How to Lose 5 Pounds in a Month | Weight Loss Goals Made Easy

It’s not easy to figure out how to lose 5 pounds a month! It is even more difficult to achieve your weight loss goals without exercise! However, sometimes regular exercise is just not an option. Maybe you have a physical limitation. Or maybe you just had a baby and not only is your body not yet up for it but neither is your energy level! Regardless, it would still be nice to drop some of those extra pounds and IT IS POSSIBLE!

Before becoming a SAHM and blogger, I worked as a health and fitness specialist. I worked for Exos Medifit inside of an insurance company office building. Our goals were to improve and maintain the health and fitness levels of all the cubical employees. Some of the employees would come down to our gym either before work or during lunch for a workout, but not many. The challenge for us was to be able to help all the staff that were glued to their desks for 8-10 hours a day. When you are not able to incorporate movement into your daily routine, you must change your diet plan.

This easy to follow, no starving yourself, diet adjustment is the BEST way to easily learn how to lose 5 pounds in a month! I call it the FIVE F’s to FOLLOW for FITNESS!

#1 FIVE. This is how many times that you should be eating in one day.

You should be eating every 3 hours starting as soon as you wake up. For example, if you wake up around 6:45am, you should eat at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, and 7pm.

Not eating 3 hours before you go to sleep is also important. This gives your body the chance to digest the rest of your food during waking hours. This way your sleeping hours, which should be between 8-10 hours, can be focused on body repair!

Eating every 3 hours has several benefits. Eating small meals every 3 hours helps to keep your body in fat-burning mode. If you do not eat enough then your body will resort to starvation mode. In starvation mode your body will start burning muscle for energy while conserving fat. Also, if you go too long between meals we usually tend to then overeat. If you eat too much in one meal, your body will go into a state of rest and digest. Overeating causes your digestive system to have to go into overdrive. While your body is working so hard to figure out what to do with all the excess food, you will likely feel lethargic. This is because your body literally had to stop functioning as normal to deal with the excess calories.

I know that the intermittent fasting diet has been all the rave recently. I gave it a go too just to see what would happen. Although the science behind it does make sense and the diet will work if applied and executed correctly, IT IS HARD! The two biggest problems that I had with the diet was that when noon FINALLY came around and I got to eat something I ate EVERYTHING! I felt like PacMan and I was WINNING! You are supposed to eat “normally” but after starving myself for that long I couldn’t help but to eat everything in sight. The other issue I had with the diet was reduced energy levels. Without food to give me energy, I didn’t want to do anything. All I could concentrate on was when I could EAT! Then after I finally got to eat, all my body could do was sit there and try to digest it all!

Food should be used as FEUL! It can be the key to how to lose 5 pounds in a month without exercise!

#2 FIST. This should be the size of each of the 5 food meals that you eat.

Your fist is roughly 1 cup or 8oz. This may not sound like a lot to you at first, but once you start incorporating this system into your day-to-day life, you will find that it is quite a bit! This is especially dependent on what you choose to eat for each meal.

The issue with a lot of diets out there is that you are restricted from certain food groups. However, CRAVINGS HAPPEN! HOLIDAYS HAPPEN! LIFE HAPPENS! Trying to maintain a diet that cuts out all of the foods that you love is IMPOSSIBLE to maintain as a lifestyle change!

With the Fist for Five method you get to choose what those five meals are each day. If you want one of them to be 8oz of potato chips or a large slice of cake that is FINE! However, you will start to learn that those processed foods don’t hold much sustenance. You will probably get hungry again well before the next meal time. This method will challenge you to start thinking about your food choices and you may surprise yourself when you start choosing foods for fuel rather than flavor.

#3 FIBER. You should try to include fiber into each of your five meals.

However, if you are not used to eating a high fiber diet, take it slow. Start by adding it to one meal and then slowly increasing the amount of fiber that you eat and how made meals you include it in.

