When I ask members of my Lose Weight Biking program what is standing in the way of their biking weight loss, 9 of 10 will say it’s time.
We all feel SO freaking busy all of the time. I am feeling this even more lately since I will be heading back to teaching again in just one short week.
In fact, you may be sitting here thinking “Stacy, I don’t even have time to read an article on 5 ways to save time in my biking weight loss!”
In the spirit of that I am going to keep this article super simple and to the point. When I am feeling like I don’t have time to plan my meals or ride my bike, these are the top 5 tricks I employ to stay on track with my biking and body goals.
#1: Focus on avoiding overeating.
This is by far the best time-saving tip I can give you if you are really struggling with finding the time to lose weight biking.
When you don’t have time to plan your meals or fit in bike rides the #1 thing that you can do to lose weight is avoid overeating.
The idea here is simple as hell. You eat when you are hungry. You stop when you are satisfied.
You see, you can lose weight eating food that is low in nutritional value as long as you don’t overeat it.
So instead of catastrophizing over the fact that you are going out so many times this week or have so many gatherings where there will be tons of food, go in with the story of “I will eat when I am hungry, and stop when I am satisfied.”
This means stop when you have had just enough. Not when you have eaten so much you have a tummy ache and have to unbutton your pants.
#2: Take a quick 5 min each morning to plan your food for the day.
One of the biggest misconceptions women come to me with is that they have to spend all of this time meal prepping and planning in order to lose weight biking.
I am telling you right now all that it takes is five minutes a day. Write down what you are planning to eat in the morning, and stick to the plan.
Don’t worry about making sure that every decision is a good and healthy one. Just be intentional in advance about what you are going to eat.
My plan looks something like this.
B: Wrap and Coffee
L: Soup and Piece of Chocolate
S: Tea, Meat Stick, Rice Crackers
D: Salad and Pasta
D: 1 Scoop of Banana Chocolate Chip Ice Cream in a Sugar Cone
That took me MAYBE two minutes to type out. Possibly it would take me 3 minutes to hand write it. Keep it super simple. Don’t worry about restricting.
Simply take a couple minutes each morning to be intentional so that you don’t just go shoving all the things in your face as the day goes on because you are SO busy.
#3: Fit in just a little extra movement into your day whenever possible.
A lot of times we think the only way to lose weight biking is to ride at least 5 or 6 times a week and keep our mileage way up.
That’s not true! In fact that is one of the worst ways to look at biking for weight loss. Biking is supposed to be FUN and something that we look forward to doing…not something we HAVE to do in order to lose weight.
If you are in a season of life where it’s hard to fit in hour plus long bike rides, you can STILL lose weight.
Do a shorter ride. Even if it’s just 5-10 minutes. Even if it’s indoors. Keep your body in the habit of riding.
No time even to do that? Go for a quick walk. Park a little further from the store when you are running your errands. Get up at work and move around the building whenever you can.
There are days when I can’t ride that I just make sure that I get up from my desk and walk to the copier as often as possible.
Seems silly, but it keeps your brain on prioritizing movement so that on the days you do have more time to ride or move it’s second nature to just go out and do it.
#4: Drink water and get as much sleep as you can.
If you have been around here for a minute you KNOW that I am obsessed with drinking water and sleep for weight loss.
It’s because they are essential tools for keeping our bodies prepped to lose weight.
A lot of times when we think we are hungry what our body really needs is water. Plus water is essential for metabolizing our food.
Now, if you are short on time you might feel like you don’t even have time to sleep, but I encourage you to get as much sleep as you can. Our bodies recover from the day while we sleep, both physically and mentally.
Without adequate sleep we can be stressed, irritable, and looking for something to feel better…that something is often food.
#5: Keep Your Brain OUT of “Eff it” Mode
I don’t know about you, but when I am feeling strapped for time my brain LOVES to jump to “eff it” mode.
There isn’t enough time to meal prep, to ride, to anything, so why even bother??? Is what our brains sometimes day.
This is when we really throw caution to the wind and start treating ourselves with the drive thru, the donuts that are aren’t even hungry for, etc.
We figure that if we can’t lose weight the right way then why even bother trying?
The reality is that there is never “enough time” to lose weight. And what we need to do is stay in a place where we are thinking about making the best choices we can under the circumstances.
A Final Note
So there you have it! My 5 quick and easy time saving hacks for biking weight loss.
You see, you really just don’t need a lot of time to lose weight.
You don’t need to plug all the things into an app or only have healthy food available.
You just need to be intentional about your food choices, make the best ones you can, stop when you have had enough, and get as much water and sleep into your body as possible.
That’s IT.
Do NOT over-complicate this. Our brains LOVE to tell the story that weight loss takes so much time and is so hard.
When you tell a different story about weight loss…when you tell yourself that there are small, doable changes that you can make that will add up to big results?
You are SO much more likely to get those results.
You CAN do this. 100%. I believe in you, and I am here for you. Keep it simple, do a little bit of this every day, and you will lose weight and have the body that you want.
All you have to do is start.
Ride on!
xoxo
Stacy
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