How to Lose Weight

How to lose weight is the most common question asked by people who want to lose their weight but are not sure how to go about it. Fundamentally, losing weight is about burning more calories than you eat. This seems simple enough, but if it were really that simple, none of us would have a weight problem.

The healthiest way to reduce weight is neither fad diets nor long exercise sessions. Weight loss works on the simple philosophy of striking an optimal balance between eating healthy food and exercising regularly. Human body likes slow changes in terms of food and exercise. Though weight loss goals by most of us are usually set in term of weeks, the end game is to maintain these changes over months and years, hopefully maintaining the lifestyle change for life. Permanent changes in your lifestyle and food choices are what will work to remain healthy in the long run.

 

The following weight loss tips should help. If you follow then, it will certainly assist you to lose your weight effectively:

Burn More Calories than You Consume to Lose Weight: The tips that follow won’t work if you are consuming thousand more calories into your body on a daily basis than you are burning.

Healthy Diet: Eating a healthy and nutritious diet is most important factor to lose your weight other than exercise. We have a daily nutritional requirement that we have to meet and anything extra than this gets stored as fat.

- Prefer Complex Carbohydrates: Avoid processed and refined carbohydrates, e.g. white bread, white pasta, and sugary baked foods etc. and choose complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, oats, and legumes. Complex carbohydrates provide dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals, which decelerate digestion and make you feel fuller longer period. Refined carbohydrates are highly processed and often full of added sugars.

- Emphasize on Fruits & Vegetables: The high water and fiber content in most fruits and vegetables makes them hard to overeat. You’ll feel full long before you’ve overdone it on the calories.

- Don’t Drink Calories, Drink More Water: You can easily cut down your daily calorie intake by replacing soda, aerated drinks with water. Do not drink milk or fruit juice. The juicing process that turns actual fruits into juice actually removes the edible skin & fiber, which contains the majority of the nutrients of fruits and thus reduces the nutrients.

But Caution…!

- Fried vegetables or that have been soaked in heavy sauces are no longer low-calorie and don’t help to lose weight. Choose healthier cooking methods, such as steaming, and use low-fat dressings and spices for flavor.

- Salads are very good unless you soak them in high-fat dressing and toppings.

- Be careful when choosing the dried fruit, which is high in calories and, often, in added sugar. If you do choose to eat dried fruit, keep your serving size small.

Exercises: You may control your diet and eat as per your daily nutritional values but to burn the extra fat you will have to exercise.  In today’s busy world it is very hard to find time to go to gym or even go for a run. Start exercising at least 30 minutes per day. Regular exercise coupled with a healthy well balanced diet is enough to lose your weight successfully.

How Exercises Help in Losing Fat -

- Exercises increase the number of calories you burn each day.

- Exercises increase your metabolism as your body builds new muscle tissues. Muscles use more calories than fat even when at rest!

- Exercises help to use glycogen reserves which trigger the fat burning hormone called glucagon.

Don’t forget that you should focus on sports that increase your heart rate (aerobics). Every extra step you take helps to reduce weight. Always use the stairs instead of the lift.

For a week or so, keep an activity journal and use a calorie calculator or heart rate monitor to know how many calories you burn throughout the day.

Motivation: Diet and exercise are the most important but being motivated is equally required. When we are used to the habit of eating without any restrictions then following a fat free diet and no junk food makes us give up the resolution due to high desire. But once we are motivated nothing can stop us. See what motivates you, maybe celebrity fitness or some friends who worked out and got into shape or the best – a lifestyle makeover. High Motivation is among the most important how to lose weight tips.

Reduce Your Stress Level: Stress diminishes the efficiency of human body as well as the mind. Often, when people are stressed they conquer it by eating something sweet or something that suits their taste buds which don’t help in losing weight. While there are everyday stressful issues you cannot keep away from, there are certain things you can still do to reduce your stress.

- Avoid arguments; whenever you differ to someone then simply agree to disagree.

- Try not to think too much and if you feel yourself starting to tense up then just do some activity that can take away or reduce your stress level.

Get At Least 7 Hours Sleep a Day: Human body needs to recuperate and reboot itself to be energetic again. Irregular sleep patterns spoil the body cycle and reduce the efficiency and recovery time for the body. Lack of sleep makes people want more food, eating constantly and not be able to control hunger. The less you sleep each day, the more tired your body gets which leads to a desire for sweet and high carbohydrate foods to replenish the energy that is missing.

