Are you worried about weight loss and are looking for some weight loss tips?
Don't confuse yourself with loads of weight loss tips to follow as we often make the weight loss much more difficult by following extreme diets that usually leave us cranky and starving.
Follow these simple weight loss tips to achieve your weight loss target:
Step up on the scale Daily:
Keep a regular check on your weight; if on regular basis your weight increases several days in a row, it's a red flag letting you know you need to monitor your diet. When daily weight monitoring becomes a habit, it also keeps you away from regaining the weight that you worked so hard to lose and also keep you accountable.
Start with some physical activity:
Exercise will not only help you to lose weight and prevents you from many diseases like diabetes/CVD/thyroid etc but also gives you other benefits like improve mood, promotes better sleep and boosts energy.
Eat a Big, balanced breakfast:
If you eat good breakfast you'll be in better control of your emotions and it keeps you away from hunger pangs during weight loss journey. Opt for healthy breakfast options like: oats with nuts/egg whites/poha/ whole wheat porridge etc.
Smarter Snacking:
Eating snacks with the right ratio of nutrients, with the right calories, will help keep your body energized and help you lose weight. You can snack on roasted almonds, walnuts, multigrain crackers, sprouts, flavoured yogurt, roasted chana etc.
Control your portion sizes:
There's no need to give up your favourite foods to manage your weight or improve your health. The bigger problem is not WHAT we eat, but HOW MUCH we eat. The key to healthful and delicious eating is to downsize your portions at breakfast, lunch, dinner and especially snack time.
Stay Hydrated:
Many people think that losing weight requires cutting down on everything they consume, including water. Instead of helping you lose weight however, the opposite happens because if you do not drink enough water everyday your body will store water and fat to compensate for the lack of water it is receiving.
Take proper sleep:
Sleeping takes up a good portion of our lives, and good-quality sleep is very important for our health and well being. Missing out on a decent night's sleep can leave you feeling grumpy and restless, and may stifle weight loss efforts.
So, if summarized in addition to the tips above, try to eat smaller amount foods at regular intervals, weigh yourself regularly, and focus on quality when it comes to what you eat. Nutrient-dense foods should be the foundation of any diet plan. Also if you walk twice a day for around 10 minutes and try a few of these tips, you may find yourself with a 30-minute workout easily tucked under your belt.
This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Skip Meals
The claim:
Just a few days of fasting can trigger the breakdown of skeletal muscle—an alarming prospect for sick or older adults who may already suffer from weakness or loss of muscle. On the other hand, there’s some evidence that the cellular processes related to this muscle breakdown might—in small doses—actually be beneficial for strong, healthy adults.
The research:
A team from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark examined the muscles of eight healthy men before and after a 72-hour fast. After skipping meals for three days, the men experienced a 50% reduction in mTOR activity, a key regulator of muscle cell growth. Put simply, when mTOR drops, muscle wasting speeds up. That may sounds like a bad thing, but, oddly, there’s evidence from rodent studies that blocking mTOR activity triggers “cell survival responses” that can actually extend life, says study coauthor Mikkel H. Vendelbo, MD, PhD.
What it means:
Even if you’re young and healthy, skipping meals for any extended period of time could lead to the type of weakness and fragility seen among older or unwell adults, Vendelbo explains.
There’s also plenty of research showing that missing meals will further speed up muscle loss and weakness among the sick and the elderly—groups that already have a hard time holding onto skeletal muscle. But for healthy, robust adults, fasting for short stretches could actually be good for you, Vendelbo says.
Science hasn’t actually figured out how slowing the mTOR signaling that leads to cell growth could help people (or at least rats) live longer, Vendelbo adds. But there’s some human-based evidence from the UK that shows temporary bouts of fasting can help people live longer.
The bottom line:
Your muscles are your strength. They allow you to hold up your head and move your eyeballs as you read this story. For many adults—especially seniors and those enfeebled by illness—losing muscle is a daily battle. Vendelbo’s research helps explain exactly how skipping meals can speed up muscle loss. And while there is some animal- and human-based evidence that fasting for short stretches could offer healthy adults some benefits, it's way too early to suggest it as any sort of health strategy (and it's definitely never a good weight loss one).
Can Morning Light Make You Thinner?
The claim:
Throwing open the shades and basking in some sunlight first thing in the morning could help you maintain a healthy weight. According to a study published in PLOS One, people who got most of their daily exposure to even moderately bright light in the AM had significantly lower BMIs than those who got most of their exposure during later hours.
