The top ten weight loss tips discussed here are the fundamentals, the core of any successful weight loss routine. Of course such information can be found all over the internet. Most of the sources tell you what you have to do in order to lose weight (and indeed results are guaranteed), but they don’t tell you why exactly these tips will trigger weight loss and what are the reasons for that.
I will not include any specific tips to lose weight like recommendations about eating or not certain foods or performing specific exercises for concrete results. My main purpose is to list only the basic and necessary tips for weight loss success and try to explain them into details and to expose the truth about some diet and fitness myths.
1. Stay away from fats. Cutting out fat or fatty acids completely of your diet – will it be the solution? The answer to this question is complicated. As an opposed to this statement it is enough to mention that the fat portion of a daily caloric intake is recommended to be 20 – 30{15aeb35eec840799df247626cfa6821cb9499241e90aba7a245c8546144fd8f4}. The key here is to understand that there are two major kinds of fats: saturated and unsaturated (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) fats. Also they can be divided in “bad” and “good” fats.
Studies have shown that saturated fats can be referred to as “bad” fats and unsaturated as “good” fats. The first type possess health risk elements and the human body will only store them as a reserve energy source (as excess body fat). The second type possess many health benefits as lowering bad cholesterol (LDL) and increasing good cholesterol (HDL) levels, taking care for our skin, delivering fat-soluble vitamins and healthy fatty acids like omega-3 which play a life important role for our heart. Therefore the presence of healthy fats in your diet is so important, but you have to keep them into the recommended daily range of 20 – 30{15aeb35eec840799df247626cfa6821cb9499241e90aba7a245c8546144fd8f4} otherwise consuming greater quantities of them will only contribute to your overall calorie intake which means gaining weight.
2. Keep the carbohydrates in moderation. You should have that in mind when you are trying to lose some weight. Extremely low carbohydrate diets are not the solution though. Metabolized carbs if not burned as energy in time, will be stored as fats in your body. However they are invaluable source of energy and also possess hunger suppression qualities. If you cut them down too low you will lose strength and energy for exercising. So again the solution is to keep carbs at a moderation and to make smarter food choices containing good and pure fiber complex carbohydrates like oat products, brown rice and whole grain bread.
3. Eat protein – does the high protein diet presents us with the solution. Lean protein foods are part of every healthy diet. They are very low in calories and for people who train proteins are what the body needs to build more muscle tissues. As far as they are good the general recommendation is proteins consumption to take 10 – 20{15aeb35eec840799df247626cfa6821cb9499241e90aba7a245c8546144fd8f4} of the daily nutrient intake. These numbers will increase if you are on a mass gaining routine.
Take note that proteins doesn’t have appetite suppressant qualities, which means you will get hungry in shorter time after your last protein meal, and if you eat large quantities of protein meals you will contribute to the overall caloric intake and anything above the calories you will burn for the day will lead to weight gain.
One of the most popular ideas in the weight loss world is the low-carb, high-protein diet. This is a certain method to burn calories and lose extra pounds. However this approach is not so good for long-term weight loss, because when on an eating plan low in carbohydrates and calories, our body is forced to use the existing carbohydrates located in the liver and the muscles. Maintaining such a diet will lead to the loss of weight mainly from water stored in the body, instead of fat, and it also strains the internal organs.
4. Eat more frequently. Instead of the traditional three meals a day, allow yourself to have more frequent and smaller meals, in order to increase your metabolism. Larger portions of food will slow down your metabolism which will result in decreased calories burning and the expendable calories will be stored as fat in your body. When you eat more frequently keep your metabolism at a higher rate for longer periods of time, in other words you will keep the oven for burning calories to work constantly.
5. Eat slowly. Everyone of us knows that fast eating and weight gaining goes hand to hand, and most of the time it results in overeating. About 10 minutes is the time needed for our stomach to send signal to tell our brain that the food we consumed is enough to satisfy the hunger. Also take note that eating while doing something else is not advisable, for example eating chips or nuts while watching TV, because in that way we will not realize before it is too late how much food we had eaten.
6. Calories counting. If you are serious about weight loss first you will target a healthy weight you want to achieve, then you will find the recommended calorie intake for that weight and start making gradual changes into your everyday life striving towards the targeted intake. To understand how many calories you consume a day, you need to have basic understanding of the calorie content of the foods you eat and always look at the nutrient table on the food labels.
After you had defined the nutrient daily intake you should know that anything above that will result in gaining weight. But do not wary the solution is simple – increase the amount of exercise and you will burn more calories.
7. Exercise – the best way to burn body fat. The only healthy weight loss is the process of burning the excess body fat stored in our body as a source of energy. Exercise will also increase strength, stamina and general health. It can boost our mood and helps with concentration. Regular exercise will prevent many diseases and will eliminate many cardiovascular problems. It will have also anti aging effects and can increase our self-esteem.
8. Aerobic vs anaerobic exercises. Aerobic or cardio exercises are performed at moderate intensity levels for longer periods of time. They help greatly in the fat burning process and increasing endurance levels.
Anaerobic exercises on the other hand are exercises for improving strength and muscle-building. For example in weight lifting this means exercise with much heavier weights and with very few repetitions, some bodybuilders even get to the point of only one rep with the maximum weight the can possibly lift.
Both aerobic and anaerobic exercises spend calories, the question is which is better, and the answer is get both. If your goal is only weight loss then you will need only cardio, but if you want to improve your strength as well, or if you burn fat in order to reveal your muscles, you have to build them first.
9. Say goodbye to alcohol or forget about revealing your abs. Proteins and carbohydrates contain 4 calories per gram while fats contain 9, alcohol on the other hand contains 7 calories per gram. Alcohol is also known to increase appetite which means you are about to eat large meal quantities. It also contains the so-called “empty calories” which contribute to the calorie consumption but do not possess any beneficial nutrient value. On top of that in most of the cases calories from alcoholic drinks are the first to be metabolized by our body, leaving carbohydrates behind so they will not be firstly used as energy source respectively will be stored as excess body fat.
10. Weight loss supplements. These are known as weight loss alternatives and they can really help but again things here are not so simple. First of all many people think that slimming pills will make them lose weight without doing anything else. If you think you cold sit in front of the TV or your computer, eat your chips and chocolate waffles all the time, and by taking weight loss pills you will still lose weight – you are on the wrong path. If you think that the more tablets you take for the day the more weight you will lose – you are also wrong.
Weight loss supplements are always recommended as a part of your diet and fitness routine, because supplement means addition and that is exactly what they are – an addition to fill the gaps in your eating plan and to make your diet more bearable. And I will only mention (because it is not a secret for anyone) that there are many fake or health risking supplements with undesirable harmful components out there. If you want to use diet pills you need to find safe ones that really work. This means to make an extensive research on their ingredients, company reputation and support, clinical studies and customers feedbacks.
The most important of all lose weight tips for success is our inner Motivation. It will grant us the will to get started with healthy eating and regular exercise, motivation will guide us through time, to constantly achieving and improving our results and it will help us not to give up when the results aren’t showing up as fast as we want them. After all you are the only one who have the responsibility of controlling the outcome of your actions or inactions.