Losing weight can be an uphill struggle when you have no plan to follow, so if you want to go about your weight loss in an effective manner you must be strict about certain things. Follow some guidelines and you can make sense of the whole weight loss puzzle in such a way that it will allow you to meet your weight loss goals sooner rather than later.
Snack on the Right Things
Snacking between meals is not bad for your weight loss efforts if you snack on the correct things. For example, potato chips are a complete no-no, but a fruit salad on the other hand is exactly what you should be snacking on. It will give you a nutritional boost, the fat intake will be non-existent and the calories will be very low. Weight loss doesn’t mean that you can never snack on things like potato chips, but you must make an effort to keep such junk food snacking to a complete minimum. And as you begin to make progress you will naturally find it easier to avoid snacking on junk food as you begin to crave the healthy food types. An expert from Cosmopolitan suggests that it’s better to snack on something good than ignore your cravings for snacking:
But nutritionists now know that it’s better to satisfy a craving with healthy grub than ignore it and risk a junk-food binge later.
Muscle Mass
The higher your muscle mass is the more active your metabolism will be, which is the engine that burns your fat. So increase your metabolic rate by doing exercises that are geared towards increasing your muscle mass such as push-ups, squats and lifting weights. As a writer from A Workout Routine stated, the more muscle you have the more calories you burn:
The human body naturally burns more calories each day to maintain a pound of muscle than it does to maintain a pound of fat. Therefore, the more muscle you build, the more calories your body will naturally burn each day at rest.
The problem with increasing muscle is that not only are exercises important but you must also eat a lot of protein. Some people eat the wrong kinds of protein rich foods and actually put on weight in the hopes of getting muscle. Make sure that you don’t fall into this trap otherwise your weight loss efforts will take a turn for the worst.
Are You Really Hungry?
A lot of people snack just for the sake of doing so, just because they are bored. For example, people like to snack when watching a movie, it is kind of like an automatic thing for some people, as soon as a movie begins they have to snack on something. However, the only thing that putting food in your mouth should depend on is if you are hungry. Paying attention to whether you’re hungry is important, as an expert from Web MD writes:
Hunger is your body’s way of telling you that you need fuel, so when a craving doesn’t come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it. Shen you’re done eating, you should feel better — not stuffed, bloated, or tired.
For some people, feeling hungry is like clockwork, it only happens at certain times of the day, so if you want to avoid overeating, get to know your body and pay attention to when you get hungry, and only then should you eat, not randomly when watching a movie or out of boredom.
Weigh Yourself Regularly
In order to be accountable for your weight loss goals you need to make targets for your weight loss and in order to aid that you must weigh yourself regularly. For example, you could set yourself a simple goal of weighing less than the previous week, even if it is only by a small amount. Such an easy target will give you positive reinforcements that you are taking steps in the right direction. However, as you progress make sure to increase the quality of your goals, once you get the hang of what weight loss is all about you should be setting yourself goals that take big strides towards getting to a weight loss target that you will be happy with.
The trick with weight loss is that you must do it in chunks at a time, don’t set out to lose all the weight in one go, but instead have little targets which correspond to you taking small but important steps.
Write Down What You Eat
It is easy to forget about binge eating sessions especially because you know they are to your detriment. What you must do to hold yourself accountable more effectively is write down anything that you eat, do this at the end of every day and leave no details out. Then at the end of the week you can review what you have eaten and find out what you can improve on, you might even be able to see what you like to snack on the most that isn’t good for you and figure out a sensible alternative. An expert from Weight Loss Resources suggests that writing things down is a good idea:
Write everything down. Even (or especially) on bad/splurge days. It’s only if you write things down that you know what you are doing.
You can even take your list of eaten foods to a nutritionist in the hope of getting advice on what you need to improve on. It is a lot easier to be truthful with your nutritionist if you can simply show them exactly what kind of diet you have right now, because the more your nutritionist knows the better equipped they will be to help you out.
There are many more weight loss tips out there than mentioned in this article, your unique experience will teach you what these are because no weight loss journey is identical to the next one. However, do keep the tips mentioned in this article in mind when going about your weight loss goals and you will have a much more bearable experience.