The research:
Researchers from Northwestern University recruited 54 participants with an average age of 30 and, using wrist monitors, kept tabs on their light exposure, activity, and sleep patterns for seven days. They also followed participants' eating patterns via food logs. The findings: Even after controlling for all non-light exposure factors, the influence of morning light on weight was considerable—it accounted for roughly 20% of the subject’s BMIs, meaning those with earlier light exposure weighed less.
Exposure light measuring 500 lux of brightness was the minimum threshold for having a lower BMI—outdoor light measures more than 1,000 lux even on a cloudy day. On a day with clear blue skies? Up to 100,000 lux. The news comes as research published in Endocrine Reviews suggests that nighttime light exposure (whether it’s coming from your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or TV) disrupts our natural circadian rhythms and contributes to rising obesity rates.
What it means:
Modifying your exposure to light in terms of timing, duration, and intensity could help keep your waistline in check. The exact mechanism of how light affects body weight isn’t yet known, but study coauthor Kathy Reid, research associate professor of neurology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says that light could have an impact on metabolism, hunger, and satiety.
The bottom line:
Spending time in the sun may never outweigh the importance of diet and exercise, but it could be another weapon in your battle against the bulge. “People aren’t spending a lot of time in really bright light,” says Reid, “But light is clearly a strong signal to the body.” To reap it’s benefits, the researchers suggest getting at least 20 to 30 minutes of morning light between 8 AM and noon, every day. And don't forget your sunscreen—researchers believe the effect goes directly from the eye to the brain, so wearing sunscreen won't dampen the effect.
Our Sponsors;
The Power Of Conversational Hynosis
Whatever You Do, Don't Call Exercise "Exercise"
Whether you think of your workouts as fun or, well, work (so, basically the opposite of something fun) could make all the difference when it comes to losing weight, finds a new study published in Marketing Letters: A Journal of Research in Marketing.
Researchers at Cornell University set out to see why some people lose weight when starting a new exercise routine and others don't. They studied two groups of adults who were attending a camp at Cornell; both groups were taken on the same walk, but one group was told the walk was something "fun" to do, while the other group was told the purpose of the walk was to "exercise."
After the walk, both groups were served an all-you-can-eat lunch. The differences in what they ate were pretty striking: The "exercise" group ate 35% more chocolate pudding than the "fun" group (they didn't eat more salad or veggies, just more dessert).
The results aren't surprising when you think about it—how many times have you "rewarded" yourself for completing a tough workout with something indulgent? The researchers suspect it's that mindset shooting so many people in the weight loss foot, often leading to taking in just as many calories, if not more, than were burned off from the exercise. Framing exercise as fun, on the other hand, takes the focus off the effort required by the activity, researchers conclude.
So consider this your permission to trade the same old boring workout for something you actually enjoy (it really is OK to step off the treadmill).
Is Stress Why You Can't Lose The Last 10 Pounds?
Stress eating tends to be associated with reaching for high-fat comfort foods that everybody knows are unhealthy. But it’s not just the calories consumed during stress eating that negatively impact one’s weight--stress itself could be throwing off metabolism, too.
In new study from The Ohio State University (OSU), researchers found that women who experienced stress in the previous 24 hours burned 104 fewer calories than non-stressed women in the time after eating a high-fat meal—which adds up to the equivalent of 11 pounds gained annually.
"We figured stress and depression alter so much in our lives, physiologically, but no one has really looked at metabolism, so it was an interesting opportunity to see how they might affect the metabolic process," Jan Kiecolt-Glaser, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at OSU, told FoxNews.com.
For the study, 58 women with an average age of 53 were given three standardized meals the previous day and then were instructed to fast for 12 hours before reporting for their study visit. Then, on the day of the study, the women were fed a meal consisting of eggs, turkey sausage, biscuits and gravy. The meal, which was 60% fat, was the equivalent of a fast food meal of a loaded two-patty hamburger and French fries. Each of the participants went through with the experiment two times.
"It's really the equivalent of grabbing a fast food meal," Kiecolt-Glaser, also director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine at OSU, said. "When people are stressed, depressed and in a hurry, we don't usually reach for broccoli unless it has a lot of hollandaise on it."
