work out—it boosts energy, makes you happier and helps you lose weight. You also know your to-do list is endless, in the morning you have no time, at night you’re too tired, and sometimes in between you just don’t feel like it. Still, you know you need exercise. Here are some tips on how to get moving when you really don’t feel like leaving the couch:

Set small goals. Thirty minutes of exercise on most days is the recommendation, but if that’s a chunk of time you don’t have in your schedule, feel free to break it up. Fifteen minutes, twice a day–or even 10 minutes in the morning, 10 in the afternoon and 10 at night—is just as effective. Research conducted at the University of Wisconsin found overweight women lost similar amounts of weight whether they did 30 minutes of aerobic exercise in one shot, or divided their sessions into shorter spurts.

3 Exercises for People who Hate Exercise

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Do what’s fun. Hate going to the gym? Don’t go. The idea of taking a Zumba class gives you hives? Tell your friend you have to pass. You’re more likely to stick to a fitness program if you’re doing something you like. Try new things, too: take tennis lessons, for example, or join a softball league.

Recruit a buddy. Exercising with a partner can help keep you motivated and more accountable, and studies show you may even work out a little harder: Researchers at Michigan State University found exercising with someone you perceive as moderately more capable can as much as double your own workout time and overall performance. Ask a friend to take a yoga class with you, sign up for a local charity run together, and even form your own walking group.

Reward yourself. When you hit milestones—like training for your first 5K walk, or running longer than you ever have before—give yourself a treat to stay motivated, such as a new pair of running socks or a 30-minute massage.

The post How to Get Moving When You Really Don’t Want To appeared first on The Leaf.

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Kind of a weight loss guide

Long post but maybe this will help someone. If anyone has additional suggestions, would love to hear them? Hit me up in the comments! Progress pic.

Please bear in mind that I am still learning myself and have failed with this many times.

As a general rule across different types of diets, whatever you do must be sustainable and you cannot ever revert to your old lifestyle if you want to keep the weight off.

Track what and how much you eat / Learn what a proper portion looks like for each food group and keep your portions small. You need to burn more calories than you consume, it is that simple.

Limit refined sugar/processed food and prioritise foods that promote satiety, fill half your plate with fruit and vegetables. You DON'T need to cut out food groups.

Only eat when you are truly physically hungry. Stop eating when you are satisfied, not full. Satisfied: When you can easily go for a brisk walk after eating or do a yoga pose or two without feeling uncomfortable.

Eat slowly, focus only on eating without distractions so that you can comply with your body's satiety cues

Plan your meals and do meal prep if possible

Limit eating out and prepare your own meals where you can.

When eating out, go for healthy options (my default is steak and salad), don't use sauces or eat deep fried options, critically judge portions sizes at restaurants because they are typically two to three times the size they should be.

Don't drink your calories

Learn to identify all or nothing thinking, the 'start Monday' or the 'first of the month mentality'

Don't label foods as good or bad (food has no morality)

Beware of the impact of environment on your eating - you will eat whatever is in front of you so don't keep unhealthy options around

Figure out what triggers you to eat when not hungry - emotions, situations, habits etc and start working on those areas. You can write many books just about this one aspect.

Identify and change mindsets that are leading to overeating - the idea that you have to clean your plate, not being willing to say no and not having healthy boundaries with other people, giving yourself free reign to eat as a source of comfort because you are dealing with difficult things, saying you can't control yourself around this or that food, pretending that once doesn't make a difference or that calories don't count on certain occassions.

Regain is so common that you will be a complete anomaly if you don't experience it at least partly. Try not to let it destroy you emotionally because that might set you back years (speaking from experience here).

Hold yourself accountable to staying at your healthy weight - either by weighing often, measuring, monitoring clothes fit etc. Have a weight limit which acts as a trigger to recommit to these principles.

Find forms of exercise that you enjoy and do it consistently as often as you can

Separate diet and exercise from each other - do not allow yourself to eat because you have exercised

Learn to see exercise as something good that you do for yourself to promote health and not a punishment

What you think plays a major role in how you perceive your lifestyle and whether it will stick. If you are framing your choices with negativity and a self pity, you won't keep going for long. These are things like if you are forever sulking because you "can't have" this or that, telling yourself that losing weight is so incredibly hard, that other people can eat whatever they want without gaining weight (likely NOT true), insisting that you are being deprived when you are leading a lifestyle where you are nourishing your body with proper nutrition.

Many people seek enjoyment and comfort from food because their actual lives are challenging and not fulfilling. If you are one of these people, you need to address this issue to keep the weight off.

Be careful of relying on motivation to stick to a new lifestyle, learn how to make and keep a commitment, look into making a healthy lifestyle a part of your identity etc. These are much better ways to get new habits to stick.

The idea is not to use discipline at all times to lose weight and keep it off. You actually have limited amounts of discipline, so structure your life, habits and emotional health in a way that you won't have to white knuckle it.

