7 Things I Did That Helped Me Lose 7kgs In 2 Months

This year I have found some great success with weight loss and it’s about time too that I turned a corner and started losing weight instead of packing it on. After quitting smoking more than 2 years ago I have been overweight and I struggled to get any of it to budge.

On New Years eve my cousin Anthea came to stay and we played big time catch up, literally catching up on the last 20 odd years since we saw each other last. She shared some amazing health information with me and gave me new motivation and inspiration to lose weight.

PS Anthea has just started her own blog Anthea’s Positive Life so feel free to go and give her some love!

Using some information that I researched myself and adding some things that Anthea shared with me I decided on some things to implement in my life to help me not only lose weight but focus on my overall health.

Here are the things I did this year that have helped me to lose 7kgs in just 2 months:

1. Green Food Detox

I went on a green food detox for the first week of January and it really worked wonders. I lost about 3.5kg that first week alone! Now I think what happened is that my body has been so overweight and so sick that the attempts I made at losing weight previously were a losing battle. I believe this detox gave my body the fright of its life and kick started my weight loss.

How I did is was to drink my homemade apple cider vinegar diet drink every day, yes I drank 2lt of it every day for a week.

For one week I had nothing but green food – I could eat whatever I wanted and how much I wanted as long as it was green. Every morning I had a green smoothie for breakfast, for lunch I would have a nibble of something green, like an avocado or sugar snap peas, because I was never very hungry at lunch time, and for supper I had cooked vegetables.

To drink when my diet drink was finished I had green tea with honey or water.

Yes no coffee, I nearly died. I got a major migraine on days 1 to 3 which is totally to be expected. I believe that to be a withdrawal from caffeine and sugar in combination with the toxins in my system coming up to haunt me.

2. Homemade Apple Cider Vinegar Diet Drink

Yes I mentioned this already in the above point but I didn’t only drink it during my first detox week, I drank it on and off throughout the 2 months. I didn’t have it every single day but there were plenty of days when I drank it and I am sure it helped me to lose weight and to flush toxins out of my body.

This homemade apple cider vinegar diet drink did wonders for my weight loss and for my health.

3. Green Smoothies

Yes I also mentioned this already but I still drink green smoothies most mornings now – most week mornings anyway. It is a great way to make sure that my body gets all its goodness in first thing and I have found myself feeling much better physically when I get my green smoothie fix first thing.

I don’t follow any exact recipes, I rather have some set things that I always add in and then I just throw in whatever I have on hand that is green.

One rule that I always follow is to make sure that I don’t add too much fruit, the point is to get in some green vegetables not to loads myself up with sugar. So I make sure that I have maximum 20% fruit and 80% vegetables.

Here’s what I add to every green smoothie – baby spinach or kale, ginger, honey, peanut butter, almond milk, fresh aloe from my garden (or aloe juice extract) and plain yogurt. I also always add either banana or avocado because it makes it so lovely and creamy.

Then I add in anything green that I have around such as broccoli, cucumber, apple and celery. Sometimes I also add coconut water in, it is so good for you and will benefit you greatly.

Here’s an Instagram shot I took of one of my smoothies recently listing all the ingredients:

Loving my morning green smoothies. This one had baby spinach, broccoli, apple, avo, ginger, celery, cucumber, coconut water, almond milk, yogurt, honey and peanut butter. Super tasty and got my fix of goodness in! #greensmoothie #greensmoothieingredients #smoothie #smoothies #smoothielove #smoothielover #smoothielovers #lovesmoothies #greensmoothielove #greensmoothielover #greensmoothielovers #instasmoothie #healthfreak #feelinghealthy #healthsmoothie #healthysmoothie #feelinggood #healthylife #healthylifestyle

A post shared by Lynne Huysamen (@lynnehuysamen) on Apr 19, 2018 at 1:47am PDT

4. Cut Down On Starches and Processed Foods

Once my green food detox week was over I was feeling great and I continued to try and eat as much green as possible. I am still doing this and I can feel the difference. The way my mind used to work before I went on this mission was to think in terms of meat and starch when I planned meals. So chicken and potato or mince and pasta… now when I plan my meals I try and think of my vegetables and how I will prepare them before considering what else I will cook.

I try now to not include starches as far as I can. I do understand that it is important to eat starches but I don’t think eating starch with every meal is good. We now have starch with maybe two meals a week and even then it is not a lot.

The focus has also been on whole fresh foods so fresh fruit, vegetables and salads are so in right now. Obviously junk food, sweets and chips was not on the menu – except for Saturday nights!

I do think it is important not to get too caught up in weight loss, not eating chocolate is just sad and not much fun.

5. Cooking With Coconut Oil

I used to use Canola oil for my cooking, well not all the time but quite regularly. I substituted all my cooking with coconut oil instead since it is much healthier.  When I haven’t used coconut oil I have used avocado or olive oil.

Once a week my hubby and I have steak and chips for our regular Saturday night movie night. Then of course I use Canolia oil to cook the chops but other than that it is all coconut, avocado and olive oil now with the emphasis being on coconut oil.

I have to admit I can taste the difference and it feels healthier.

6. Regular Light to Moderate Exercise Daily

Previously I placed a lot of emphasis on trying to exercise and you know what? It is not always easy to fit in exercise between working, looking after kids, shopping, cooking, washing and everything else that I do in one day.

Instead of focusing on working out I focused on just moving my body every day, even if it was just a short walk on the beach after my morning smoothie that was great and it made me feel good. I didn’t run or push myself hard to do anything and I really enjoyed my little walks. Sometimes I walked far and went for a brisk walk. Other days I strolled along for 5 minutes and enjoyed the peacefulness on the beach before going home.

7. Green Tea

I mentioned green tea with honey in my first item but this I also carried through with drinking every day. I used to drink a lot of coffee, each cup with 2 spoons of sugar. After my detox I started drinking coffee again, yes still with 2 sugars, but just one cup in the morning to get me going.

After my morning cup of coffee I only drink green tea or water.

Losing 7kgs has been such an amazing achievement for me this year and I am going to continue to work on my weight loss and keep you all updated. Something that has really stood out for me now is how sick, huge and sluggish I felt before losing this weight. It is not surprising that it was so hard to lose any weight. I feel a world of difference now and I am determined to lose at least another 10kgs.

I hope that by sharing these things that have worked for me it will help you to lose weight and inspire you to give it another go. I can only speak for myself when I say that I was really feeling demotivated when I was not being successful trying to lose weight.

I will be sharing some before and after pics when I have made more progress and I am feeling a little more confident.