Do you consume products that have the word “diet” or “light” on them thinking they will actually help you lose weight?
Today I am going to give you 10 easy, practical tips that will help you lose weight and lay out the truth about products that use “diet” and “light” on their label.
Tip #1 – Hunger
Your first step to losing weight is controlling your hunger so that hunger stops controlling you! It’s a lot easier to maintain or lose weight when were not constantly hungry and trying to resistant foods.
The primary thing here is to eat whole natural foods. Continually eating a diet primarily made up of refined carbohydrates and processed foods will leave you feeling unsatisfied, leaving you feeling hungry and nutritiously deprived. Once you can actually satisfy your hunger and achieve a feeling of being nutritiously satisfied this will be your first step in losing weight permanently.
Tip #2 – Drinks
The calories that we drink are perhaps the most insidious calories we consume. The simple fact is, we just don’t associate the sugary calories we drink with weight gain in the same way we do with a candy bar or a hamburger.
Sugary drinks are a lot easier to over consume than most processed or fast foods and make no mistake about it, they turn into fat on your butts, thighs and bellies just a easily.
So, cutting out sugary drinks like soda and fruit juices is a great way to lose weight because you will be cutting out a lot of sugar and calories from you diet that you most likely don’t even realizing your consuming.
Tip #3 – Toxins
Don’t assume that just because it’s says sugar free, diet, light or healthy on the label that it’s necessarily a better choice. These words are put on the front of a product as a marketing ploy.
What you need to investigate is the nutritional labels ingredients. If you find a big long list of things you can’t pronounce you need to assume that the product is full of toxic sludge. If all you’re concerned about is losing weight and could care less about the health benefits you must also realize that these harsh chemicals used in many of these products have a devastating effects your metabolism (note aspartame) and may indeed lead to cravings of highly processed and sugary foods.
Tip #4 – Fats
Chances are if you are trying to lose weight you’re probably eating a lot of Fat-free and Non-fat products.
Even though fat (especially saturated fat) has been demonized over the last several decades for things like heart disease and obesity more modern science is now firmly pointing out that fat was not the contributing factor and it’s been the over consumption of processed and refined carbohydrates and sugar that have been the driving force.
The fact is, the lack of fat in people’s diet is actually leading to health problems. Fat is not only an essential nutrient that’s vital for proper heart and brain function, but it also helps us feel satiated and nutritiously satisfied.
A key to controlling hunger is actually eating more heart healthy fats like: Olive oil, Coconut Oil, Nuts, Avocados, Almond & Nut Butters and YES even Real Butter and Whole Eggs.
Don’t demonize fat, but rather realize that by consuming more of the right fats will actually help you lose weight not gain weight.
Tip #5 – Starvation
If you are starving yourself and counting your calories you need to STOP!
Look, calorie restriction is a metabolic nightmare and doesn’t help us lose weight for very long. Initially you may lose some weight but it’s not sustainable for healthy weight loss.
When you restrict your calories your body sends out a distress signal that famine is on the way forcing your body to slow down to conserve energy. In this state your body will cling to its fat reserves preventing you from starvation.
Limiting your calories is actually counterproductive to what you are trying to accomplish. What you will want to do is focus on eating the right calories not counting or limiting calories.
Stay away from processed foods with long (unpronounceable) ingredients and focus on whole natural foods. This way you’ll know that every calorie you eat will help you get more nutrition, more fiber and help satisfy your hunger much longer.
Rather than limiting your calories just improve the calories you’re consuming.
Tip # 6 – Quick Fix
The weight loss industry is a 60 billion a year industry full of miracles all promising you a quick fix for weight loss.
We have diet pills, powder and potions, Diet programs, prepackaged meal plans and fitness gadgets all proclaiming to be your solution to weight loss.
By taking a closer look at the fine print on most of the gizmos, products or plans you’ll notice that almost every one will states “result not typical diet and exercise are really important”.
Doesn’t this statement make you wonder about the confidence they have in their own product?
Equally noted, when you see a celebrity endorsing a product you must understand that;
- Those people are being paid by the company to state certain claims.
- Those celebrities can afford a host of professionals to help them with their fitness and diet needs.
Most of us don’t have that luxury. So just because it may have worked for a celebrity doesn’t mean it will work for you.
