Losing weight and burning fat can be hard. While there are no short cuts, there are plenty of things you can do to make your journey easier. Use these tips to help speed up weight loss and fat burning.
If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less and exercise more. This creates a calorie deficit that forces your body to burn fat for fuel. There are no ways around this – you must reduce your calorie intake and increase your calorie expenditure. Period!
But, as simple as this process looks on paper, it’s much harder in reality.
Hunger, cravings, lack of energy, and low levels of motivation and willpower can all put the brakes on weight loss. With so many barriers to overcome, it’s no wonder that a lot of dieters fail to reach their weight loss target or regain the weight they worked so hard to lose soon afterward.
Here are 20 tips that will help you lose weight more easily and then keep it off too. These tips aren’t designed to replace eating less and exercising more. Instead, they are there to maximize your progress while minimizing the difficulties you will face on your weight loss journey.
With 20 different tips to choose from, you should be able to use at least a few each day to help you lose weight faster and more easily.
1 – Get more sleep
Try to get 7-9 hours of sleep every night, and not just on weekends. Do this by going to bed earlier, avoiding too much screen time before going to bed, cutting back on caffeine, and going to bed and getting up at the same time every day.
2 – Move more, sit less
Look for ways to add more physical activity to your day. Go for a walk after dinner, play sports with your kids, do some chores around the house, do some gardening – anything that gets you up off your butt and moving your body will help you lose weight faster.
3 – Drink more water
Drink about 64 fluid ounces of water a day to prevent hunger and ensure you are properly hydrated. Drinking 16 fluid ounces 20-30 minutes before a meal may also help prevent overeating.
4 – Eat more protein
Maximize this by eating protein at every meal and snacking on high-protein foods too.
As an added benefit, protein is more filling than carbs and doesn’t cause your blood glucose to rise and fall as dramatically as carbohydrates can. Stable blood glucose levels can help you avoid hunger and cravings.
5 – Start your day with a nutritious breakfast
Eating a nutritious breakfast will ward off mid-morning hunger and also give you the energy you need to power through the first part of your day.
This doesn’t mean you should chow down on a pastry or a bowl of sugary cereal. Instead, eat something unrefined such as oatmeal, wholewheat toast, eggs, or a high-protein homemade smoothie.
6 – Pump iron
When it comes to exercise for weight loss, a lot of people focus exclusively on cardio. And while cardio can help you burn calories and fat, it only really works while you are doing it.In contrast, lifting weights has a more long-term effect on weight loss by increasing your resting metabolic rate, so you burn more calories 24/7, and not just while you work out. Adding just a few pounds of muscle to your frame will have a big impact on the number of calories you burn each day.
In addition, strength training increases your insulin sensitivity more than cardio. That means more of the carbs you eat will end up in your muscles and liver, and not in your fat stores.
7 – Eat from smaller plates
Avoid this problem by putting your meals on smaller plates. This makes your meal look bigger than it really is, which will fool your brain into thinking you are eating a regular-sized meal. Less hunger will make your diet easier to stick to.
8 – Eat mindfully
How many times have you sat down in front of the TV with a big bag of chips or candy only to eat the whole pack without realizing it? This is called eating mindlessly and is a leading cause of weight gain.Avoid this problem by eating more mindfully. Don’t eat while distracted, and make sure you savor every bite of food you eat. Chew it, enjoy it, and wait a moment before taking your next bite. Eating mindfully means you are less likely to eat more than you need, and you’ll also enjoy your meal more.
Increase mindfulness by only eating when you are sat at a dining table – no more eating at your desk, in your car, or in front of the TV.
9 – Make your own meals
Making more of your own meals means you have complete control over how much and what you eat.
10 – Avoid fad diets
Extreme diets don’t work, so don’t even bother starting one. Instead, adopt a healthy eating regimen that you can see yourself maintaining for the foreseeable future, and not just for a few days or weeks. You won’t lose weight as fast, but you are much more likely to reach your target weight, and then keep it off afterward.
