Losing weight without exercise is unthinkable for many, because they equate weight loss with daily exercise and severe dietary restrictions. However, neither is absolutely necessary. Losing weight is possible even without exercise or a crash diet. This article will show you how to lose weight in the long term without relying on exercise.
This is how you can enjoy a healthy breakfast – discover it now
Losing weight without exercise – what you need to bear in mind
Losing weight without exercise may sound like a pipe dream for many people – especially if you're not the biggest sports fan. But we have good news for you if this applies to you. Because losing pounds can be achieved without doing strenuous exercise every day.
Instead, a balanced diet, adapted to your calorie consumption, can help you feel healthy and slim. But before we take a closer look at how this works, let's take a look at the BMI calculator.
The reason for this is that losing weight is not always necessary or healthy. Therefore, it makes sense to first look at your starting position. The BMI calculator is useful for this. BMI stands for body mass index. This should help you to assess your body weight.
If you have a BMI over 25, it generally indicates that you are overweight. An exception to this would be athletes who achieve their increased weight through a high proportion of muscle mass. For everyone else, if your BMI is over 25, it is recommended that you lose some weight, for example to avoid diet-related diseases.
We will now look at how to do this.
This is how you can lose weight with diet alone
The most important factor when it comes to losing weight is diet. Although it is often said that exercise is important for losing weight, diet is significantly more important.
Ultimately, if you want to lose weight, your calorie intake must not be higher than your calorie expenditure. You can increase your calorie expenditure through exercise, but many people overestimate the influence of exercise on calorie requirements.
It is therefore better to first calculate your calorie requirement – for example, using the Verival calorie calculator. And then adjust your diet so that you are always in a calorie deficit.
As a guideline, you can take 200 to 400 calories. With an exemplary calorie requirement of 2,200 calories, you should therefore consume between 1,800 and 2,000 calories in order to lose weight sustainably.
7 tips on how to lose weight without exercise
As you may have noticed, it is not always easy to maintain the targeted calorie intake. But don't worry, there are plenty of effective tips on how you can stick to your calorie requirements in a healthy and long-term way.
We will discuss how you can manage to boost your fat burning. But we will also look at how you can take your basal metabolic rate into account and consume fewer calories. We also pay particular attention to stress as a factor in an effective change in diet. This is because stress affects the success of weight loss, which is why the German Nutrition Society, for example, also places a particular focus on stress reduction in its “ICH nehme ab” (I'm losing weight) program.
Ultimately, all the tips, from low carb to interval fasting methods, are designed to help you achieve your goal of reducing your body fat.
1. Enjoy food in its natural form
If you want to lose weight in the long term, you should avoid foods with empty calories. This includes all soft drinks, as well as snacks that are high in sugar and fat. These are often extremely high in calories, but because they don't contain any important nutrients, you don't feel as full.
You will feel much fuller if you eat food in its natural form. That means: instead of apple juice, it's best to eat the whole apple with the peel in the future.
And when it comes to baked goods, you should also make sure you eat them in their most natural form. You can achieve this, for example, by choosing whole grain products. This contains more of the grain, which gives your body more dietary fiber. By the way, legumes also contain a lot of fiber.
The great advantage of fiber is that it keeps you full for a long time and ensures healthy digestion. This makes you feel completely comfortable and makes losing weight noticeably easier.
If you want to combine high-fiber grains and vegetables with animal products, you should opt for lean meat and unsweetened dairy products. This will help you avoid unnecessary calories from unhealthy fatty acids and added sugars.
2. A healthy breakfast for long-lasting satiety
Fiber is good all day long. However, they are particularly important at breakfast. Because if you start the day with a healthy breakfast including complex carbohydrates and fiber, it will keep you full and provide plenty of energy. Therefore, you should pay particular attention to the first meal of the day in your diet plan. It's best to pick out a few delicious recipes to save yourself unnecessary stress in the morning.
A healthy porridge for breakfast, for example, provides you with the most important nutrients that can help you not only lose weight but also build muscle. The oat flakes keep you full for a long time, thus avoiding unnecessary cravings that often arise when you eat unhealthy foods such as sweetened and highly processed cereals.
In general, it's a good idea to establish a routine in your daily diet. Starting the day with a healthy breakfast could be one of them.
Get your healthy porridge here
3. regular drinking as an insider tip
Another simple trick also has to do with how you start the day. And that's about drinking. After a few hours of sleep, your body is often a little dehydrated. Therefore, you should try to take in enough fluids in the morning to get it going again.
This could be, for example, a glass of water that you place on your bedside table. If you feel very thirsty, you can easily consume half a liter of water in the morning – it's best to listen to your body's signals.
But you should also always have a glass or bottle of water to hand during the day. This is because sometimes your body confuses hunger with thirst. So before you reach for the first snack you see, try quenching your supposed hunger with a sip of water to avoid undermining your efforts to eat right. This often works wonders.
4. Eating slowly helps you lose weight
But it's not just important when and what you eat, but also how quickly you eat. Especially if you want to lose weight with a healthy diet and not by exercising, you should follow this tip.
