- Know the food you are about to consume, the nutritional content, the calories, and the impact it might have on your body.
- Patience is vital when it comes to mindful eating. It’s essential to learn what you’re consuming and prevent over-consumption.
- Cut down on boredom snacking. We all know what that is, and we all do it. Only eat if you are hungry. If you are not hungry, do something to distract yourself from reaching out to food.
- Put away all distractions when you’re eating. Watching tv while eating, we’re all victims of this. It’s more harmful than you think. It completely takes your mind of food leading to an unhealthy lifestyle.
10 Tips About Weight-loss You Cannot Afford To Miss
You have probably already read a ton of weight-loss articles, some with bizarre solutions and some with the basic ones. To be honest, there are a lot of ways you can tackle your weight issues. However, some things play a crucial role, and it’s super important to deal with them correctly.
It boils down to managing your calorie intake, making sure you burn more than you consume. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well, most of us still struggle with that concept and, above all, consistency. It can be a challenge to maintain an effective and practical weight-loss plan.
Let’s take a look at ten vital tips that can make the weight-loss journey easier for us!
1. Practice mindful eating
The most crucial part of any diet you might want to follow is; Mindful eating. Mindful eating is not only important for weight-loss but also when it comes to maintaining a healthy diet. Now, what exactly is mindful eating?
Mindful Eating
“The art of presence while eating” The word Mindful encourages conscious behavior towards an act. To summarize, mindful eating is the process of keeping track of the food you consume daily.
Some points to note to practice mindful eating:
2. Be consistent with your diet
There are a lot of great weight-loss diets out there, you could pick any of the most suitable ones, but the most the key here is consistency. Whatever diet you choose, stick with it. Do not expect results if you are unable to maintain your diet in a consistent manner. It's okay to have cheat meals if you think you've earned it but make sure your cheat meal does not drag on to be a cheat day or even cheat weeks.
Some of the well known, successful diet plans are:
- Intermittent fasting (One of my favorite ones): Some studies prove that this type of diet can increase fat burning while maintaining the muscles in the body. There are various forms of intermittent fasting such as 16:8 which gives you an eating window of 8 hours and fasting window of 16 hours, 5:2 is when you limit your calorie intake to 500 calories twice a week. This is not only good for weight loss but also has a lot of other health benefits. It's been linked with anti-aging benefits, improved brain health, and a lot of other advantages.
- Low carb diet: This is another one the traditional, popular dietary plans. Diets such as high fat, low carb, and Ketogenic diets fall under this category. These plans aid in weight loss by limiting your carb intake and favoring proteins and fats. This forces your body to use fatty acids for daily activities rather than the carbs. Therefore eventually burning excess fat from the body. They are known to have other benefits, reduces the risk of heart disease, help with diabetes, and high cholesterol.
- Low-fat diet: These have also been popular for a long time. This diet works by restricting fat intake in your diet. It mainly consists of carbs and protein; only about 10% of the diet is fat. Studies prove that Low-fat diet results in small but noticeable changes. Other benefits of this diet include reduction of inflammation, reduced risk to heart disease, and some more.
3. Engage in Exercise
Exercise is crucial for good physical health and as well as excellent mental health. It is not only a means to weight-loss but also a healthier life. Losing weight and maintaining the weight only work hand in hand if your regime includes physical workouts. Exercise burns calories, helping you stick to the most crucial aspect of losing weight; burn more than you consume.
Find time to exercise
There are a lot of weight-loss centric workouts that help you shed some extra kilos. Some of the most popular ones include brisk walking, jogging/running, weight training, pilates, cycling, swimming, yoga, and the options never end. There is no harm in trying all of them out and pick the one that's the most suitable for your body.
Apart from weight-loss, exercises have other great benefits on your body, such as improved mood, better state of mind, stronger bones, reduced risk for many diseases, and much much more.
4. Plan ahead
Maintaining a detailed plan for your everyday meals helps you carry out a systematic diet that can be prolonged. Preplanning meals will stop you from grabbing what you see when you're hungry, which is when you're most vulnerable. It makes sure you never really reach a point of extreme hunger where you do not have time to think or prepare a diet-friendly meal.
Some points to note:
- Your plan does not always have to include meals for the entire week, start off simple by planning the previous night for the next day's meal.
- Stock up the kitchen with your diet-friendly snacks.
- Try planning your meals before you attend a certain social event or prior to visiting a restaurant. This ensures you have enough time to pick a meal that fits your diet plan.
5. Seek Support
There are a lot of online and offline groups that are created for the purpose of weight-loss/healthy life encouragement. Embracing support from other people who are or have been on the same journey is crucial to a successful weight-loss chapter.
Join an exercise club
Some of the common support venues are:
- Social networking groups (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
- Group/individual counseling sessions
- Assistance programs at work
- Exercise clubs (formal and informal)
6. Stay positive
Stay positive and believe in yourself. I cannot emphasize enough on this point. Understand that losing weight is a long and gradual process, not an overnight miracle. The key to successfully losing weight is to understand this and be consistent with whatever diet and exercise plan you are following.
Some days might seem harder than others, but it's important to keep pushing forward. Make sure you do not set unrealistic goals as this might lead to disappointment and discourage you from the journey.
7. Don't be too hard on yourself
Don't turn your weight-loss chapter into a punishment, instead turn it into a lifestyle. Being too hard on yourself could backfire and take you back to the bottom of the ladder. Remember that no food is completely off-limit. Sometimes food is not for the body but for the soul. It's alright to have cheat meals once in a while to satisfy your cravings; this will help you maintain a more successful diet during the rest of the time.
Remember to never feel guilt after your cheat meals. It's alright if you went a little overboard. Feeling guilty about it won't change much. Instead, it'll just ruin the little moment you had with your favorite food. Fix this by making up for it by working out a little extra, doing a few extra laps, or extending your work out by 30 minutes.
8. Drink lots and lots of water!
Believe it or not, drinking water is the biggest secret to effectively losing weight. It not only helps you lose weight but also enables you to maintain it. Water also suppresses hunger by taking up space in the stomach. Continually sipping on the water can kill the urge of unnecessary snacking.
Few drinking tips:
- Drink a glass of water before each meal
- Replace sugary drinks with water (change it up by adding fruits or lemon into your water)
- Drink ice water (studies have proven that cold water helps increase metabolism)
9. Fill your diet with nutritionally dense food
It’s not always about how much you eat, but also about what you eat. Healthy meals are the foundation of any diet you have come across. There are some foods you’ll have to avoid at all costs and some you’ll have to include in your daily meals. 50% fruits and vegetables, 25% grains, 25% protein; try and compose your meals like this.
Eliminate trans fat, saturated fat and instead swap them with unsaturated fats such as peanut butter, nuts, fatty fish, olive oil, avocado oil, etc.
Healthy foods with high nutrients:
- Fish
- Nuts and seeds
- Whole grains
- Unsaturated fat
- Fresh fruits and vegetables
Unhealthy foods to avoid:
- Sugary drinks
- White bread
- Processed food
- Some types of alcohol
- Saturated fats such as beef fat, pork, cream etc.
10. Focus on the lifestyle, not the weighing scale
One of the most common mistakes we all tend to make is setting strict diet goals for ourselves. Change these into more specific mini-goals that will help you prolong your diet and keep you healthy. For example, change your goals from loose "three pounds a week" to "eat a fruit every day" or "Workout for at least 30 minutes 4 times a week".
Good health requires a lifestyle change
Doing this will not only make it easier to follow but will also give you a sense of accomplishment and motivation.
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