by Sobiya N. Moqhul

 

Be active.Get going, whenever you can. Don’t let your job chain you to your desk all day. Get up, go for short walks, get some fresh air every two hours or so. It will improve your circulation and avoid the flab from piling up.

1. Weight Loss Wish:

Decide how much weight you need to lose – Most people start their weight loss journey by claiming to be xyz kilos overweight. This isn’t a healthy way to project or aim for weight loss. Calculate your desired weight against your height by using reliable methods like the BMI, and set a healthy weight loss target. This is often half the battle won.

2. Reduce the calories:

One gram of fat contains twice the calories of a gram of protein or carbohydrate. Avoid fatty foods, subtract the fats from your meat too. Include a lot of vegetables (full of fiber) and fruits in your diet. For fast weight loss, replace the oily paratha breakfast with a bowl of whole grain cereal or some leanprotein and vegetables.

3. Drink More Water:

Doctors recommend that one must drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water in a day. Drinking more water helps the stomach feel fuller and reduces cravings considerably. Take one glass of water before every meal, it is a good way to keep you from overeating. Substitute all your sodas, fruit juice, teas, coffee, and beer for a glass of water and you could lose weight fast.

4. Time management:

This is quite often overlooked in weight loss programs. Decide which part of your day will be dedicated to exercise, when in the week you will stock up on groceries, and when you will do the cooking – all within your current work and home life routine. If you don’t do this now, your days will be rushed and unplanned, and you won’t be able to sustain your weight loss efforts.

5. Stock your kitchen:

Keep your house well-stocked with fruits, vegetables, healthy meats, grains, cereals, spices, and flavourers. Follow our tricks to healthy cooking, cooking vegetables for the week, and low-fat cooking posts to understand how best you can stock your kitchen with healthy and delicious ingredients.These will help you avoid binging and aid in fast weight loss.

6. Watch Portions:

Instead of binging on the biggest piece of cake, choose the smallest slice or simply share it with someone. After all being guilt-free is half the weight loss battle won.
Chew everything you eat at least 8-12 times. Eat slowly. Your body doesn’t realize that you’ve had enough to eat until several minutes after you’ve had it.

7. Stick to Homecooked Meals:

Whether it’s you who’s cooking, a family member, or house help, ensure that every one practises healthy cooking methods, and ingredients. Ask any person who’s lost weight the healthy way, and you will always hear about how healthy homecooked meals were a big reason behind it. Use less oil, low salt, fresh produce, and you’ll start seeing results in no time.
This habit not only helps in fast weight loss but it makes you healthy and fit from within.

8. Break the Fast:

After sleeping for 6 to 8 hours at night, your glucose level or blood sugar level is low. After you miss your breakfast, you let the body go into a hibernation-like state, which leads to no or minimum calorie burn.

9. Cut the Salt:

Eating more than the recommended 2500mg (1 tablespoon) of sodium each day will cause you to retain water and weight gain. Sodium holds up to 50 times its weight in water.When you limit the amount of sodium you eat your body will begin to expel some that unwanted water weight. The urge to drink water is a good indicator that your sodium intake is too high. As your sodium levels get high your body ask for more water to dilute the sodium by making you thirsty. A lot of bars offer salty snacks such as peanuts and chips for free, after customers get thirsty they will order drinks to quench their thirst. So watch out for salty snacks!

10. Start a Cardio + Weights Workout:

A healthy weight loss programme is incomplete without a good exercise routine, and weight trainingmixed with cardio is the best way to lose weight. Of course, variations and forms exist, but any workout that stresses on muscle tone and increased heart rate will always help you lose weight and keep it off. You can either start a home workout today, or rely on gyms for fitness training.

11. Opt For a Hobby:

It isn’t sufficient to rely on just 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity per day. Moving from bed to office chair, and back to bed, isn’t a healthy way to live. Buy a motion sensor gaming console that lets you enjoy social games with friends and family, plan weekend trips, clean your house once a week, dance, play sports, the list is endless. Get out of the coffee shop and dining table rut, and you’ll have fun along with the healthy weight loss.

12. Combat Stress:

Stress is always detrimental to healthy weight loss in the long run. Find ways to combat stress and you’ll soon realise that your diet and exercise aren’t sabotaged anymore, and that you truly do see results. Look at yoga, meditation, deep breathing exercises, or simple hobbies like reading to fight stress.

13. Opt for Healthy Vacations:

Why go all the way with healthy weight loss, when one tiny vacation will just come along and topple it all? Healthy vacations aren’t impossible. Take a look at how you can eat smart on a holiday, and then atbodyweight workouts that you can carry with you wherever you go, to understand how to holiday right. Above all, remember that these are lifelong habits that’ll help you stay fit forever and not short term weight loss quickfixes.

14. Walk After Every 4 Hours:

According to researchers at Missouri University, as quoted by nowloss.com, “sitting down or being virtually inactive for longer than 4 hours slows down your metabolism making it easier for you to store fat so to prevent this from happening try standing up for at least 10 minutes within every 4 hours.”

15. Chew Food Properly:

Various studies have revealed that slow eaters munch through nearly 70% less calories per meal. This is because eating and chewing food properly gives ample time to the body for appetite-related hormones to activate. Secret tip- Slow down your eating by putting the knife and fork down before taking the next bite. Evidence shows that this way you’ll end up eating less.

16. Avoid Eating Straight from Food Containers:

Never. Yes, never eat straight from a multi-serve packet or container. The basic or natural tendency to keep reaching for the food is given a huge blow if you serve yourself from a small bowl or cup. We suggest you pour out the amount you intend to eat, and give it a stop when it’s over. Try and fight against the subliminal message of ‘no one can eat just one’.

17. Be on the Move:

Be active.Get going, whenever you can. Don’t let your job chain you to your desk all day. Get up, go for short walks, get some fresh air every two hours or so. It will improve your circulation and avoid the flab from piling up. Also try to walk small distances like to the grocery store, to the station, to the bus stop etc.

18. Avoid Sodas:

Even Diet sodas! Since regular soda is basically a weight gainer drink and since water is a 0 calorie weight loss drink – You would lose 1 pound every week if you replaced 2 bottles of soda with 2 bottles of water so go here to see how to stop drinking soda.

19. Strike a Balance:

Remember, when planning for weight loss, It pays to be patient. You are not going to lose weight overnight. So don’t be discouraged and don’t punish your body if you don’t see instant results. Starving yourself or putting in overtime at the gym is never the answer. It will only lead to exhaustion, fatigue and will eventually lower your immunity. In fact, you will benefit a lot if you take breaks in between your routine workouts. And occasionally, treating yourself to a piece of chocolate or a slice of pizza will not do any harm to your weight loss plans.

20. Sleep Well:

Sleep well and sleep right. Your body needs to recover and regenerate itself after a long working day. You need to give it enough time for that. Seven-eight hours of sleep every night is essential. Sleeping lesser or more could lead to accumulation of fat. So make sure you get enough rest.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.