|
Quick Weight Loss - 10 Easy Tips
Herbal teas and similar beverages all help to up your water content, but beware of other drinks - tea, coffee and colas contain the stimulant caffeine which leads to a net dehydrating effect, sabotaging your quick weight loss and your overall wellbeing. Sodas and pop either contain tons of sugars, or else they're packed with chemical sweeteners like aspartame and saccharine, with their own negative effects (the same is true of the more natural looking 'flavoured waters', just because it isnt bright orange doesnt make it natural!) Fruit juices are of course healthier but can be very high in sugar, and the calories you gain may surprise you, as well as the risk of fruit acids damaging your tooth enamel. For quick weight loss, water is the best thing to drink, every time. Wholegrains, complex carbs, salad and veg - fill up your plate, and you will fill up your stomach! High fibre foods have a great detox effect, are often loaded with great natural nutrients, but the best quick weight loss secret - they'll make you feel very full, for the proportion of calories consumed. In digestive terms the reasons why are obvious - you will notice much of it passes straight through you! But this is normal, and natural, helps your quick weight loss, and your body still extracts the nutrients it needs. Try a portion control plate - or else just try to think in terms of filling at least half of every meal with high fibre, low fat veg - that doesn't require any special planning or equipment. Just don't go and ladle on a gallon of high-fat dressing! A little olive oil, lemon juice, fresh herbs, that's all you need. Read our glycemic index pages pages - endless studies have linked table sugar to increased calorie consumption. While sugar doesn't have as much calorie impact as fat, it affects your blood sugar and overall body chemistry very differently - you’ll find that when you eat sweets, you simply want to eat more… of everything, in a vicious and hard-to-break cycle. Not only that, but sugar also makes your body excrete chromium, and chromium is a mineral that helps your body build calorie-burning lean tissue - so you want to keep your chromium levels up if you want quick weight loss. So many of our processed foods today contain sugar in huge quantities, even savoury foods - read the labels and be surprised! Our palates are subverted from childhood onwards, to want ever sweeter and sweeter tastes - it starts with mothers milk, the ultimate nutrition, but as adults not only are our nutrionary needs different but we can make an informed choice about it! Start to wean yourself off sweetness, even natural fruit sweetness, and you'll learn to appreciate a wider world of flavours.
Getting weight off is tough - period. Give yourself a break by not setting up to fail. Want to lose 20lbs? Well you can, but not in a month, that is not realistic and would not be healthy. But in 2 months, yes you can do it, a consistent loss of 2-3lb per week is viable and achievable using the tips throughout this site. It's still quick weight loss, and will bring noticeable results and rewards. Get a buddy, make a wall chart, dust of the scales or the tape measure or whatever works for you, but set your goals and work back to establish the intermediate milestones that will take you slowly and steadily in the right direction. The bottom line is, those two months are GOING TO PASS ANYWAY... where are YOU going to be at the end of it? Write down your goals and motivations, hang your hot skinny dress outside the wardrobe / stick that 5 year ago bikini picture on the fridge, whatever it takes... set achievable goals, and go get 'em! Especially for vegetarians, who are trying to lose weight, missing out any required nutrition is a danger area that will only damage your health in the long run, AND leave you craving whatever is missing - which will tend to make you overeat. If you feel hungry when you shouldnt do, try and pause/step back from it. What is your body really asking for? If it's sugar or salt etc, you might want to resist and try and change your learned addictions, but make sure youre not really just short of protein, or vitamin C or anything else that could be being skipped in our efforts to economise on the calories. And remember truly there are no 'bad' natural foods - salt, for example, is absolutely essential as part of the diet - if you've ever been seriously dehydrated through illness and experienced cramps etc, that's your body crying out for salt. Make sure you are getting enough protein and fat in your diet, take a broadspectrum multi-vitamin-and-mineral supplement if you have any doubts, and make quite certain you are not omitting any specific food groups or meals - this will NOT in the long termhelp your weight loss. If it's not there, you can't eat it. This works both ways - don't buy the high-fat, high-sugar, processed rubbish - then if you hit a mid afternoon energy slump, you can't reach for it. Whatever you're craving, if it involves a trip to the store at the time, this is either going to burn more calories, be more trouble than it's worth, or provide the breathing space for your good resolve to reassert itself! Similarly, if you are serious about quick weight loss, make sure you have some satisfying, healthy and low calorie snacks around, for when you need them. Prepare ahead - fill a big tupperware with fingers of carrot and celery to graze on during the day, wash a load of grapes and put them in the freezer for a hot weather snack (delicious AND you eat them more slowly!), make sure a lovely rainbow fruit bowl is handy at all times. Make extra portions of soups and stews, for quickly defrostable low calorie vegetarian meals in minutes that are still full of nutrition. Fast food doesnt have to be bad food... and it can help you achieve safe and quick weight loss! Whether you are counting carbs or GI or whatever, remember the simple scientific equation when it comes to calories - if you take in more than you burn off through metabolism or exercise, the rest will get stored. And fat contains twice as many calories per gram as either protein or carbohydrate. Fat is an essential nutrient required by every cell in the body, it's not the enemy - but don't consume too much of it!
If you suspect that food allergies might be part of your problem, ask your doctor to help you identify the offending substances. Your doctor may recommend that you see an allergy specialist. If you think you are sensitive to known allergenics such as wheat, they try strategic elimination, and see if that improves any digestive symptoms - many people find relief from bloating, wind and fluid retention a big help with slimming and even measureable weight loss. And allergies can also trigger craving and binge-eating behaviour. But see point 5 above - DON'T cut out major swathes of food, get advice from medically or dietetically trained experts before making serious adjustments. Just keep going till you find a professional who can take your concerns seriously enough to do the testing and diagnosis you need. Of course you havent got time to go to the gym - if you had hours to work out you wouldn't need a 10 Quick Weight Loss Tips page would you...? So that means you have to fit in a bit more calorie burning into every day life. Not all of these will strike a chord or be an option - but try incorporating one or two if you can.... Take the stairs not the lift. Walk - even take the bus, using public transport instead of the car will always mean a lot more steps taken either end of the journey. Go to the grocery store, (NOT when you're starving hungry, and take a list!) instead of ordering online. Park your car further away from the steps/at the far end of a safe and well-lit car park. Get the thing you need from upstairs instead of sending one of the kids to do it. Put the biscuits on a high shelf so if you want to get them you at least have to stretch. Walk across the office to talk to a colleague, instead of emailing or IM-ing... 10. Stand Tall! OK this isnt going to take any actual pounds off - but a quick posture check can do wonders for the APPEARANCE of your weight. Suck in the abs, straighten your spine, drop your shoulders, lengthen your neck... honestly it can take off a stone in a single breath. If you exercise regularly and do pilates or yoga every day then you probably don't need this tip, but then you probably don't need this website anyway! For the rest of us - suck in, straighten up, stick 'em out.. and you will look and feel thinner straight away.
|
Quick weight loss sounds like a dream - but in the real world, of course things tend to me more complex. Making lasting, sustainable and healthy changes to your eating habits, and burning off more of your stored fuel by exercise, are the only real things that are going to bring you true weight loss success, vegetarian or otherwise. This whole site is about the different ways of approaching this, however in recognition of the fact that sometimes we just want a QUICK overview to kick-start our weight loss, and trying not to state the utterly obvious, then here goes with...