You need to enjoy your lifestyle, otherwise you will never keep it up. For this reason, your goal weight should be the weight you can reach while living the healthiest life you can actually enjoy.

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This is my 48 month journey. 48 months with immense struggle both mentally, and physically. It's been a real journey, one that i hope continues. [9 Months maintenance update, with progress pics!]

I always want to be comfortable and stay in a routine, yet i yearned for adventure and living a for filling life, yet i was too scared to live, i still am at times.

48 Months ago i attempted to take my life. It's really hard to continue living, or trying to better ones life when you have truly convinced yourself that the only escape, or betterment is taking your own life, that there is no escape, that you can't ever feel the joy that life can give you. What just really sealed it for me, was that i used to be pretty athletic, i loved to run when i was a teenager, yet here at the age of 20 i was obese, i was self harming myself, i wasn't doing anything with my life and to top it off i've lost it all. I couldn't even look at the mirror without being ashamed and disgusted by letting my self go. But yet i decided to give it another go at life, to try and get better, so without knowing i started a long journey of recovery, so without knowing this was the beginning to what would eventually lead to my weight loss journey.

For the next 2 year i kept improving mentally, but there was one thing i was unable to shake off, that was my weight. It's honestly was so embarrassing, its as simple as eating less right? Not really i wish it were true, but the people who told me that were so wrong at that time, losing the weight was the hardest thing I've done in my life. With each failure i almost guaranteed learned something new each time about myself that no amount of googling, or advice from anybody else could give me. My mind would try to trick me, try to rationalize and convince me to get myself back to the old me. Eventually all the tricks were something i was familiar with, i knew all the excuses or me trying to cheat myself with the diet. But with each failure i also kept on gaining more weight, and finally my health was beginning to take its toll with my new gained weight each time, but i was finally ready.

I still remember this day, and i still go back to it every once in a while. I was late up at night, and i, by some odd reason was recommend a video on Youtube, called The Why Running 100 Miles. Crazy right? No way anyone could run a 100 miles, but i've always loved running. When i was 16 i wanted to run a half marathon in my local town, but unfortunately i got sick and was unable to run it, so my passion for running has always been there. And throughout my years of being obese i've always wanted to run. And so finally 23 months ago i began the final attempt, my final journey after all the trial and errors it seemed as if i was finally ready to embark on my last journey to success. For the next 13 months i went from 203 lbs to 134 lbs, from around 92 kg to 62 kg. With my weight loss i started running again more regularly as my joints could take my body weight for the first time in 7 years, bliss.

So i'm 24 years old and i always wanted to run my local marathon, it's been 8 years since my dream came to a stop for being unable to run my local marathon, yet in 2019 i finally did it! Here is a progress picture!

Here is me now 1 2

4 years ago i would have never, ever imagined a life like this, seriously it would be a fairy tale. If i could time travel back in time and tell my old self this, i would not for a moment believe it myself. Yet here i am aiming for a even bigger and more meaningful life for 2020.

Running was my life, and my passion. All i can ask for you guys and girls is to chase your passion and dreams, i used to be really scared to die, not because of death being the scary thing, but knowing i never actually lived, now that's changed If i died today it would be okay because, i for once lived on my terms. I just hope that i can perhaps move someone who's at rock bottom to give that one try again at life with my story. Now please go and live life on your terms, one that you deserve to live.

Reminder, English isn't my mother tongue and i hope my story isn't too confusing, again apologies for that.

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holding myself accountable and being honest about my actual weight and weight loss

last year i lost about 30 pounds but because i was so heavy and still heavy after the 30lbs i never said anything, my boyfriend thinks i lost just 10-15lbs and then I went down a binge hole and I gained almost all the weight back but I want to be able to have someone know the truth at least have somewhere to share my truth, I will be updating this every two weeks with not just my weight but my blood pressure and heart rate because they both have been high for the past three years. I want to lose weight but really I want to be healthy and feel good when I look in the mirror.

I turn 30 in a few weeks and instead of being down and binging because I’m not at the weight I wanted to be I am going to work on myself this year and be healthier I don’t want the next 10 years to pass and still be wishing to lose those 50 pounds.

CW=210

GW= 140

Bp 150/110

BPM 100

height 5'3

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Cutting out all sweet foods to help with cravings?

Has something like this ever been helpful to anyone? I seem to have trouble overeating and binge eating anything and everything that is sweet - doesn’t matter if it is healthy or low calorie or not. Fruit and artificial sweeteners and protein powder triggers me the same way cakes and ice cream do. And it seems awfully like, having one sweet things makes me crave and crave more and more, whereas, if I go a while without any sweet tastes, I could care less about having anything sweet and am happy to eat salty/savory foods fine in moderation.

So, for my weight loss journey so far I have been all about including all foods in proper portions, and I know that technically eating sugary foods is fine in moderation. But, I start wondering if I need to change tactics, to help me further progress and stop the binge eating over my calories so frequently. Does anyone have advice or similar experience?

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