Downsize Your Kitchenware: A simple way to keep your food portions under control and to lose weight! Use smaller dishes, serve meals on a salad plate instead of a dinner plate, and use teaspoons instead of serving spoons to dish out. Using smaller bowls, plates, and containers can subconsciously influence how much you serve yourself.

Chew Your Food Thoroughly: Various studies have shown that the longer time you spend chewing your food, the lesser calories you consume. Chewing food for longer prevents over-eating, by giving the brain more time to receive signals from the stomach that it is full. This is good for digesting the food. Try chewing your food 30 to 40 times for every bite.

Avoid Distractions while Eating: When you do multi tasking during your meal times, your brain can’t focus on the amount of food that you consume and you are more likely to consume more calories than you requires. Try to avoid having food while working, watching TV, using a computer, reading or driving.

Do Not Abandon Your Favorite Foods: Although, it’s not practical to reduce your body fat while eating lots of food, cakes and sweets. Then how to lose weight by including your favorites? Well, it doesn’t mean that you can never have any treats; in fact you need to learn how to limit these foods to small size, e.g. for special occasions.

Many people do neglect that we all have different body types with different metabolism. So, you need to make sure that your weight loss program is individually tailored for you.

Anyone considering a weight loss plan for effective results should seek  advice from a reliable weight loss service – where the weight loss plan is customized to your needs, should have worked for other people (look for weight loss success stories), and should use the latest research to help you lose weight.

In case if you are looking for professional help to get you started on customized nutrition and exercise plans then write to us at fitness@fitho.in.

Should You Eat Junk Food?

Junk food is  not healthy and we know it. Eating junk food can almost be compared to the warning sign on cigarette packets. All smokers know its bad for health but yet they smoke. Junk food only provides empty calories to the body without any nutrition. But prolonged consumption of  junk foods can even cause irreversible damage like diabetes, high cholesterol, heart diseases etc.

Some of the universal favorite junk foods are potato fries, salted chips and snacks, candy, sugar, high sweet content food, sweet desserts, fried food products, fast food fried foods and products like sweetened sodas. A lot of food companies are marketing foods like sweetened cereals, packaged soups, biscuits as health products. But if you read the ingredient content you would notice the high sodium, sugar and corn syrup content of these products. This does not mean they are lying . These so called healthy foods might contain some nutrition than others but are still not completely healthy. The similarity between partially healthy and completely unhealthy foods is that they are high in calories that only leads to storage of fat.

Junk food products that are salted are loaded with sodium that increases cholesterol in the body affecting heart health, results in water retention and slowers metabolism.It also causes high blood pressure and hypertension. On the other hand sweets lead to excessive calorie intake which leads to increased blood sugar levels causing type 2 diabetes in the long run. It causes storage of fat and increases visceral fat than reduces the insulin effect. Yet if you reverse your nutrition from empty calories to healthy foods then you would experienceweight loss and better health.

Below are some unhealthy food options  that can be easily replaced with somewhat healthy options:

Cheese Burger with Coke: This is all season snack for us and is so satisfying and filling is what we feel. This is a monster diet when we look at the calories it provides. The combo provides approx 380 from the cheese burger and 210 from an 500ml bottle. The cheese and, high sodium in the burger and sweet in the drink is not so healthy choice.  Instead choose from vegetarian wraps that are made of healthier grain as a good substitute for white bread.

Cholle Bhature: Famous indian food which is combination of chick peas and fortified flour which in high in oil and sodium. Its taste makes you eat more of it which spikes the calorie intake to 170 calories from chick peas and 275 calories from two pieces of Bhature which is deep fried. Why not instead eat sprouts or boiled chick peas with salt, pepper and lemon with a slice of garlic bread.

Potato Wedges with Salsa Dip: The touch of the salsa dip on widgets is mouth watering but is high caloric. Its small size and shallow dips with each bite increase the caloric intake. 380 calories from the wedges and 80 calories from the salsa dip. Drinking some sweetened beverage could further increase the caloric intake as it is high sodium which makes you feel thirsty making you eat and drink more. Instead look for finger foods that have green vegetables in them for better nutrition. Eating grilled vegetables can be tasty too if you are open to giving them a chance.

Hot Chocolate Fudge: Sweet desserts that promise happy moments are certainly not healthy with their calorie intake. One hot chocolate fudge adds 350 calories to your diet. What about eating some dates insted for the sweet tooth? You could drink a cup of cappucino instead. Dark chocolate is healthy and could make a healthier choice. ‘

Cheese Pizza Slice: Dont be confused that sharing a pizza and eating two slices would not be unhealthy. Cheese and the pizza provide nearly 450 calories eating two slices. Some sweets or sodas increase the intake again. Choose veggie or chicken pizza with out cheese. Opt for thin crust, whole wheat pizza without any fillings in between.

