“In 2022, 1 in 8 people in the world were living with obesity”- World Health Organization. |
These numbers are on a constant rise, mainly because staying fit and retaining an ideal body weight is a challenge for many. Even after hitting the gym every day, many are unlikely to witness significant results. This primarily happens as weightlifting or cardio exercises cannot solely reduce your weight.
You need a balanced combo of workout sessions, mindful consumption habits, and a balanced lifestyle to achieve long-term and quick results. If you are tired of finding the right approach to “how to lose weight easily and naturally,” this blog is a solution to all your queries.
Let’s together discover the path to WELLNESS!
Dietary Changes: What to Take and What to Avoid
The importance of A GOOD MEAL is:
Digests easily
Energizes you
Does not build up extra weight
Here are some choices you must make when planning for your WEIGHT LOSE DIET.
Consume a Protein-rich Meal
Adding protein to your diet gives you two primary perks:
It limits your appetite
Protein increases levels of satiety hormones (for a feeling of fullness) such as GLP-1, peptide YY, and cholecystokinin while reducing the hunger hormone ghrelin, leading to reduced calorie intake.
2. Prevents muscle loss
Not everyone knows Fat loss ≠ Muscle loss. |
When losing weight, the focus must be on the reduction of subcutaneous fat and visceral fat. However, as a side effect of weight loss, muscle loss, and metabolic rate decline are common. Protein intake, especially when combined with strength training, can help to support the development of muscles while also supporting the metabolic rate to stay higher.
Moreover, during the body’s digestion process, protein burns more calories. This means a high-protein diet can speed up your metabolism by around 80 to 100 calories every day. Therefore, you must include at least one protein-rich food item in each meal.
Increase Fiber Intake
As mentioned in a Harvard health blog, a simple and easy-to-follow step as taking a high-fiber diet, can help in easily losing weight.
Viscous fiber, such as pectins and beta-glucans, may reduce appetite by forming a gel-like substance in the gut, leading to prolonged fullness and decreased food consumption desire.
Viscous fiber is present in plant-based foods like beans, flaxseeds, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, and oats. Please keep in mind that transitioning to a high-fiber diet should be gradual to avoid digestive discomfort.
Limit Added-Sugar Intake
When starting your journey to shed some pounds, cutting off ADDED SUGAR is one of those first things that hit your mind.
In fact, added Sugar is always looked upon as a villain, not only when maintaining a good weight but for overall wellness as well.
Added sugar only gives you good taste and a bunch of EMPTY CALORIES while having no nutritional value, resulting in weight gain and other health issues. When taking this added sugar in your diet, you would develop the feeling to eat more, eventually leading to overeating habits.
This happens because sugar-sweetened beverages like juices, sodas, and teas contain high levels of fructose, a type of simple sugar. This is evident in an animal study showing how excess fructose consumption leads to leptin resistance. Leptin is an important hormone responsible for regulating hunger and indicates that your body has sufficient consumption.
Note: Not every type of sugar is bad for health, as natural sweetness from fruits and veggies brings vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients to your body while making the absorption of sugar more gradual. |
Hydration
Isn’t it amazing that even a simple step as drinking more water can help you get off some fat.
Staying hydrated is a multi-purpose habit that keeps you overall healthy. Studies indicate a correlation between higher water intake and reduced body weight, mainly by controlling appetite, metabolism, and overall energy balance.
Increased hydration may help in decreasing the cravings for feeding and enhancing lipolysis via the angiotensin II (AngII) hormone.
Thus, switching from high-calorie drinks to water helps achieve long-term weight loss benefits.
Skip Refined Carbs
Refined carbohydrates can contribute to weight gain primarily due to their impact on blood sugar levels, metabolism, and overall calorie intake.
Rapid Spike in Blood Sugar: Food items such as white bread, white rice, and sugary drinks are known to break easily and quickly into glucose. When the body experiences a sudden rise in glucose, it elevates sugar levels. With this process, a hormone called insulin is released, which promotes fat storage in the body.
Reduced Satiety: Refined carbohydrates lack fiber and essential nutrients compared to whole grains and complex carbohydrates. As a result, they are less filling and can lead to overconsumption of calories before feeling satisfied, resulting in weight gain over time.
Negative Impact on Metabolism: High intake of refined carbs can lead to insulin resistance, a condition where cells become less responsive to insulin. This can disrupt the regulation of blood sugar and metabolism, which can consequently make you gain more weight while also making your body vulnerable to developing type 2 diabetes.
Calorie Density: Refined carbohydrate-rich foods such as cookies, cakes, and sugary cereals are often calorie-dense but nutrient-poor, meaning they provide a significant amount of calories with little to no essential nutrients.
Lifestyle Changes To Accelerate Your Weight Loss Process
Better Sleep
Once in our life, we all must have heard the phrase “Sleep is the best medicine”. That’s not just random advice but medical professionals also advise you to have 7-9 hours of sleep to rejuvenate your cognitive abilities and body functions.
Studies have shown that there’s a strong association between weight gain with short sleep duration, which potentially increases the probability of obesity and greater waist circumference.
Lack of sleep may negatively affect hormone levels, including an increase in ghrelin (hunger hormone) and decreasing leptin (satiety hormone), which means a heightened desire to have high-fat and high-calorie food.
