Losing weight can be really difficult sometimes. There are a lots of fad diets, workout routines, and pills out there that appear to help with losing weight fast, but in reality keeping pounds off involves changing your lifestyle and eating habits to become a healthier version of yourself. Natural weight loss, which includes practicing healthy lifestyle and eating skills which you can incorporate into your daily life can help bring long-term and permanent weight loss in a safe and effective manner.
By adopting simple and easy principles and lifestyle skills, you can easily achieve weight loss fast and in a safe way without giving up the foods you love. It is very important to identify the strategies that feel right for you. Everyone’s body is different, so some things might work better on someone as compared to someone else. You can lose weight and maintain your weight. It greatly depends on how and when you eat your meals or food. You can not only achieve weight loss but also a better quality of life.
Below are some simple, but pivotal lifestyle and eating skills which can dramatically help you to lose weight fast and permanently :
1. Start the day with a glass of Hot water and Lemon juice
Lemons are packed with nutrients like vitamin C, vitamin B-complex, calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron and fiber. They even beat apple and grapes in potassium content. A fresh warm glass of water mixed with lemon juice taken in the morning, helps flush out toxins from your body by strengthening enzyme function and stimulating your liver. Lemon juice not only aids healthy digestion by removing toxins from your digestive tract, but it also helps to relieve symptoms of indigestion and helps you get fresh breath and blemish free skin. This wonderful drink can boost your body’s metabolism to a great extent and help you achieve your weight loss goals faster.
2. Eat When you are Hungry
There is a difference between appetite and true hunger. Hunger is our body’s action to request more food. When our stomach is empty and the energy resources found in our bloodstream are exhausted, we get a trigger from our mind that says it is time to eat. When we eat before being truly hungry, we’re adding up additional energy on an already energy sufficient body. We then tend to store up body fat. If this happens occasionally, it might not affect your body weight much, but if this is a regular thing, then you will add up significant weight over time. When your body is asking for food, your taste buds are primed to make food as pleasurable and flavorful as possible. Your senses are heightened and every bite of your meal feels amazing and you are also eating more mindfully.
3. Chew your Food Slowly
Take more time to chew your food. Savor each bite and take the time to enjoy the flavor and experience. Bath your tastebuds in the flavor and aroma of the food. Eating slowly and mindfully will give you the same taste satisfaction which you will get if you eat double or triple the quantity of food when eating fast.
4. Divide and make small portions of your meals
This strategy will help you to decide when you want to stop eating. You will have a better idea about the amount of food in your plate. You don’t need to count and track everything you eat or drink. You may only need to do this till you learn typical serving and portion sizes. Try these simple ideas to help manage portions at home:
- Read the serving size labels on the food item and take only one serving portion according to the food label.
- Take out food in a small plate instead of directly eating it out of the box.
- Avoid eating in front of the TV or while doing some activity as we tend to eat more when we are not paying attention to the amount or flavor of food.
5. Eat only One Food at a Time
This strategy will help saturate your tastebuds with one food at a time. You will increase the flavor you get out of your food. Eat one item on your plate and move on to the next item only when you are completely satisfied with its taste.
6. Stop Eating when you are Comfortable Full
Do you know that the size of our stomach is that of a loosely held fist. We often rush and swallow our food without chewing the food properly. This results in overeating and weight gain. Your stomach doesn’t need the huge portions of food which we tend to eat. Try to stop eating even you think you are just comfortably full. It is the time when you feel you can have a little more, but that will make you feel heavy.
7. Listen to your Body Not the Clock
Only eat when you feel really hungry. You do not need to have breakfast as soon as you get up in the morning. Listen to your body and hunger patterns and only eat when you truly feel hungry. You might not need 3 full meals in a day. Most people who have a sedentary lifestyle only might need two main meals in a day. Figure out if you are truly hungry for breakfast. Every person is different, and so is their schedule. So depending on your work and lifestyle take out the time and try to understand your true hunger patterns.