How to Reduce Weight

Reduce Weight by managing your diet and exercise. If you are over weight then it doesn’t mean that you have a disease and you need to go on a medication. Eating fat burners and  pills for weight loss will not be the ultimate step in reducing weight but you would gain it back in sometime. We spoke about liposuction and how one gains back the weight after an year at different places.

You have gained weight over a period of time by eating simply more than your body requirement. Suppose your daily caloric requirement is 1500 and you are eating 2000-2500 calories per day, then your body will save the rest 500-1000 calories as fat which adds on by time and becomes a problem.

Here are tips to reduce weight Read more

Food With Fat For Health Benefits

Fat has an important role to play in the smooth functioning of body just like how protein is important for muscle building, carbohydrates for energy and vitamins and minerals for other nutrition. The minimum requirement of essential fat for men is 2-5% and women is 10-12%, anything below which physical and psychological health would be effected. When one consumes fat more than the daily requirement it then it gets stored in the belly, thighs and all over the body. Fat helps in healthy cell function and keeps the skin healthy and stores energy in the body and provides 9 calories per 1 gm of fat.

Essential fat is required for brain functioning, bone marrows, central nervous system muscles and healthy functioning of the body

It provides cushion to internal organs of the chest and abdomen.  These essential fats are often confused with the bad fats that increase the LDL bad Cholesterol. Essential fats actually increase the HDL good cholesterol levels improving heart health and improves the flow of blood in the arteries.

Here is a list of Fatty foods for good health

 

Read more

Weight Reduction Tips

Reducing weight is increasingly becoming popular across the world. Sedentary lifestyle and increasing number of lifestyle related therapeutic conditions are further propelling everyone towards wellness and fitness. The most common  lifestyle disorder symptom is weight gain. Fortunately it is also the easiest to control and manage provided slight changes are made in the current lifestyle. Weight reduction is possible with the right approach towards what we eat through out the day and the activities that we indulge in.

 

 

Here are a few weight reduction tips to lose weight.

Don’t starve yourself: The most common myth amongst people for weight reduction is a strict diet. Few go on yo-yo or crash diet, low calorie diets, atkins diet, banana diet etc. But they fail to reduce weight. Starving sends the message of not enough food and the body slows down the metabolism reducing the speed of calorie burn. Thus fat and the extra pounds burn much more  slower than before making weight reduction difficult.

Don’t skip breakfast: If you skip the nutrition at breakfast then there is seldom chance that you would make it later in the day. Skipping breakfast lowers the metabolism and lack of nutrition makes the body become weak and vulnerable to eating snacks and junk food later in the day. Eat healthy food for breakfast and you would feel fuller and eat less too.

Eat meals on time: Non timely meals disturb the body metabolic cycle making it difficult for the body to adapt to a schedule. Also eating meals late makes you tend to over eat because staying hungry for longer makes you feel hungrier psychology resulting in overeating. Hunger reduces the efficiency of the body reducing the metabolism, hence the weight reduction. Time your meals and watch the progress.

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Is Sugar Healthy

We all know sweets, chocolates, candies, ice creams and sweetened food contain high levels of sugar and therefore stay away from them as much as we can. Sugar is addictive and is also a good source of instant energy. Eating too much sugar is unhealthy and leads to excess fat storage and increase of insulin.

Although we limit ourselves from the most obvious forms of sugar there might be ‘sugar coated’ ways that you are consuming sugar. Here are a few example of not so healthy ways that we might be consuming sugar without really being aware. Read more

Healthy Options When You Eat Outside

Celebrations and gatherings often take you out for lunches and dinners. Parties, marriages and office meeting wire you up all the time and you probably eat out most of the time. You get variety of food that confuses your mind and makes you indulge in eating all your favorite food laden with butter, cream, sweets, hydrogenated flour, oil, alcohol and of course no one to stop you for the portion control. You need to realize that it is not healthy to eat everything fattening because when you eat more than your caloric requirement the body starts to store the extra calories which eventually show up on your back, hips, thighs, hands and chin. You  would not like that, would you ?

Usually you find fattening, rich and oily food served across all restaurants and food chains. The reason why these foods dominate the menu is that they are cheaper to prepare and are delicious to taste.  But this shouldn’t let you get distracted from making healthy decisions and still enjoy eating out.

Here are few handy tips that will keep you stay on track. Drink a glass of water before you pick the plate up. Know some of the options that you can choose from when you eat out. Read more