And that is to eat slowly and with relish. This may sound like a negligible tip, but it can have a significant impact on your eating behavior.
That's because chewing for longer not only allows you to taste more of your meal, it also improves satiation and digestion. This way, you feel more satisfied after eating and stay full longer.
5. Reduce stress
What you should definitely avoid when losing weight is stress. Firstly, you won't lose weight in the long term if your diet stresses you out. And secondly, stress itself has an impact on your weight loss success.
The reason for this is that many people tend to eat more when they're stressed. This leads to a higher calorie intake and thus hinders your weight loss goal. Other physiological and hormonal aspects may also play an important role – however, nutrition science is not yet entirely clear about the exact mechanisms.
6. Getting enough sleep helps the pounds melt off
The same applies to sleep. Some studies have shown that a lack of sleep correlates with weight gain and obesity. Again, the underlying mechanism is not entirely clear.
However, a lack of sleep can lead to an increased appetite in many people, sometimes even to food cravings, and an associated increase in calorie intake. Getting enough sleep therefore makes sense in any case – regardless of whether a lack of sleep should lead to a deterioration in fat burning or simply to an increased appetite.
7. Avoid losing weight quickly
What you should also avoid, in addition to stress and a lack of sleep, is crash dieting, as is often propagated on various social media channels. Although you can sometimes actually lose weight in a short period of time with this method, the weight comes back just as quickly. This causes the unwanted yo-yo effect, which should be avoided at all costs.
If you instead cut out a few calories from your healthy diet, approach this in a measured way with a slight calorie deficit and make it a routine, you will find it easier to lose weight in the long term.
What to look out for when you do exercise
Sport is not absolutely necessary for losing weight; which will probably please one or two couch potatoes. Because ultimately, what you eat and what lifestyle you lead is what matters. Getting enough sleep and a healthy approach to nutrition play extremely important roles.
If you still want to do sports to support your health, it is advisable to adjust your diet accordingly. After all, the ideal diet for sports not only improves performance, but also your well-being. It doesn't always have to be a highly strenuous physical activity; even everyday movements such as climbing stairs can be a good start.
All in all, however, it's important to pay attention to your body's signals and try to implement an adapted lifestyle in line with them in the long term. This will give you the best chance of losing weight in a targeted way, and it will also feel much better than a draining crash diet. Find out how long you should fast for and how it works. Good luck!
Frequently asked questions
Can you lose weight without exercise?
Losing weight without exercise is definitely possible with the right nutrition. Exercise can help you burn more calories and increase your basal metabolic rate in the long term, but it is not absolutely necessary for your weight loss success. However, it is important not to exceed your calorie requirement; otherwise, you will not lose weight.
What is the fastest way to lose 10 kg?
Losing 10 kg can be quite a challenge for many people. However, how quickly you can lose this weight depends heavily on your starting weight. For example, if you are well above the normal BMI range, then a severe calorie reduction can help you lose a few kilos in just a few weeks. However, whether this is sustainable is another question – because the yo-yo effect is often the result of crash diets.
How can I lose 5 kg in a week?
Losing 5 kg in just one week is hardly possible in a healthy way. However, a lot of weight can be lost, especially at the beginning of a diet or a change in diet. However, this is rarely a large amount of fat. Instead, the calorie deficit usually first reduces the carbohydrate and water stores in your body. You should therefore not overestimate the results in the first two weeks.
How fast can you lose weight on 1500 calories?
How much weight you can lose with a daily calorie intake of 1500 calories depends largely on your calorie needs. These are made up of your basal metabolic rate and your active metabolic rate. The basal metabolic rate describes the amount of calories burned at rest; the active metabolic rate, on the other hand, takes into account your physical activity in everyday life. The higher your calorie deficit, i.e. the difference between your needs and the calories you consume, the greater your weight loss. 1,500 calories is quite a small amount and for many people it already means a very high calorie deficit, which is not desirable in the long term. Remember: an excessive calorie deficit always carries the risk of an undersupply of important nutrients or an unwanted yo-yo effect.
How many calories do you consume in a day without exercise?
Without exercise or physical activity, the body of an average man burns around 1,800 kcal. In contrast, the body of an average woman consumes just around 1,500 kcal at rest. However, the exact number of calories your body burns without exercise depends on a number of factors, such as your age, weight, and height. But the shape of your muscles also has a significant impact on your calorie consumption.
How many calories do you burn in a day?
The number of calories you burn each day depends on your basal metabolic rate and your active metabolic rate. The basal metabolic rate describes the amount your body consumes at rest. It is significantly influenced by your age, your height and your body composition. The active metabolic rate, on the other hand, is often given as a PAL value and describes the amount of calories you burn through everyday physical activity.
How many calories can I eat and still lose weight?
To lose weight effectively, you should always aim for a well-dosed calorie deficit. This means that the number of calories you consume should be lower than your daily requirement. You can calculate your needs with a calorie calculator, for example. Based on this, you can now subtract 200 to 400 kcal from the calculated value in a targeted manner to lose weight healthily and sustainably. With a requirement of 2,300 calories, this would be 1,900 to 2,100 kilocalories per day.
