5 Surprising Things I STOPPED Doing to Lose 40 Pounds

Today I'm going to share five surprising things that I stopped doing to lose £40. I'm going to share everything I used from my knowledge and my degree in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley, having lost the weight and having kept it off for now over 14 years. Hello, I am Nagina Abdullah. I am a weight loss and metabolism boosting coach for midlife women. I have a degree in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley, and I have helped over 1 5, 500 women lose weight and live in their dream body naturally and keep it off for years. Let's get going. Now, I had tried every single diet out there. I had tried Atkins, I had tried Weight Watchers, I tried nutrisystems, South Beach. I tried eating less and exercising more and nothing was working for me. Some weight. I was able to lose 10 pounds, sometimes maybe 12 pounds. But the minute I would hit that, that moment where I would feel a little bit good about what I was doing, I would start doing all the things that got me there, would put the weight back on, plus some more. But here's five things that I started doing that actually were sustainable and have now allowed me to keep my weight off for now over 14 years now. The first thing I started doing was that I stopped eating fast burning carbs. I didn't try to eat smaller portions of carbs. I just started learning about what carbs were better for me and would burn more slowly. And instead, instead of eating fast burning carbs, I focused on slow burning carbs. So let me tell you what fast burning carbs are. These are things like bread, pasta, rice, anything that gives you a quick burst of energy. Usually most processed foods are fast burning carbs. Now what's happening when you're eating fast burning carbs, which I realized was that I was getting a quick rush of energy, but then my body was storing it as fat because I wasn't able to burn it off right away, because that's how fast burning carbs work. They spike our blood sugar and they get stored as fat. So instead I started understanding I could eat carbs, but I just wanted to eat the carbs that wouldn't create that spike in blood sugar and that storage of fat. And so these were things. My favorite slow burning carb that I started eating were beans and lentils. So things like black beans, cannellini beans, navy beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, or chickpeas. These were amazing. I would cook them into like a chickpea curry or make a kidney bean curry, or I would add black beans onto My salad, like a Southwest salad, and that would be amazing. I also started eating more lentils, so I started learning some really easy lentils recipes. Beans and lentils, they both have more fiber, so they burn more slowly. They don't create that massive spike in blood sugar, and they don't create that fat storage. A few other carbs I started eating. Instead of the fast burning carbs where I started eating Ezekiel bread, I started eating sweet potatoes, and I started eating alternative versions of rice like quinoa or millet or buckwheat. And those were all winners for me. They helped me lose the weight. Number two, the second thing I did to lose this 40 pounds and now keep it off was that I also stopped eating dairy. Okay. Or drinking dairy. And so I never had felt that I was lactose intolerant. I never had any intolerances. I never felt bad when I was drinking milk or eating cheese or anything like that. But I found that once I took it out, I realized my weight just started slipping off, like, melting off. What I realized is that what was happening is that there was added sugar in milks or sometimes natural sugars in milk in the form of what's called lactose. And so lactose is a sugar, and it's creating that blood sugar elevation. So that's one of the reasons it's at. It's another way of having sugar. But secondly, if all of us are somewhat lactose intolerant, some of us are more than others. And so even if you have a little bit of lactose intolerant, like almost all of us do, your body can't process the food or the drinks efficiently. And so instead of losing weight, it's working on burning and breaking down this. These dairy products. And so I found out by taking it out of my diet, my body just started running more efficiently, and I started losing weight so easily, and it was staying off, and it wasn't hard. I just decided not to drink milk as much. I used replacements like almond milk or cashew milk. I did eat cheese if I had pizza, but I wasn't making nachos for a snack regular like I had been before. Cheese was creating an addiction because the cheese has the sodium in it, makes you keep wanting it more and more. And so I just took it completely out, and it helped me so, so much. Now, number three, I stopped thinking that I needed to exercise more to lose weight, because I had really thought that I needed to get to the gym, I needed to run, I needed to sweat, I needed to burn calories, and that was the only way that I was going to lose weight. But here's what I found, and this is from so much research and so many scientific studies that show that what you eat is 80% of losing weight. And so if you try to outrun a bad diet or out work out a bad diet, it will never happen. You're going to be working out and running and exercising so much until you have your. Your nutrition dialed in. And so I really started focusing on eating in the right way, on making sure I was taking out those foods that I mentioned and adding in the foods that would replace them. As a result, my weight just started melting away. And then I started adding in exercise so that I could be stronger and I could increase my metabolism by having more tone and muscle on my body, but not as a form to lose weight, because it wasn't working for that and it never had worked for me. Number four thing that I stopped doing that has helped me lose £40 is that I stopped restricting myself and eating boring, bland foods in small portions. Now, I had done this for decades. I had done this as a form of following Weight Watchers, as a form of following nutrisystem, as a form of tracking my calories. And I just kept trying to eat smaller portions of foods that I later found out were actually unhealthy. And I also made them boring and bland because that was all the advice that I saw out there. It was like barely putting on salt and pepper onto my foods. And that just, just didn't hit with me. Because I love food, I would consider myself a foodie. I love going out to eat. I love cooking really delicious foods. I love enjoying delicious foods. And so every time I would restrict myself, the moment I would hit that 10 pounds or around that amount, I would just start eating all of the foods because I was hungry and I didn't want to keep living in a living a life of hunger. I also realized that I just craved foods that tasted good. And so now, instead of eating boring foods like plain broccoli, fish with just salt and pepper on it, you know, just really making everything so boring and bland. I started using spices. I started adding metabolism boosting spices like cumin, like coriander. Cumin helps decrease belly fat. Coriander decreases water retention and bloating. I also started adding in some cayenne pepper, which increases metabolism. And I started adding cinnamon into my coffee to make it taste good without having the dairy that I had been having before. And cinnamon actually lowers our blood sugar and helps us store less fat. So I Started looking at what I was eating in a more delicious way. And I started loving what I was eating and I stopped restricting myself. And this was the key way that it became sustainable for me once I lost weight, to keep losing more weight and get to the body of my dream dreams. Finally, the fifth thing that I stopped doing to lose £40 was that I stopped thinking only about the goal of losing weight. And I stopped only focusing on that and making that the reason that I was making every decision. And I started focusing on how good I was feeling and how much energy I was feeling and how much I loved what I was eating. And I started making every day that I was losing weight fun and enjoyable and and an experiment. I started experimenting with my healthy foods to make them taste better and to feel full and satisfied. And because I was able to love what I was eating and love what I was doing every single day, I was able to keep doing it all the way to losing £40 and then I was able to stay there. Okay, so these are the five things that you can do to lose the weight that you want to lose. They're the five things I say stopped doing and it led me to a body of my dreams. Now if you are interested in hearing more about how to increase your metabolism and lose weight, I would love for you to sign up for my free five day metabolism boost. You can get the link below in the description. And this is going to be five days of workshops where I'm going to be teaching you what to eat for your morning breakfast, what to have for lunches and dinners, mindsets that are mind blowing, that are going to create the healthiest, hottest, fiercest version of yourself and also how to get off sugar. And I'm going to be breaking down exactly what you can eat if you have sugar cravings. That will help you get rid of the sugar cravings. So check those out and check out my latest video. I would love for you to see that. Check it out right here and can't wait to see you next time.