How I Lost 40 Pounds by Walking and Without Starving Myself: Here's the Truth
YouTuber Natalie Stringfield lost 40 pounds and changed her life with the most straightforward exercise: Walking! The "glow-up" expert details her journey online, explaining exactly how she worked out, what her diet looks like, and other important details that helped her reach her goals. "Ever looked at a picture of yourself and wondered, who is that?" she says. "Yeah, me too. It happened to me. No judgment, but I figured out how to transform my body and my mindset without spending hours in the gym and without starving myself." Here's how Stringfield did it as a 43-year-old woman who wanted to be strong and fit.
19-hour Intermittent Fasting
Natalie swears by specific, consistent behaviors that let her lose weight without question. The first is intermittent fasting. Natalie allows herself a five-hour eating window every day from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. (she chooses the morning to enjoy her coffee). "The longer I fast, the better I feel, the less cravings that I have," she says. So, so many benefits to fasting, you guys. I highly recommend you do your own research to find out all of the amazing healing benefits of fasting. It is not just weight loss."
Pillars of Weight Loss
Natalie swears by eating in a caloric deficit, fasting 18-20 hours per day, and walking an hour a day. "That combination of things is elite," she says. "I went to Arizona. I had to gain a good eight pounds in Arizona, drinking alcohol, not fasting. I blew up you guys, [but] I locked back in. I've been walking, fasting, and eating in a caloric deficit, and when I tell you every single day that I wake up, I am smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. It doesn't take long to work. I start losing weight within a couple of days, literally."
Walking Every Day
Natalie walked every day for at least an hour. "When I originally lost my weight, I was walking an hour a day every single day," she says. "I'll just say maybe five days out of the week minimum I walked. Sometimes, it was seven days a week. Sometimes, it was six days a week. It's very easy to get into a habit, and you crave it so much. The benefits of walking are so profound that you may find yourself just wanting to walk every single day."
Break Up the Walks
Natalie says you don't have to do the whole hour at once. "You can definitely break it up," she says. "You can definitely break up your walks. If you need to do 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon, then that's good."
Move Throughout the Day
Natalie knows how important it is to move constantly throughout the day. "The best way to do that is to park farther at the grocery store," she says. "Take the steps. If you can work at a desk and you have an iPhone, your iPhone will remind you to stand up. Use that opportunity to do a few laps around your office, which is what I do. I work in an office. I'm at my desk eight hours a day. I have to purposely get up and walk around my office and take laps."
Start Slow
"Although walking might seem like it's just like nothing when you've got a lot of weight on you, that walking ain't no joke, okay?" she says. "So please don't expect it to be that easy and pace yourself. If you need to break this up, then break it up, and then if you can start to do it continuously, then go ahead and do it continuously."
Benefits of Longer Walks
Natalie now walks for at least 70 minutes. "The thing about doing it continuously is your body will start to use the food you ingested, like carbs. It's going to be using that for energy in the beginning, and there's going to be a timeframe while you're walking that it will shift into straight fat-burning mode, and that comes in about the 45-minute mark, okay? Hence, the reason why I walked 70 minutes was that I did it in one go. I'm trying to get a good 20 minutes where my body's using straight fat for energy."
RELATED: Top 10 Fruits to Burn Fat You Should Eat Every Day
Burning Fat
Natalie will walk at 7 p.m., eight hours after closing her eating window. "When I get on that treadmill, and I walk that 70 minutes, I don't think it's taken me that long to get to the point where my body's using fat as energy," she says. "It just sounds right to me. I might be wrong, but I have been loving the evening walks, and I have been loving the benefits because I feel super snatched, and I feel like walking really transforms your body, and I'm addicted, and I'm in love at this point."
Winsor Pilates
Natalie swears by Winsor Pilates. "I did Winsor Pilates strictly for almost a year when I was about 20 or 21, my best body ever," she says. "I was so lean and long. I was super flexible. I was super strong. My core was tight, and I just loved the look of my body. It really cinched in my waist, and I just had this cute little hourglass shape. I just loved it."
No Alcohol
Natalie only drinks on special occasions. "I stopped drinking alcohol when I decided I wanted to lose weight and when I realized how the body tries to burn off the alcohol when you ingest it," she says. "In a perfect world, if alcohol didn't affect your body in the way that it did, I would literally have some tequila every night. If you're trying to lose weight, but you're drinking every few days, just imagine you're not going to lose the weight. It's going to be very difficult, or it's going to be extremely slowed down."
Make a Choice
"I would say if you're really serious about your journey, cut the alcohol out, girl," Natalie reiterates. "Just wait. It's not even worth it. And to be honest, alcohol does nothing for us. It does nothing for us. It's just not something that we should be drinking all the time, and we shouldn't even aspire to drink it all the time. And this is not coming from a judgy place. I'm just trying to say, honestly, it's not the way."
Fat-Burning Zone
Natalie encourages people to find out what their fat-burning heart rate is. "It's so important for you to understand that everybody's cardio levels are completely different," she says. "So the speed that I walk is going to be what I need to be walking for me to be in my zone two heart rate. It's going to be different for everybody. What I highly recommend that you do is Google fat burn heart rate, and you'll see charts. So you'll be able to look at the chart and determine what your zone two heart rate should be in."
RELATED: 12-3-30 Walking Method: 20 Proven Tips to Lose Weight Faster
No Scales
Natalie no longer feels the need to weigh herself constantly. "In order to stay happy, I just choose not to get on the scale," she says. "What I use for me is how good I feel in my clothes, clothes getting looser, things that I used to have that didn't fit are fitting, things like that. When I feel super confident, my stomach feels nice and flat or flat as it can be. That's what I'm gauging. I don't do the scale anymore, guys. So that's that."
Figure out Your TDEE
Natalie strongly recommends using a TDEE calculator when trying to lose weight. "It's going to tell you how much food you have to eat if you don't want to gain another pound," she says. "First and foremost, you're going to have to figure out how many calories you should be taking in order for you to lose weight. And in order for you to even get to that point, you need to figure out just your maintenance calories."
Prioritizing Protein
Natalie started logging her calories using an app. "What I did was I prioritize protein as my main calorie source," she says. "So with my meals, I plan it in advance. I didn't wing it Monday through Friday or whatever the case is to figure out. I just started scanning as I ate because it's very important for you to get your protein in, and it was very important for me to get protein and fiber in. So I planned everything the night before."
And Finally, Use a Food Scale
Natalie would use a food scale to make sure she was accurately logging calories. "So, for example, if it was dinner, I would weigh my chicken first or my salmon or whatever it was. And so if you take whatever portion of chicken that you have that you've cooked and put it on the scale, all right, you're going to need a food scale in order for you to weigh your food." And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.