Save the money that you may have spent on that so called quick fix and spend it more wisely on the healthy natural foods that will help you control you hunger, supply you with good nutrition, keep you from starving to lose weight and help you avoid toxin sludge.
Tip #7 – Stress
If you are stressing yourself out over losing weight then that stress could be the very thing sabotaging your weight loss efforts.
Realize that when your body is stressed out it will prioritize its basic functions like immunity and digestions and put fat metabolism and muscle formation on the back-burner. So, even if you’re working out a lot but are stressed out your body is not going to be burning fat as efficiently as it would be if you were managing your stress.
Make time for relaxation and stress relief.
If you’re not working out then you need to incorporate some physical activity into your day. Leading a sedentary lifestyle is another thing that contributes to our body being stressed out. Now, if you’re unable to find time for physical activity then find ways to make your daily activity more active.
Things you can easily incorporate are doing calf raised and squats while brushing your teeth or washing the dishes, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking to lunch instead of driving. These little actions can actually go a long way in relieving stress.
Making time for stress relief and making time for physical activity is a really important part of not only over-all health but weight loss as well.
Tip #8 – Snacks
Extreme hunger is really our enemy if we’re trying to lose weight.
When we get really frantically hungry were going to be way more likely to make an unhealthy decision or resort to convenience foods that we know we should avoid. Junk foods, fast food, vending machine food are all at our disposal and an easy quick fix.
We’ll have a lot more strength in resisting those types of foods if we never let ourselves get incredible hungry.
Snacks are the primary way to prevent that from happening. If we always have some healthy snacks with us, when we get to a point where we start to feel really hungry we have our hunger covered.
An apple, an orange, nuts, nut butter and celery, sliced avocado or sweet peppers, canned tuna, cucumbers, hard boiled eggs are all great options to tide you over until you can make a healthier meal choice.
Mind over matter seldom wins when dealing with hunger. So, as long as we have an alternative to those unhealthy convenience foods we will be able to resist them a lot easier than if we’re just trying to resist our hunger.
Tip #9 – Rewards
Stop rewarding yourself with junk food and start rewarding yourself with healthier foods.
This is something that actually starts at childhood where we receive a treat or some candy for a good grade or our parents take us out for ice-cream if we’ve behaved. What this does is kind of conditions us to associate junk food with a reward. This actually activates the reward pathway in our brain every time we eat junk food.
The good news is you can actually recondition those reward pathways in your brain and it really pretty easy to do. What you want to do is start by rewarding yourself with healthier food. So, after a long stressful day or after you succeed in something reward yourself with something healthy.
Maybe it’s just simply a healthier version of something you would already eaten like a healthier version of a cookie that’s not full of High Fructose Corn Syrup and refined flour or goes one step further by rewarding yourself with fruit.
The more you start to change the reward system from junk foods to healthier foods the more your brain will start to find healthier foods more rewarding. This will then reverse this process of associating junk food with being a reward.
Tip # 10 – Habits
So, if we want to have sustainable weight loss “which is what everyone wants RIGHT” (because nobody wants to lose weight, gain it all back and then have to try to lose it all again) then you need to create healthy habits.
Rather than going on a diet for a set period of time and then totally letting loose the minute you go off the diet actually start focusing on creating healthy habits that will follow you for the long haul.
Most of us will admit that we creature of habit, I know I am. The good thing about this is, once you start building these healthy habits it will eventually become a habit you won’t even have to think about any longer. So, rather than focusing on breaking bad habits what you’ll want to do is focus on developing good new habits.
I would like to encourage you to start out really small like maybe changing out one soda with a healthy beverage or replacing that cookie you may have eaten with an apple. Maybe even add in something like taking 100 extra steps during the day or taking 10 minutes a day to meditate and relieve some stress.
To make these more habitually maybe try to do them at the same time each day or on the same day of the week each week.
The more you can give yourself reasonable goals that you can actually see yourself successfully reaching the more it will help you build more wins on. Each new win will help keep you motivated in keeping your journey alive.
Don’t set yourself up for failure by saying thing like I am never going to drink another soda again or I am never going to eat fast food.
Give yourself reasonable realistic goals that won’t overwhelm you and then you will actually reach them.
