Let’s start with a disclaimer: beauty is not linked with weight, but good health is. Overweight and obesity put you at risk of many chronic diseases and premature death. Though losing weight may be difficult, it is no rocket science. All you gotta do is burn a few more calories than you consume, by lowering your calorie intake and upping your exercise quotient, rationally and gradually. Here are 20 smart tips to help you optimize your weight loss plan.
- Don’t go on a fad diet. Count calories, but eat healthy, stay active, be patient, and listen to your body. Start with replacing fast carbs with slow, complex ones – like white rice with brown rice, quinoa, or buckwheat and refined flour with whole grains.
- Eat more fiber – oats, pea, beans, chickpeas, chia seeds, avocados, raspberries, and bananas – to digest better, eliminate toxins, boost immunity, and keep off bloating.
- Drink enough water, starting with a glass of lukewarm water first thing in the morning. To get an antioxidant boost, add a pinch of turmeric, some grated ginger, and a stick of cinnamon. Drink a glass of water half an hour before every meal. It helps burn fat faster.
- Swap snack-time finger food with whole fruits, celery or carrot sticks, a green smoothie, or a homemade protein bar. No fruit juice, please. It doesn’t count as healthy anymore.
- Replace milk tea with turmeric tea, green tea, black tea, or black coffee. But if your overweight is caused by hypothyroidism, stick to turmeric tea.
- You burn more calories to digest proteins. So have eggs for breakfast, a lean meat dish for lunch, and beans or pulses for dinner.
- No sugar, no sugar substitute. Okay, a little organic honey … and a cheat dessert every week.
- Have a big bowl of homemade plain yogurt once a day. Add a dash of roasted cumin to it for better digestion. Or have probiotic foods like sauerkraut or kombucha if those suit your palate.
- Eat in smaller bowls to fool your brain into thinking you’re full. Also, add more chilli peppers to your food. Not only does the capsaicin in them help burn calories, it could keep your portions small too.
- Don’t go fat-free. You’ll lose out on the fat-soluble vitamins and crave sugar. Choose healthy fats like in nuts, fatty fish, grass-fed cheese, butter, ghee, coconut oil, and extra-virgin olive oil.
- Losing weight comes lower on your body’s priority list than fighting infections and inflammation. So eat a wide array of antioxidant-rich colorful veggies that can fight inflammation and help your body refocus on slashing the stored fat.
- Get help from herbs, both the kitchen garden varieties like turmeric, ginger, garlic, and aloe vera and the ayurvedic heavyweights like ashwagandha, triphala, and musta.
- Muscles increase energy expenditure. Lift weights to build muscles.
- Ditch the elevator. Skip the escalator. Climb stairs – you burn about 15 calories per flight of stairs. It’s not just a good cardio, it’ll strengthen your leg muscles too.
- Find every excuse to use your legs. Park the car a mile away from your destination. Walk to and fro. A 65 kg person could lose 70 odd calories by walking a mile. Sit far from the water dispenser at work. Get up often and stroll about for a few minutes.
- Invest in a standing desk. For a 65 kg person, standing for 3 hours burns 27 calories more than while sitting.
- Sleep 7 to 9 hours daily. Don’t wait for the weekend to catch up on missed sleep hours.
- Turn the air conditioner down. Lower temperatures activate brown fat that burns off more calories.
- Relax, relax, relax every day. Take a bubble bath, read a funny book, perform easy yoga poses, and practice deep breathing to keep the fattening stress hormones low.
- Haven’t had the time to work out today? Watch a horror flick. It could make you lose over 100 calories – about as much a 65 kg person would lose after 30 minutes of weight lifting. The Stanley Kubrick cult classic The Shining could help you lose 184 calories.
