10 Things To Do Before 10am To Lose Weight

2. Water Before Coffee

While you’re waiting for your Mr. Coffee to drip or your coffee pod to percolate, grab yourself a glass of water.

For one, you’re likely a bit dehydrated after going eight hours without any liquid.

More importantly for this conversation, though, a glass of water in the morning has some surprising weight loss benefits. According to one study, drinking water helped increase participants’ metabolic rate up to 30% for up to 30-40 minutes.

It also helps to curb your appetite, too, with one study of adults showing a decrease in calorie consumption of up to 13%. While 13% may not seem like a lot, that’s a number that will compound as it becomes a habit.

And all it takes is a simple glass of water each morning!

Need some motivation to stay hydrated? Take our water drinking challenges with our IRLA Hydration challenge medals. Gradually increase your water intake as you reward yourself with your IRLAs.

3. Don’t Snooze – Sleep!

Unless you’re going to bed at 6pm and waking up at 2am, a good part of your morning is dedicated to sleep. That’s what makes this next habit such a delicious one: get more sleep!

While that can be easier said than done with the encroachment of work and the demands of other responsibilities, eight hours of sleep each night helps to keep you healthy. In particular, the appetite hormones ghrelin and leptin are kept under control, meaning when you break your fast, you’ll do so in a normal fashion.

The more regular your sleep and diet, the more easily you’ll be able to address any of that extra holiday weight you’ve put on.

Have trouble sleeping at night? Do you stare at your screen, your tablet, your phone, beaming all that bright light into your eyes? You may need a digital detox challenge. Our IRLA Unplugged challenge medals give you a plan to curb your worst electronic impulses -- for one, putting down your phone.

4. Make The Weekend A Part Of The Week

Before we get started, no, this isn’t advocating the complete abolishment of brunch. Eggs Benedict, crepes, and avocado toast are all too delicious to get rid of completely.

Plus, the point of habits is to create something sustainable and achievable you can do week in and week out. When you deprive yourself of the things you like, it’s much harder to fully commit.

Instead, consider a subtle shift of making your weekend plan similar to your week plan to build consistency.

That could be keeping the same sleep schedule (when possible, of course!) so that you can continue to make good decisions before 10am.

It could be cutting out alcohol from your weekend breakfast + brunch routine because, well, you’re probably not drinking too many mimosas before work.

By creating this foundation – and not treating the whole weekend like a cheat day – you have a better chance of sticking to the positive habits you’re developing.  While science is in support of the occasional cheat day, indulging too often will end up counterproductive.

5. Supercharge Your Breakfast With Protein

Breakfast is a land of temptation. In the office, you may come across a box of donuts or cinnamon rolls. At your coffee shop, muffins call your name in a sweet siren song of double chocolate.

Yet it’s protein that will help you with your appetite throughout the day and your weight loss goals. According to a study in the Nutrition Journal, high-protein breakfasts helped reduce cravings for both sweet and savory foods.

By choosing to start your morning with more protein, you also help pave the way for easier diet decision-making for the rest of the day.

6. Step On The Scale

Though confronting the scale on a regular basis can seem scary, there is an increasing amount of research that supports a daily check-in as a way to build healthy habits.

This study found that participants who weighed themselves daily lost significantly more weight compared with those who weighed themselves less often. More than just a short-term solution, this daily habit also showed benefits with a study conducted over two years.

This daily habit can also become the foundation for your other good decisions throughout the morning and the rest of the day. By centering yourself on the goal, you help to align your actions.

Best practices for daily weighing are centered around consistency. Find a time after you’ve gone to the bathroom and before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. That will give you a consistent number.

7. Exercise In The Morning

There are a number of potential benefits to making morning exercise one of your weight loss habits.

Perhaps the most powerful one? Once you do it, you don’t have to think about it any more! This could be personal bias speaking, but whenever I’ve put off exercise until the afternoon or evening, it’s that much easier to just cancel it completely because I’ve been tired or because plans have come up.

Fortunately we’ve also got science to back up my anecdotal advice. Exercising in the morning can help your body better control its blood sugar levels and it may also leave you feeling slightly more satiated.

It’s specifically these kinds of decisions, though, that help to build a healthy foundation for weight loss. Feeling just a little bit more satisfied after your workout helps to cut down on midday snacks so you can stay on track.

8. Pack Your Lunch

In the morning, we often have more energy for making decisions. As the day presses on, we use up our decision-making power. As a result, we succumb to decision fatigue, which can lead to us making the easy, convenient decision instead of the one we’d make if we had a clear head.

If you’ve had a busy morning at work and your meetings have run long, buying a quick lunch and eating it at your desk can seem like the easiest thing to do. Yet, that can leave you eating more than you meant to or eating foods that you wish you hadn’t.

By packing your lunch in the morning, you can reduce this risk entirely. Plus, meal planning has long been associated with a better variety of diet, better quality, and lower obesity risk.

What’s more, by eating home-cooked meals (even if it’s a lunch you’re bringing with you) at least five times a week, you put yourself in a healthier position.

9. Start A Food Journal

There is a whole community of people excited about the idea of morning pages, or morning journaling. The idea is to help you clear your mind and become more creative.

A daily food journal can offer the same sort of clarity around your weight loss goals. This kind of self-monitoring has been positively associated with weight loss over 12 months, as well as weight loss management.

Given that the goal of these morning weight loss habits is not just to lose weight but to build a sustainable plan for a healthier future, long-term management is as fundamental as short-term weight loss.

10. Get A Little Sun

While this can be easier to do in the spring and summer than the dead of winter, getting sun has a number of potential benefits when it comes to weight loss.

In addition to helping us with our sleep and our circadian rhythm, sunlight was found to be correlated with our body mass index. The findings suggest that regular exposure to light is an important factor in weight regulation.

In another study, the lack of vitamin D was shown to predispose participants to fat accumulation, while higher levels of vitamin D were associated with lower weight again.

Since sunlight helps us naturally produce vitamin D, making a habit of getting some light exposure in the morning can help to regulate your sleep cycle and your body’s natural vitamin production.

Of course, getting sun doesn’t have to be a passive act. If you’re combining it with a daily walk or bike ride, you’ll have the added benefit of exercising while enjoying your daily dose of Vitamin D.

From staying within your dietary goals for 30 days to reaching your goal weight, there are plenty of achievements to unlock – you can check them all out here!