To lose weight when injured and unable to exercise, focus on a healthy, balanced diet with whole foods, control portion sizes, stay hydrated, get enough sleep, engage in low-impact activities, and manage stress.
It can be challenging, but not impossible.
Below is a summary of the tips we will share in this article:
- Maintain a good diet: Nutrition is a crucial factor in weight loss. Ensure you eat a healthy, balanced diet rich in whole foods, lean protein, and fiber. Minimize processed and high-calorie foods.
- Eat in Moderation and watch your portion sizes: Even healthy foods can cause weight gain if consumed excessively. Regulate your portions and use smaller plates to feel satiated with less food.
- Drink plenty of water: Water can curb overeating by creating a sense of fullness. Aim to consume at least eight glasses of water daily.
- Get enough sleep: Sleep deprivation can lead to weight gain. Make sure to get adequate, restful sleep every night.
- Stay active: Despite being unable to exercise in the conventional sense, you can engage in low-impact activities like walking, swimming, or yoga. Consult with your physician before embarking on any new physical activity.
- Manage your stress: Stress can cause overeating and weight gain. Find ways to alleviate stress, such as meditation, prayers, deep breathing, or counseling.
8 Ways You Can Lose Weight When Injured and Can’t Exercise:
1. Keep track of the Activity Level
Use a calorie burn estimator for at least a week to see if you are active enough to burn more calories than intake or not. If not, you have to increase your physical activity and replace high-calorie foods with lower ones.
Repeat this activity every week until you are satisfied that you are active enough to not keep track of it.
2. Avoid Foods that Increase Weight
According to Dr. Eric Berg, exercise contributes only 15% to weight loss. Diet, sleep, rest, and recovery are more significant factors:
While injured and unable to exercise, avoid high-calorie and sugary foods as they contribute to fat storage.
Instead, choose healthy alternatives like fresh fruits, vegetables, or yogurt for a weight-loss diet.
3. Eat in Chunks
Instead of 3 big meals, eat food in 6 small chunks. This way, your body will be better able to digest the food, and since it is a recommendation to take 120 medical steps after each meal if you do it, you’ll be better able to digest the food and there won’t be enough left to get stored in the body as fats.
It will also regulate your blood sugar levels and help in avoiding food cravings between meals.
4. Take Multivitamin Pills
Since you are replacing high-calorie foods with low-calorie ones. It will be difficult to get all the nutrition from them.
Check with your doctor and see if there are any specific supplements you can take to help you heal from your particular injury or avoid weakness caused by a diet shift.
5. Talk with the Doctor about Exercises you can do
You can’t workout freely while being injured. But there still are many exercises that are doable. Take guidance from your doctor on that matter.
Try developing a simple workout plan to increase your daily calories burn. It will create a space for you to eat more.
6. Try Intermittent Fasting
Fasting is one of the many good ways to lose weight without exercise.
It activates healthy processes that lead to cleaning the body of toxins and forcing the cells into activities that are impossible to stimulate in presence of a steady food stream.
Lack of access to the usual glucose will enforce the body cells to adjust and produce energy through other means e.g. through burning fats.
7. Try Yoga
Yoga is a practice that has been around for centuries. It has many benefits including, but not limited to, weight loss.
Yoga is a great way to lose weight. It is different from other forms of exercise in a way that it doesn’t involve the use of external weights or equipment.
There are thousands of yoga asanas and most of them do not require strenuous physical activity, so it can even be done by people who are recovering from an injury.
8. Drink plenty of Water
Many times, you may feel hungry even when you are not hungry.
It can happen because of a lack of fluids in the body. Therefore, if you feel hungry, make an attempt to resolve it by drinking water first. There is a high chance, the hunger pangs will go away.
Conclusion
Being injured and unable to exercise can make it challenging to lose weight.
However, there are still ways to achieve weight loss goals by making dietary changes, regulating portion sizes, staying hydrated, getting adequate sleep, engaging in low-impact activities, managing stress, and seeking advice from a healthcare professional.
By implementing the tips mentioned in this article, individuals can still make progress toward their weight loss goals, even if they are unable to engage in high-intensity workouts.