Helping You Get in Shape the Right Way
Are you struggling with how to lose weight? Good news, you’ve come to the right place.
Losing weight has long been a priority for people interested in living healthier lives. Weight loss of just 5% is likely to produce major health benefits, including improvements in blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood sugar. There’s also evidence that you’ll sleep better, have less joint pain, and enjoy an improved sex drive.
37% of Americans listed weight loss as their main 2023 New Year’s resolution. It appears on the list every year, suggesting that most people who try to lose weight don’t stick with a fitness plan or are engaging with the wrong methods.
Read on to discover the best diet tips and weight loss suggestions.
1. Shakes and Supplements to Lose Weight
One of the most common strategies for losing weight is using diet shakes and supplements to reduce daily calorie intake.
Popular with the Insta-famous Kardashian family, flat tummy shakes are marketed as meal-replacement drinks capable of reducing hunger and cravings. Diet shakes contain protein, which makes you feel full for longer; this will discourage snacking on unhealthy foods between meals.
Protein shakes should be enjoyed as part of a varied diet of nutritious foods and is not an alternative to eating.
Diet supplements are also taken to lose weight. They claim to burn fat, build muscle and provide nutrients that make you feel more energetic.
2. Muscle-Building
The more muscle you have in your body, the higher your metabolism. Developing a higher metabolism is a valuable step on your weight loss journey. Your metabolism controls how quickly you burn calories, so you’d burn fat quicker if you have more muscle.
Weight lifting is the quickest method to build muscle, but other forms of exercise will generate results, too. An exercise machine is a worthwhile choice - building muscle, burning fat and boosting your mental health.
Running and walking are the most accessible forms of exercise, requiring no big spend on equipment or gym membership fees. Walking as often as possible is advised for a healthy lifestyle and should become your default method of travel. Running, meanwhile, burns calories faster because you exert more energy.
3. Natural Movement
While most of us know that exercise is an important part of achieving our weight loss goals, few of us incorporate enough movement into our day.
Every day, we have to do a range of boring tasks - brushing our teeth, moving between floors at work, drinking coffee and sitting on the bus.
Incorporating movement into your day involves identifying these mundane moments and using them as a weight loss opportunity.
Why not do some squats when you’re brushing your teeth? It may not seem like much, but it’d be four minutes a day of exercise you weren’t doing before.
Rather than drinking a coffee at home, you could walk or cycle to the coffee shop. Instead of sitting on the bus, why not stand? Commit to never taking the escalator or elevator ever again, always prioritizing the stairs.
You can see how quickly these simple changes can add up to over 30 minutes of exercise daily.
4. Vegetables
It may seem obvious, but veggies are the most important part of every meal. Not only do they contain essential vitamins, fibers and minerals, but they are also low-calorie.
When cooking tasty dishes, prioritize less calorie-dense foods. You can eat a lot of carrots before you reach the calorie content of a burger; this also makes vegetables an ideal snack. Carrots and hummus, roasted parsnips and sliced red pepper are our favorites.
Enjoying tasty veg as part of a wider diet of different foods is essential. You can’t be healthy unless you provide your body with all the nutrients it needs.
5. Avoiding Unhealthy Foods to Help Lose Weight
The main mistake that most dieters make is to remove all the unhealthy foods they love from their life. It doesn’t work for most people because it leads to binging sessions of that food, which hinders your weight goals.
There’s a place for unhealthy foods in a balanced life, and incorporating them into your daily routine is valuable. Rather than eating a bar of chocolate, a large bag of crisps and a movie theater-sized packet of sweets in a single day, portion them through the week - having just a little taste here and there.
Often, we just want a little taste of something to satisfy our needs. A square of chocolate after dinner will provide that sweet taste without putting on weight.
6. Hitting the Gym
Using the gym as part of a weight loss journey can be an effective and enjoyable approach. Incorporating regular exercise into your routine can help you burn calories, increase your metabolism, build muscle and improve overall fitness.
Cardio exercises such as running, cycling, swimming or using the elliptical machine can help burn calories and fat. Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity cardio per week, as recommended by health guidelines.