The web is filled with strict weight loss strategies that often seem like torture. You may have even tried some and quickly found out that exhausting measures are pretty difficult to maintain.
Certified dietitians and weight loss experts believe a successful weight journey needs to be more freeing and enjoyable. It would be best to come up with a system that fits your lifestyle rather than drag yourself through a system that clearly doesn’t work for you.
These little tricks might surprise you but can help you cut the weight in a healthy and stress-free way:
1. Try Staying Active
The purpose of exercising is to keep the body as active as possible. However, exercising isn’t the only way to be active. You can make sure your days are active through routine activities like taking walks.
You’re probably not a running person, or you may not have time for the gym. So why not take the stairs from work, walk your dog, do some gardening?
These activities are healthy and enjoyable, depending on your passion. They also increase your exercise levels in a less intimidating manner.
2. Opt for Mini-meals
Controlling your diet has always been part of a good weight loss regimen. But people fail to realize that when you eat fewer calories than what you burn, you are managing your weight.
WebMD diet control tips suggest that one should have smaller meals spaced 2-at least 3 hours apart per day to better control both their appetite and weight.
In doing so, the calories are divided into smaller portions, with the bigger part taken during the early part of your day. This ensures you have a lighter dinner reducing calorie buildup while you sleep.
3. Consider Fiber Diet
Fiber isn’t quite as popular as proteins and carbs, but it’s just as vital for the body. You may not be aware of the benefits fiber offers because one of them is reducing weight.
Including fiber in your diet is a simple but proven trick to weight loss. The nutrient helps with indigestion and lowers cholesterol levels. It’s also not difficult to find food sources rich in fiber. There are many common foods that have high fiber content, such as:
- Whole grains (oats, barley, whole wheat)
- Fruits (avocadoes, apples, bananas)
- Legumes (beans, navy beans, lentils)
- Dried fruits (prunes, peaches, dates)
- Nuts (pine nuts, almonds, chestnuts)
4. Maintain Quality Sleep
Yes! Sleep can be part of your weight loss strategy.
When you are sleep-deprived, ghrelin levels in your body increase. Ghrelin are appetite-stimulating hormones in your body that constantly push you towards another snacking round.
Getting enough sleep means a well-rested body and normal ghrelin levels, which means during the night, you’ll be eating only when you’re hungry and not snacking for the sake of it.
5. Try Mindfulness
Finding a way to eliminate stressors in your life is not just good for your mental health, it’s also a weight loss strategy.
A recent study on the psychological effects of Covid-19 and eating habits linked frustrations caused by the pandemic to comfort eating.
Naturally, people would want to cope with stress and anxiety by focusing on something else entirely, and food (especially junk food) always seems like the go-to place.
Since mindfulness therapy is an excellent way of combating stress, you may want to try it out. Activities like yoga, meditation, and hypnosis are healthier ways of releasing negative energy.
6. How About Some Coffee?
Coffee can energize you and help you shed unnecessary weight.
A study published in the Journal of Medicine in 2018 says that having caffeine in the morning accelerates your metabolism for extra hours, making you burn more calories during the day.
Basically, you need about 400mg of caffeine to help you burn calories. There’s no point in having more because too much caffeine is also not good for your health. So, you may want to strike a healthy balance, especially when it comes to coffee.
7. Give Cannabis a Shot
It sounds unlikely that cannabis may have anything to do with weight loss, doesn’t it?
Well, with the increasing popularity of all things cannabis, researchers have discovered quite a bit about the plant.
For instance, one of the health benefits of medicinal marijuana is boosting appetite. However, the plant has many cannabinoids and one of the recently discovered is THCV, which acts as an appetite suppressant.
You may go through this Veriheal post for top cannabis strains that encourage weight loss.
In Conclusion
Losing weight can be challenging, but you don’t need labor with intense, professional-athlete-type of rules. Remember, effort without comfort isn’t sustainable. What you need is something you can stick to long-term, and that’s where the subtle and enjoyable tips we’ve shared come to the rescue.