But if losing weight requires that you leave behind your favorite foods, then how are you supposed to lose weight when you can’t master that starting step? Well, studies suggest you might be able to reach your goals without such a steep price. Here are few tips you need to follow in order to lose weight even while not giving up your favorite food.
1. Drink water regularly.
Drinking water regularly can work miracles for your weight –– just by helping your body do what it’s supposed to. That simple change helps you eat less and (coincidentally) lose weight. Research shows that drinking water half an hour before meal helps in reducing hunger. Along with its regular job of flushing toxins and waste products from the body, it also improves digestion of foods. This, in turn, ensures that all of the digestive system, digestive glands, liver, and kidneys stay healthy too. It’s simple as that. So, keep hydrating your body and you will see the difference.
2. Protein –rich foods.
While eating carbohydrate-rich foods can be counterproductive in your quest to lose weight, protein awaits as your life savior. Proteins have a pretty big say in your hunger levels. Eating proteins gives you a sensation of being full so that you intake fewer calories, thanks to its effect on appetite controlling hormones (GLP-1 and Ghrelin). By eating proteins, you restrict calories without your consciousness. So add protein to your diet – fish, yogurt, chicken breasts, almonds, eggs. You can always opt for a protein-rich version of your favorite meal, turning your favorite foods into healthier alternatives. Add egg to your breakfast instead of grain-based products and see the change for yourself.
3. Walk, walk and walk!
Just eating won’t help if you spend all your time in a chair and never give your body chance to burn the calories. So tie your shoelaces and take a walk. It doesn’t have to be some drawn out stroll or a run that leaves you wishing you hadn’t. Just do some walking at your own pace for at least an hour a day. And if you’re feeling adventurous, it might be an even better choice to have a walk in nature than on a treadmill.
4. Build lean muscle.
Building lean muscle does wonders in the long run for both your body’s metabolism and your weight. Lean muscle will burn your calories and helps you lose more simply because your body needs more calories to sustain itself. But in order to reap those rewards, you have to invest in turning your body structure from more fat and less muscle to more muscle and less fat. As you chart your weight initially, it might seem to be unaffected because you’re burning down of fats and building up lean muscle to add to your weight. But after the initial adjustments, lean muscle will burn more calories than you can imagine.
5. Fitness tracker.
Getting a fitness tracker on your cell phone to monitor your physical exercise can also help you reach your goals. The app can record all sorts of data, like how many steps you’ve taken, or how many stairs you have climbed. Some apps even have challenges to entice you to break your personal records every day and grow daily. You may find yourself having difficulty saying no to it. Track your daily and weekly records and challenge yourself to see better results.
6. Fiber-rich foods.
Another food tip to do away with your appetite is to intake fiber-rich foods. Fiber-rich foods will give you the sensation of fullness by reducing your hunger. They form gel when they come in contact with water, which allows food to remain in the stomach for a longer period of time. This also slows down the digestion. Add beans, oats, asparagus, oranges and flax seeds to control your appetite and food intake.
7. Eat without electronic distractions.
Eating without distractions helps you eat less. If you pay attention to eating, you tend to consume fewer calories. Research has shown that people who eat while using electronic devices, like while watching TV or using smartphone or computer, lose track of how much they have already eaten and thus succumb to overeating. So avoid getting distracted while eating and pay attention to eating to eat less and lose your weight.
8. Yoga.
Yoga has lots of benefits, including its effect on body weight. It helps you attain physical, mental, emotional as well as spiritual, well-being. At the same time, it makes your body flexible while also helping you to work up a sweat and burn calories. You can start with simpler forms of yoga as a beginner. With regular practice, you can work your way up to complex stances and forms of yoga to help you naturally attain a healthy level of physical well-being. As a bonus, by helping to relieve your stress, it helps in reducing your weight.
9. Using smaller plates.
Using smaller plates helps you eat less by making you believe that you have eaten a full meal, while using larger plates with the same amount of food will make the food amount look insufficient, causing you to add more and eat more. So if you have some foods that are known to add to your weight, serve them on smaller plates and serve healthy foods known to decrease appetite and hunger in larger plates. This is a trick that you can certainly use to your advantage.
10. Serving unhealthy foods in red plates.
This weird trick has been shown to work well to help you reduce appetite and weight. If not, it works with snack foods ,which are unhealthy for you. Research has shown that people eat less from red plates than from blue or white plates. Perhaps it’s because of the association of the color red with danger that has been ingrained in our brain that sends us ‘stop’ signals. This stop signal helps us eat less and thus gain less weight. While you can eat your favorite foods, it certainly helps if you can restrict them. Featured photo credit: Wikipedia via upload.wikimedia.org