11 – Plan and make your healthy meals in advance
Avoid this problem by planning and cooking your healthy meals in advance. A lot of successful dieters batch-cook healthy meals over the weekend, so they have lots of healthy food to eat during the following week.
With plenty of healthy but convenient food available, you have one less excuse to break your diet.
12 – Never go grocery shopping when you are hungry
Grocery stores are seemingly designed to derail your diet! They are packed with high calorie, processed, convenient food options, which is the last thing you should eat if you want to lose weight.If you are hungry, you are much more likely to buy these unhealthy and fattening foods as your willpower is weaker.
Avoid this problem by only shopping for food after you have eaten. Make a list of what you need and stick to it. Don’t add any unplanned treats!
13 – Make your home a junk food-free zone
Having easy access to junk food is a sure-fire way to ruin your weight loss diet. You might be able to resist eating it for a day or even a week, but in a moment of weakness, you WILL eat it – it’s the dietary law of possession!Avoid this problem by making your home a junk food-free zone. That way, if your willpower starts to weaken, you won’t have the means or the opportunity to break your diet.
15 – Fill up on high-fiber foods
Oatmeal
Brown and wild rice
Vegetables
Fruit
Wholemeal bread
High fiber foods are good for your digestive health and can help lower your blood glucose and “bad” LDL cholesterol levels.
16 – Carry healthy snacks with you wherever you go
Hunger is every dieter’s weight-loss nemesis. Hunger can steal your motivation and willpower and leave you reaching for a fattening snack or meal when you should be eating healthily.Avoid this problem by always carrying healthy snacks with you. That way, if hunger strikes, you won’t need to buy a candy bar or donut to satisfy it. Good options include dried fruit, veggie sticks, tuna pouches, hardboiled eggs, low-carb protein bars, nuts and seeds, or jerky.
17 – Identify and avoid your overeating triggers
If you eat when you aren’t hungry, you run the risk of derailing your diet. A lot of people eat when they are sad, tired, or stressed. Others eat more than they should when they drink alcohol, or when they are with specific groups of friends.Make a note of the times you feel tempted to overeat or break your diet and identify any triggers that cause this behavior. From then on, try and avoid these triggers, so it’s easier to stay true to your diet.
18 – If you eat out, order your meal in advance
Eating in restaurants is one of life’s pleasures, but it can make it tough to stick to your diet. You might set out with all the right intentions, but then, after looking at the menu, feel your willpower crumble and end up falling off the healthy eating wagon. This will be even more likely if your fellow diners are ordering huge portions of fattening foods.Avoid this problem by ordering your meal BEFORE you go to your chosen eatery. Most restaurants have online menus, so this should not present too much of a problem. Once you are at the restaurant, also avoid filling up on complimentary breadsticks or ruining your healthy meal with an unplanned dessert.
Finally, sit next to the healthiest eater in your group. Peer pressure is an excellent way to keep you on the nutritional straight and narrow.
19 – Eat the majority of your daily carbs after your workout
Carbs are a fast-acting source of energy. But, when you are sedentary, they are more likely to be converted to and stored as fat. After exercise, carbs are preferentially diverted to your liver and muscles and away from your fat stores. This is because exercise depletes your onboard carb stores and increases your insulin sensitivity.Low-carb diets can work, but they can also be tough as they often cause low energy levels and cravings. Harness the power of carbs by eating most of yours after your workout. As well are avoiding weight gain, this will also speed up your recovery.
20 – Record your progress
However, such slow progress is not very motivating, and you might feel like you are wasting your time.
Avoid this problem by recording your progress so you can see just how far you have come in the weeks and months since you started your diet. Options include:
- Progress photos
- Weekly weigh-ins
- Take measurements of your hips, thighs, and waist
- Body composition measurements, e.g., skinfold or bioelectrical impedance
- The hole on your belt
However you do it, measure and record your progress and take pride in your achievements.
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