After the women ate their meals, they sat in semi-reclined beds for the following seven hours, while researchers monitored their resting metabolic rate, or resting energy expenditure, which had also been measured prior to eating. Resting energy expenditure, when the body is not in motion, accounts for 65 to 75% of the calories the body burns in a day. Additionally, ten percent of a person's daily calories are burned by digesting food. Daily activities, not including heavy exercise, account for another 15 to 25% of daily calorie burn, Kiecolt-Glaser said.
"Resting energy expenditure is a really big deal because it’s a large portion of our daily energy expenditure," she said.
Before each round of the experiment, study participants also filled out a daily inventory of stressful events (DISE) test, which objectively measures stress levels. The most reported issues were interpersonal problems, such as trouble with children, work-related pressures or disagreements with spouses.
"These are things that tend to be the most stressful for people," Kiecolt-Glaser said. "And I think people are still thinking about things and remembering them and still dealing with them [the next day.]"
The DISE test revealed that 31 participants reported experiencing at least one stressor before one round of the experiment, 21 participants reported experiencing at least one stressor before both rounds and six women reported no stressors.
Analyzing the DISE results and resting metabolic rate measures, researchers found that women who had at least one stressor in the previous 24 hours burned 104 fewer calories than women who reported no stressors the day before. They also found that women who had reported stressors showed a higher rise in insulin levels following the meal. Previous research suggests that stress and depression may promote insulin resistance and the data from this experiment shows one mechanism through which that could occur, researchers said.
Kiecolt-Glaser noted that while it's likely that most people don't experience a stressor every day, the potential for stressors to cause weight gain is still significant.
"If you experience a stressor one-third of the time, that would still be between 3 and 4 pounds gained. It could still over time contribute if you're eating a high-fat meal," she said.
During the study, researchers also analyzed the metabolic impact of a high-fat meal made with saturated fat, compared to one made with sunflower oil, which contains monounsaturated fat. Looking at metabolic outcomes and inflammatory consequences, they found little difference between the two types of fat.
Researchers concluded that their findings should offer motivation for people to keep healthful foods nearby at all times.
"When you're feeling stressed and depressed, really keep an eye on what you might be reaching for as your first choice. Keep healthy snacks in the fridge that you can grab easily because those are the times you are less likely to want to prepare something," Kiecolt-Glaser said. "People can't easily avoid stress in their lives...but it's recognizing it and trying to change behavior around it."
Don't confuse yourself with loads of weight loss tips to follow as we often make the weight loss much more difficult by following extreme diets that usually leave us cranky and starving.
Follow these simple weight loss tips to achieve your weight loss target:
Step up on the scale Daily:
Keep a regular check on your weight; if on regular basis your weight increases several days in a row, it's a red flag letting you know you need to monitor your diet. When daily weight monitoring becomes a habit, it also keeps you away from regaining the weight that you worked so hard to lose and also keep you accountable.
Start with some physical activity:
Exercise will not only help you to lose weight and prevents you from many diseases like diabetes/CVD/thyroid etc but also gives you other benefits like improve mood, promotes better sleep and boosts energy.
Eat a Big, balanced breakfast:
If you eat good breakfast you'll be in better control of your emotions and it keeps you away from hunger pangs during weight loss journey. Opt for healthy breakfast options like: oats with nuts/egg whites/poha/ whole wheat porridge etc.
Smarter Snacking:
Eating snacks with the right ratio of nutrients, with the right calories, will help keep your body energized and help you lose weight. You can snack on roasted almonds, walnuts, multigrain crackers, sprouts, flavoured yogurt, roasted chana etc.
Control your portion sizes:
There's no need to give up your favourite foods to manage your weight or improve your health. The bigger problem is not WHAT we eat, but HOW MUCH we eat. The key to healthful and delicious eating is to downsize your portions at breakfast, lunch, dinner and especially snack time.
Stay Hydrated:
Many people think that losing weight requires cutting down on everything they consume, including water. Instead of helping you lose weight however, the opposite happens because if you do not drink enough water everyday your body will store water and fat to compensate for the lack of water it is receiving.
Take proper sleep:
Sleeping takes up a good portion of our lives, and good-quality sleep is very important for our health and well being. Missing out on a decent night's sleep can leave you feeling grumpy and restless, and may stifle weight loss efforts.
So, if summarized in addition to the tips above, try to eat smaller amount foods at regular intervals, weigh yourself regularly, and focus on quality when it comes to what you eat. Nutrient-dense foods should be the foundation of any diet plan. Also if you walk twice a day for around 10 minutes and try a few of these tips, you may find yourself with a 30-minute workout easily tucked under your belt.