8. No Need to Empty your Plate
We have often been told that, you need to anyhow finish whatever is on your plate. This creates pressure on us to eat more than we have room for and thus gain weight. Change your mindset on this rule. You do not need to overstuff yourself just for the sake of societal pressure and become unhealthy and prone to illnesses. Also, as you eat, leave the fruit peels, food wrappers, nut shells, and other stuff on the table. Seeing the items can aid as a visual cue, reminding you of how much exactly you’ve eaten and would help you to stop eating when you’re comfortably full. Start loving and respecting your body.
9. Remove Processed Food from your Diet
Most processed foods generally have high amounts of fats, calories and added sugars which make them extremely unhealthy to eat. Lots of other additives such as preservatives, flavor enhances are also excessively used in processed food. So if you want to lose weight permanently, you should avoid such foods.
10. Practice Mindful Eating
Practice recognizing your own personal hunger and satiety (“I’m getting full”) signals, and then try to act on them. Whenever you come across some tasty food options, always pause for a few seconds and ask yourself, “Am I really hungry?”, “Am I full already?” Don’t just grab the food and start eating it without even giving it a thought. And remember this could happen with any type of food even healthy ones. If you’re too much overstuffing yourself with healthy food, you could still end up gaining rather than losing weight. It is very important to learn and identify your true hunger and satiety signals to give your weight loss efforts the best chance for success.
11. Replace Sugary Drinks with Water or Naturally Flavored Water
Eating lots of sugar not only leads to weight gain but also can cause lots of different health diseases including diabetes, heart diseases, cancer and more. Limiting your daily sugar intake is one the best way to lose weight permanently, especially do not try to eat anything sweet late at night. There are numerous natural and healthy ways to spice up that boring glass of water instead of opting for unhealthy sodas or sugary juices. Water is vital for our body in order to hydrate your cells, keep all systems working, and to help flush out toxins from our body. Squeeze a slice of your favorite citrus fruit into a full glass of water. Add orange, lemon, lime, pink grapefruit slices, fresh mint leaves, cucumbers, berries or a combination of these to spice up your water and stay healthy too.
12. Make a Commitment to Yourself to Stick to the Rules
Setting up a weight-loss goal is so easy to do, but sticking by it is so much harder. Which is why though losing weight is one of the most popular resolutions, but only few people can actually accomplish it successfully. Try the following tips to keep yourself committed and motivated throughout your weight loss journey :
- Set up Realistic and Smart Goals
- Reward yourself with Healthy Options for every Milestone Achieved
- Keep your Family and Friends in the Loop for Support
- Try to Write down Your Goals Somewhere Visible
- Don’t Follow a Restrictive Diet
- Try to Drink 2/3 Glasses of Water Before Meals
Use the Hunger Scale to Identify and Control your Eating Habits :
- Starving – Ravenous – Painful!
- Uncomfortably Hungry
- Very Hungry – “I am really ready to eat now.”
- Feeling a Little Hungry
- Not Quite Full But Not That Hungry Anymore – “food is not the only thing on my mind right now.”
- Light and Satisfied – “I could eat more but would stop now”
- Too Full – Feeling Heavy and Uncomfortable
- Burst Mode – Almost In a Food Coma!
How To Use The Hunger Scale
Don’t wait to start eating till Starving or Uncomfortably Hungry phase (No. 1 and 2).
If you do, then you would tend to overeat a lot. At this point your mind will just want food and wouldn’t care for healthy, low-calorie foods as you have been overwhelmed by biologically triggered cravings for dense calorie-packed food.
Try to start eating at No. 3 (Very Hungry). At this point you are feeling some hunger pangs but still have control over what you want to eat. Your mind will be able to pick healthier food choices still.
Absolutely stop eating at No. 6 (Satisfied and Light). At this point you can most probably eat more, but if you did, you’d lose that nice feeling of lightness and satisfaction. It is mainly because it takes about 20 minutes for your brain’s satiety signals to kick in after you’ve eaten your food. If you stop eating and put away your plate when you’re close to full, 20 minutes later you will feel full, but not overstuffed.
Believe in yourself, you can do it. Give it sometime and follow the strategies as best as you can. You will soon see good results and become a healthy person.