Moreover, when someone sleeps late, late-night snack cravings show up, which are directly associated with greater weight gain and decreased fat oxidation, making weight loss more difficult.
Here are some of the tips to ensure a good sleep:
Avoid consuming caffeine late in the day.
Make a schedule and stick to consistent sleep and wake times, more than 7 hours a day.
Avoid exposure to blue light signalling to your brain it’s time for rest. Using blue light glasses during the evening can help you in this practice.
Adjust bedroom temperature for comfort to fall asleep easily.
Finish your last meal at least 3 hours before sleep.
Consider a relaxing bath or shower before bed.
Use of Magnesium and natural herbal supplements to reset sleep- wake cycle.
Regular exercise has been shown to improve sleep quality.
A Focus on Stress Management Techniques
Our mental health has a strong connection with physical wellbeing. Studies have found that people tackling stress are more likely to put on weight through physiological and behavioral mechanisms.
When someone is stressed, his body releases a hormone called cortisol, which increases appetite and leads to overconsumption. The cravings are primarily for high-calorie, high-fat, and sugary foods, which are directly linked to gaining unhealthy weight. Also, when a person is in a bad mood, it might disrupt his eating patterns, making a switch from normal eating patterns to irregular ones, such as skipped meals or binge eating.
Besides, high-stress levels takes up one’s motivation to participate in outdoor activities or exercises, which will eventually lower calorie expenditure and, consequently, build up fat.
Stress goes beyond just behavioral changes; it also has an impact on the functionality of the body’s functions. Prolonged stress can affect metabolism, leading to changes in the way the body processes and stores nutrients.
Here’s what can help:
Mindfulness meditation
Progressive muscle relaxation
Physical exercise and movement
Time management and prioritization techniques
Seeking social support and connecting with others
Engaging in hobbies and enjoyable activities
Develop Mindful Eating Habits
Eating good + Eating unconsciously = NO RESULTS! |
Eating breakfast while walking on a road (potentially because you are late for work), eating rapidly, not chewing the food properly, or other similar habits are also known to contribute to gaining some pounds. For instance, improperly chewed food takes more time to digest. Thus, such habits must be replaced as soon as possible.
We might have already heard the right way to eat with mindfulness from our elders. But do we follow that?
Mindful eating involves being fully present and conscious of what and how you are eating. Here are some of the mindful eating habits you need to learn and employ:
Eat slowly: Chew each bite thoroughly and cherish the flavors of your food. This allows you to focus on your meal and gives your brain time to realize when you are full.
Pay attention to your hunger cues: Eat when you are genuinely hungry, and stop when you are satisfied. Listen to your body's signals to prevent overeating.
Avoid distractions: Turn off the TV, put away your phone, and sit down at a table to eat.
Practice portion control: Use smaller plates and bowls, and serve yourself appropriate portion sizes.
Physical Activities
After we discovered the significance of eating and sleeping to lower calorie consumption, it’s time to learn how to burn calories with physical conditioning!
Physical activity helps in maintaining a balance between energy expenditure and consumption. Studies suggest that declines in physical activity levels have contributed to the increase in obesity rates over the years.
While the extent of weight loss can vary individually, adhering to health recommendations for exercise may result in a modest weight loss. Also, physical activity boosts metabolism, helping the body to balance the burn of calories and utilization of energy effectively.
Besides that, exercise plays a critical role in reducing the risks associated with overweight and obesity, such as cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, and more.
Some recommended activities include:
Aerobic Exercise:
Walking
Jogging
Cycling
Swimming
Dancing
Cardiovascular Exercise:
Treadmill workouts
Elliptical training
Stair stepper exercises
Weight Training:
Resistance training with free weights or machines
Bodyweight exercises
Circuit training
Yoga:
Yoga might be less focused on significant weight loss, but it can support weight loss by improving mobility, reviving mental health, and encouraging a healthier lifestyle.
Research has shown that yoga may lead to mindful eating, increased self-esteem, and better muscle tone, contributing to healthy patterns that support weight loss.
In these studies, these benefits have been found to indirectly support weight loss:
Improved sleep
Helpful in quitting smoking
Improves physiological attributes by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression.
Support management of chronic illnesses
Other ways to indulge in physical activities without sparing significant time:
Walking or cycling while commuting to work, college, or traveling to other nearby locations.
Avoiding elevators or lifts and opting for stairs.
A quick walk during your lunch break or a few minutes of stretching in between tasks.
Engaging in gardening, cleaning the house, or other household chores
Consult With a Wellness Coach
While all the above-discussed tips and tricks are essential, achieving your goals still needs expert guidance to stay on the right track and achieve your fitness goals. Sometimes, your weight gain is not just associated with wrong food choices and a less active lifestyle; there might be an underlying concern like hormonal imbalance, digestive issues, or many others.
Therefore, it is critical to consult a wellness coach and know what’s contributing to your unnecessary weight gain. After understanding and addressing the root cause, your slimming journey will be a cakewalk for you.
Final Words
You can confidently move towards your fitness goals with this guide on your consumption and lifestyle reforms. Start taking small steps and gradually & constantly get your habits on track to achieve your desired level of WELLNESS!
コメント