This Is What Happens To Your Body When You Skip Meals
The claim:
Just a few days of fasting can trigger the breakdown of skeletal muscle—an alarming prospect for sick or older adults who may already suffer from weakness or loss of muscle. On the other hand, there’s some evidence that the cellular processes related to this muscle breakdown might—in small doses—actually be beneficial for strong, healthy adults.
The research:
A team from Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark examined the muscles of eight healthy men before and after a 72-hour fast. After skipping meals for three days, the men experienced a 50% reduction in mTOR activity, a key regulator of muscle cell growth. Put simply, when mTOR drops, muscle wasting speeds up. That may sounds like a bad thing, but, oddly, there’s evidence from rodent studies that blocking mTOR activity triggers “cell survival responses” that can actually extend life, says study coauthor Mikkel H. Vendelbo, MD, PhD.
What it means:
Even if you’re young and healthy, skipping meals for any extended period of time could lead to the type of weakness and fragility seen among older or unwell adults, Vendelbo explains.
There’s also plenty of research showing that missing meals will further speed up muscle loss and weakness among the sick and the elderly—groups that already have a hard time holding onto skeletal muscle. But for healthy, robust adults, fasting for short stretches could actually be good for you, Vendelbo says.
Science hasn’t actually figured out how slowing the mTOR signaling that leads to cell growth could help people (or at least rats) live longer, Vendelbo adds. But there’s some human-based evidence from the UK that shows temporary bouts of fasting can help people live longer.
The bottom line:
Your muscles are your strength. They allow you to hold up your head and move your eyeballs as you read this story. For many adults—especially seniors and those enfeebled by illness—losing muscle is a daily battle. Vendelbo’s research helps explain exactly how skipping meals can speed up muscle loss. And while there is some animal- and human-based evidence that fasting for short stretches could offer healthy adults some benefits, it's way too early to suggest it as any sort of health strategy (and it's definitely never a good weight loss one).
Can Morning Light Make You Thinner?
The claim:
Throwing open the shades and basking in some sunlight first thing in the morning could help you maintain a healthy weight. According to a study published in PLOS One, people who got most of their daily exposure to even moderately bright light in the AM had significantly lower BMIs than those who got most of their exposure during later hours.
The research:
Researchers from Northwestern University recruited 54 participants with an average age of 30 and, using wrist monitors, kept tabs on their light exposure, activity, and sleep patterns for seven days. They also followed participants' eating patterns via food logs. The findings: Even after controlling for all non-light exposure factors, the influence of morning light on weight was considerable—it accounted for roughly 20% of the subject’s BMIs, meaning those with earlier light exposure weighed less.
Exposure light measuring 500 lux of brightness was the minimum threshold for having a lower BMI—outdoor light measures more than 1,000 lux even on a cloudy day. On a day with clear blue skies? Up to 100,000 lux. The news comes as research published in Endocrine Reviews suggests that nighttime light exposure (whether it’s coming from your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or TV) disrupts our natural circadian rhythms and contributes to rising obesity rates.
What it means:
Modifying your exposure to light in terms of timing, duration, and intensity could help keep your waistline in check. The exact mechanism of how light affects body weight isn’t yet known, but study coauthor Kathy Reid, research associate professor of neurology at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, says that light could have an impact on metabolism, hunger, and satiety.
The bottom line:
Spending time in the sun may never outweigh the importance of diet and exercise, but it could be another weapon in your battle against the bulge. “People aren’t spending a lot of time in really bright light,” says Reid, “But light is clearly a strong signal to the body.” To reap it’s benefits, the researchers suggest getting at least 20 to 30 minutes of morning light between 8 AM and noon, every day. And don't forget your sunscreen—researchers believe the effect goes directly from the eye to the brain, so wearing sunscreen won't dampen the effect.
Our Sponsors;
The Power Of Conversational Hynosis
Whatever You Do, Don't Call Exercise "Exercise"
Whether you think of your workouts as fun or, well, work (so, basically the opposite of something fun) could make all the difference when it comes to losing weight, finds a new study published in Marketing Letters: A Journal of Research in Marketing.
Researchers at Cornell University set out to see why some people lose weight when starting a new exercise routine and others don't. They studied two groups of adults who were attending a camp at Cornell; both groups were taken on the same walk, but one group was told the walk was something "fun" to do, while the other group was told the purpose of the walk was to "exercise."
