“I am too busy” is considered one of the lamest excuses for not even trying to lose excess weight and most often it’s because people associate “hitting the gym” and “crash dieting” with weight loss, and cannot squeeze time to hit the gym. Also, they need quick bursts of energy from “instant” foods because they are extremely busy and have no time to prepare elaborate meals. Well, sweating it out in the gym every single day is not a prerequisite to get lean, you can lose overall weight and trim the waistline, by straightening out your diet. And no, we are not drawing your attention towards “fad diets” because most of these diets force your body into starvation mode, and can you even think of surviving on salads and soups when you are trying to meet deadlines, and do not want to end up being in a brain fog? So, for all you busy bees out there, check out these 12 secrets to lose weight and get to a fitter and healthier version of yourself.
1. You Do Not Need To Starve To Lose Weight: If you are extremely busy, it’s impossible to even think about staying off food for the major part of the day because you need energy to perform tasks, meet deadlines, do housework, manage kids, and do everything in between, but it’s a huge misconception that starving/crash dieting will help shave inches off the waist! It would not – you need to eat the right kind of food and nourish the body to drop extra pounds – and that’s why Rati Beauty diet is the best way to eat you way to weight loss. Check out the diet on the Rati Beauty app for more details.
2. Take a Cold Shower in the Morning: There are various health benefits associated with taking a cold shower – it improves blood circulation, boosts immunity, and even helps calm anxiety. But wait, certain studies have revealed that cold water immersion can increase the metabolism to a whopping 350% and as we all know, a robust metabolism torches extra calories, and that’s all we need to lose weight. So, the next morning, avoid the heater and take a cold shower.
3. Eat Protein with Each Meal: Try to include a protein source at every meal, starting from breakfast till dinner. Protein helps you feel fuller for longer, improves metabolism, builds muscle, and aids in the fat-burning process. Here’s a list of “17 Cheapest Protein Sources at the Grocery Store.”
4. Make Healthy Fats Part of your Diet: There’s no need to avoid ghee, butter, nuts, etc., if you are trying to lose weight because healthy fats help the body reach out to the stored fat. Additionally, they also do not cause insulin spikes and slow down the process of fat storage. Healthy fats also boost metabolism instead of making it sluggish, but do practice moderation even with these healthy fats.
5. Sleep in a cold environment: When exposed to cold temperatures, the body starts to burn brown fat to regulate core temperature, so lowering the temperature on the AC would help a bit in burning extra calories and brown fat. But do try to sleep in comfy clothes at night and with the AC switched on to activate brown fat burning.
6. Fidget Those Legs: Yes, you can burn up to 350 more calories doing absolutely nothing but just fidgeting your legs while sitting at the work desk or while watching TV.
7. Ditch Sugar For 14 Days: When you stop eating sugar, amazing things happen to your body, your skin texture improves and inflammation in the body reduces, but weight loss is the biggest benefit that you can get out of giving up sugar. When there’s a lot of added sugar in the diet, the body will convert glucose from sugar source to fat and store it for later use. By cutting down sugar, you will not be providing the body fuel for fat storage (glucose) and with exercise and diet routine, you would be able to shed weight really fast.
8. Portion Control: It’s essential to practice portion control with every meal to get into calorie deficit to lose weight. Read about “10 Tips to Portion Control Food for Weight Loss” in this post.
9. NEAT activities: You would be burning a considerable amount of calories without even realizing or breaking a sweat by doing “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” and fret not, they are as basic as cooking your own food, washing the dishes, and walking the pet dog. Here’s a list of simple NEAT activities that you can do on a daily basis.
10. Have More Leafy Greens: If you don’t know from where to cut calories, just try to increase the portion of leafy green veggies on your plate. Not only are leafy greens extremely nutritious, they are low on calories too, so you can have as much as you can, and still lose weight.
11. Sleep More: Sleep deprivation is directly linked to weight gain and inability to lose weight as well because lack of sleep encourages the body to store fat by lowering metabolism, increasing the levels of hunger hormone ghrelin and stress hormone cortisol – all of which promote weight gain.
12. Brush your Teeth Right After Dinner: Night-time snacking is a real issue because it can pull you out of calorie deficit (essential to lose weight) and most of the times, we crave for unhealthy food and snacks during evening and at night. To put a full stop to unnecessary night-time snacking and pile up of extra calories, brush your teeth right after dinner, and it will act as a cue that you are done for the day and can have no more food.
Try implementing these tips and you can lose weight like a boss!
What Would Happen if you Stop Eating Sugar For 15 Days?
10 Tips to Portion Control Food for Weight Loss