Four Ways To Approach Weight loss

Four Ways To Approach Weight loss

All those who have tried to lose weight will testify how overwhelming and confusing weight loss advice can be. The other problem is the difficulty of sticking to the routine weight loss program. You do lose weight, stop the program, and are back where you started, or worse, gained more than you originally had. A good weight loss regime should be easy to follow and easier to maintain. Given below are some tried and tested rules that will help you to get started on your weight loss regime. 

• Start your day with a high protein breakfast that will help reduce cravings and subsequent calorie intake during the day.
• Keep away from fruit juices and sugary drinks. Unfortunately, even fruit juices have sugar which is fattening. 
• Half an hour before you eat your meal, drink a glass of water. According to a study, doing this for three months helped increase weight loss by 44%.
• Increase your intake of soluble fiber as this helps in reducing fat, particularly fat in the belly region.
• Eat whole foods as they are more filling and healthier.
• Eat at a relaxed pace. Eating your food slowly makes you feel fuller and also provides a boost to weight-reducing hormones.
• Make sure that you get at least eight hours of sound sleep every night.

While these rules will help you get started on losing weight, there are some changes that you need to make to your diet and daily life to ensure that not only do you lose weight but also continue to maintain it. There are four ways to approach weight loss. They can be started together or one at a time. However, you must understand the starting points for each. These four ways in order of their starting points are:

• Make changes to what you eat
• Reduce your calorie intake by limiting the amount you eat
• Incorporate intermittent fasting in your life
• Exercise regularly 

Make changes to what you eat

According to the first rule of thermodynamics – ‘energy cannot be created or destroyed.’ A lot of people thus believe that counting calories are what matters, not what you eat. Unfortunately, this is a wrong notion. The food we eat affects us physically, mentally and even emotionally. The choice of food can increase or decrease your appetite and alter the metabolic rate of your body. 

Making changes to what you eat is simple. Avoid foods that contain refined grains and sugar. Try to remove processed foods from your diet. Stick to a diet that contains low carbohydrates. Low carbs are very helpful in fighting food cravings. Any diet that involves real food as against processed food, and has a combination of both low carbs and fat will help you lose weight. The trick is to stick with it. It does not matter whether you are a meat-eater or a vegan – you can lose weight on both diets. 

Reduce your calorie intake by limiting the amount you eat

As mentioned above, just counting calories without taking what you eat will not help. Having said that, it is important that once you have worked out what you should eat, it is time to work out how much to eat. To understand how to lose weight, you need to know how your system is affected by the type, quality and quantity of food that you eat. Most people believe that to lose weight you need to eat less and workout more. Unfortunately, most people who follow this system fail to continue with the regime and end up gaining all the weight back again. Why? Well, the reason is simple – it takes enormous willpower to eat reduced quantities of the same food, in the same manner, day after day. Not only does this sap you of your energy, but it also creates constant craving and hunger pangs. This causes a lot of hormonal issues to start playing up and eventually you just give up and go back to your earlier regime. Eating the right foods will take care of the calorie issue by itself. 

Incorporate intermittent fasting in your life

A lot of people believe that eating six small meals in a day is better for weight loss than three big ones. This is based on the premise that if you eat more often, you will eat less. Well, the one sure way of losing weight is to not eat anything for a few days – it will cause you to lose some weight. If that is true, which it is, then you do not require six small meals a day to lose weight. 

What you need is restricted to eating windows. These are periods where during certain times of the day or certain days of the week you do not eat at all. Fasting has been practiced for centuries by our ancestors. Fasting helps cleanse our system of toxins, which in turn helps in speeding up our metabolism.  

To start this regime, try incorporating an eating window between 12 and 8 pm. Start your day with a cup of green tea or coffee, and then do not eat anything until noon. Have an early lunch and finish with your dinner by 8 pm. If you feel hunger pangs in between, eat a handful of nuts or fruit. After a few weeks of this regime, try fasting for a complete day once a week. However, those under medical treatment should consult their doctor before doing this. 

Exercise regularly

Contrary to popular belief, if you wish to lose weight, exercising is not the first thing to start. However, to exercise, you need to have energy and that happens when you eat the right foods. Once you have settled into the three regimes mentioned above, start with the exercise regime. At least half an hour of cardio and resistance training should be incorporated into your daily exercise regime. Exercise helps you build muscle, which improves your overall health and assists in long term weight loss. 

The Bottom Line

To get started on weight loss, remove all temptations from your sight. Get rid of all the junk food from the house. Stay away from foods that contain sugar. Reduce carbohydrate intake by switching to a low-carbohydrate diet. Introduce eating windows and fasting days in your regime. Incorporate a daily exercise routine. But, above all, stick to the regime – weight loss takes time.