It takes your body a lot longer to process foods high in fiber. Hence, high fiber diets will keep you fuller for longer! Foods high in fiber include:

• pears
• avacado
• coconuts
• raspberries
• bananas
• apples
• strawberries
• figs
• carrots
• spinich
• broccoli
• artichoke
• edemamme
• split peas
• beets
• kidney beans
• black beans
• chickpeas
• lima beans
• okra
• kale
• sweet potatoes
• brussel sprouts
• whole wheat pasta
• oats
• quinoa
• pearled barley
• millet
• flaxseed
• chia seeds
• brown rice
• almonds
• dark chocolate
• popcorn

**Check out my article, How to Make Epic Stovetop Popcorn, for a recipe that includes popcorn and avocado oil!**PRO TIP: Add flaxseed naturally into your diet by using it as a substitute for eggs when baking! (One tbsp Flaxseed + 3 tbsp water + 5 minute wait = 1 egg) Recipes with this food swap: Bonkers Brownies and Crazy for these Oatmeal Crazin “Cookies”

#4 FRESH. Adding fresh fruits and vegetables to your 5 meals make figuring out how to lose 5 pounds in a month so simple!

Most fruits and vegetables naturally contain high levels of fiber. You can read more about which ones and find other foods that you can incorporate into your meals to help speed up your metabolism in this article.Some of my favorite ways to add fruits to my diet are mixing them into oatmeal (I add a little flaxseed to it too!) or making desserts with it, like my oatmeal Crazin cookies.

Mixing fruits and veggies together makes it easy when you need to kill two birds with one stone. This salad recipe is PERFECT because it includes cherries, apples and mixed greens that all high in fiber!

Another great idea is to incorporate your veggie servings into sauces for proteins! I love to top chicken breast with my Homemade Black Bean and Corn Salsa! Fiber and protein makes for winning combination!

Work your way to eventually include at least 2 fruits and 4 vegetables into your 5 meal plans!

#5 FIRST. Drink 16oz of water BEFORE each meal.

I have talked about the importance of water intake in several articles like, 10 Best Tips and Tricks to Speed Up Your Metabolism. However, I’m going to do it again because it is THAT IMPORTANT!Did you know that drinking water helps boost your metabolism? Not only that, but it helps to cleanse your body of waste and acts as an appetite suppressant. Also, it helps your body stop retaining water so that you can drop those extra pounds of water weight!

Do you know how much water you are supposed to drink per day?

This answer can vary depending on how much physical exercise you are getting, how much you sweat, etc… However, the rule of thumb for water consumption is that you should be drinking half of your body weight in ounces of water each day. For example, if you weight 160lb then you should drink 80oz of water a day (160/2=80). And this meaning WATER! Coffee, lemonade, soda, etc… DO NOT COUNT.

If you’re like me, this is a bit difficult. Water by itself it just not that interesting! I have tried everything to keep up this daily intake (different shaped ice, various cups, etc…) and nothing has worked! But then I found Buzio water bottles. This bottle helped me to increase my water intake and break through my weight loss plateaus!

When I was looking for a water bottle, the description of this one was what first intrigued me. It says that it keeps cold things cold for 48 hours and hot things hot for 24 hours. Of course I thought that had to be a bit overexaggerated!

But then I bought it... This water bottle is a weight loss game changer!

I would put hot water for tea in it for the morning and it would still be scalding hot by mid-afternoon so I have NO doubt that it would still be hot for a whole 24 hours. And it keeps cold things cold for at least 48 hours. I can fit a whole tray of 12 ice cubes in it with water and there will still be ice in it two days later. It is insane!But now that I have been trying to count my ounces, I just fill it up with cold water without ice. And because it is a 40oz bottle, I only have to fill it up 2x a day to make sure that I am getting enough water.

BONUS: It comes with two different tops to choose from. I use the top with the spout and I the straw attachment inside. I just drink more when I am drinking out of a straw. But you can do whatever works best for you!

If you can follow these five F’s for fitness then you will quickly learn how to lose 5 pounds in a month IF NOT MORE! If you are able to add a little exercise into your routine as well, you can expect even better results! For a no fuse or planning exercise routine, check out my article, Workout Anytime | Ultimate No Excuses Fitness Plan. Or, if you are ready for a bigger challenge, create your own workout with this Customizable 30 Minute Total Body Workout!

Please share your story, your meal choices, your experience of your journey to learning how to lose 5 pounds in a month and your SUCCESS in the comments!

Please consult your doctor before starting any diet or fitness regiment.