After the walk, both groups were served an all-you-can-eat lunch. The differences in what they ate were pretty striking: The "exercise" group ate 35% more chocolate pudding than the "fun" group (they didn't eat more salad or veggies, just more dessert).
The results aren't surprising when you think about it—how many times have you "rewarded" yourself for completing a tough workout with something indulgent? The researchers suspect it's that mindset shooting so many people in the weight loss foot, often leading to taking in just as many calories, if not more, than were burned off from the exercise. Framing exercise as fun, on the other hand, takes the focus off the effort required by the activity, researchers conclude.
So consider this your permission to trade the same old boring workout for something you actually enjoy (it really is OK to step off the treadmill).
Is Stress Why You Can't Lose The Last 10 Pounds?
Stress eating tends to be associated with reaching for high-fat comfort foods that everybody knows are unhealthy. But it’s not just the calories consumed during stress eating that negatively impact one’s weight--stress itself could be throwing off metabolism, too.
In new study from The Ohio State University (OSU), researchers found that women who experienced stress in the previous 24 hours burned 104 fewer calories than non-stressed women in the time after eating a high-fat meal—which adds up to the equivalent of 11 pounds gained annually.
"We figured stress and depression alter so much in our lives, physiologically, but no one has really looked at metabolism, so it was an interesting opportunity to see how they might affect the metabolic process," Jan Kiecolt-Glaser, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at OSU, told FoxNews.com.
For the study, 58 women with an average age of 53 were given three standardized meals the previous day and then were instructed to fast for 12 hours before reporting for their study visit. Then, on the day of the study, the women were fed a meal consisting of eggs, turkey sausage, biscuits and gravy. The meal, which was 60% fat, was the equivalent of a fast food meal of a loaded two-patty hamburger and French fries. Each of the participants went through with the experiment two times.
"It's really the equivalent of grabbing a fast food meal," Kiecolt-Glaser, also director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine at OSU, said. "When people are stressed, depressed and in a hurry, we don't usually reach for broccoli unless it has a lot of hollandaise on it."
After the women ate their meals, they sat in semi-reclined beds for the following seven hours, while researchers monitored their resting metabolic rate, or resting energy expenditure, which had also been measured prior to eating. Resting energy expenditure, when the body is not in motion, accounts for 65 to 75% of the calories the body burns in a day. Additionally, ten percent of a person's daily calories are burned by digesting food. Daily activities, not including heavy exercise, account for another 15 to 25% of daily calorie burn, Kiecolt-Glaser said.
"Resting energy expenditure is a really big deal because it’s a large portion of our daily energy expenditure," she said.
Before each round of the experiment, study participants also filled out a daily inventory of stressful events (DISE) test, which objectively measures stress levels. The most reported issues were interpersonal problems, such as trouble with children, work-related pressures or disagreements with spouses.
"These are things that tend to be the most stressful for people," Kiecolt-Glaser said. "And I think people are still thinking about things and remembering them and still dealing with them [the next day.]"
The DISE test revealed that 31 participants reported experiencing at least one stressor before one round of the experiment, 21 participants reported experiencing at least one stressor before both rounds and six women reported no stressors.
Analyzing the DISE results and resting metabolic rate measures, researchers found that women who had at least one stressor in the previous 24 hours burned 104 fewer calories than women who reported no stressors the day before. They also found that women who had reported stressors showed a higher rise in insulin levels following the meal. Previous research suggests that stress and depression may promote insulin resistance and the data from this experiment shows one mechanism through which that could occur, researchers said.
Kiecolt-Glaser noted that while it's likely that most people don't experience a stressor every day, the potential for stressors to cause weight gain is still significant.
"If you experience a stressor one-third of the time, that would still be between 3 and 4 pounds gained. It could still over time contribute if you're eating a high-fat meal," she said.
During the study, researchers also analyzed the metabolic impact of a high-fat meal made with saturated fat, compared to one made with sunflower oil, which contains monounsaturated fat. Looking at metabolic outcomes and inflammatory consequences, they found little difference between the two types of fat.
Researchers concluded that their findings should offer motivation for people to keep healthful foods nearby at all times.
"When you're feeling stressed and depressed, really keep an eye on what you might be reaching for as your first choice. Keep healthy snacks in the fridge that you can grab easily because those are the times you are less likely to want to prepare something," Kiecolt-Glaser said. "People can't easily avoid stress in their lives...but it's recognizing it and trying to change behavior around it."