Looking good is probably one of the most important things one
wants when entering the dating world and in order to look our best we often
decide to go on diets or start an exercise plans which have little or no effect
on our weight leading to a yo-yo effect. The most basic concept people don't
understand is that for things to work in life, there must be a lifestyle
associated with your goal instead of a 1 month mission to lose a few pounds.
I don't want to bore you such notions as eating lots of fruits
vegetables and hardcore exercising.
Six pack abs are only related to your bf%, not the amount of sittups you can do. |
For the weak minded
1- Drink green tea every day.
Green tea has been proven to help maintain a healthy body by
reducing metabolites, decreasing the risk of numerous diseases and helping to
boost your metabolism by burning off more calories. Green tea helps your body
in 2 ways. The first one is that it raises your metabolism, so you end up using
more calories naturally (thermogenesis) and secondly, it dissolves excess triglycerides
(an ester that gets converted into fat need for physiological functioning).
2 cups everyday should do the trick.
2- Drink cups of cold water (not lukewarm).
When you drink ice water, your body needs to heat up the water
using energy (in our case calories) in order to absorb it into itself. Without
getting into scientific explanations, on average you can expect to burn 50 to
70 kcal per day by drinking a couple of glasses of cold water. I don't want to
steal credit or blatantly copy paste info from another source, so instead of
explaining exactly what is happening in your body, I invite you to read the
article below.
4-5 cups of cold water a day = -70 kcal.
3- Get a decent amount of sleep every day.
When you don't get enough sleep your body gets cravings, has a
messed up metabolism and everything regenerates slowly. My advice is to get a
good amount of sleep every night, because at the end you really lose weight
when you are sleeping.
4- Smoke cigarettes (I can't believe I wrote that)
Let me start by saying that cigarettes are harmful and this should be your absolute last resort. Smoking in some individuals tends to raise metabolism and decrease hunger which in turn leads to weight loss. However, the lost weight will partially be water with a high probability of a yo-yo effect after you finally decide to quit.
Let me start by saying that cigarettes are harmful and this should be your absolute last resort. Smoking in some individuals tends to raise metabolism and decrease hunger which in turn leads to weight loss. However, the lost weight will partially be water with a high probability of a yo-yo effect after you finally decide to quit.
PS: I don't recommend this method, but it’s the truth.
For the disciplined
1- Eat more dietary fibers
Dietary fibers are nutrients which your body can't really absorb,
so you end up feeling full, and those calories from DF that you eat vanish from
existence. A few good examples are natural carbs (rice, potatoes and brown
bread).The general rule of thumb is that if it’s brown and natural; it usually
contains lots of Dietary fibers.
In a nutshell: Try to replace pasta and toast bread with rice and
brown bread.
2- Don't eat before bed, eat in the morning
There are countless theories about this issue. Some sources say
that at the end of the day it doesn't matter because it’s the total amount of
calories that count regardless of the hour of the day. Even if this is true,
eating in the morning starts your furnace allowing you to give 110% of your
energy for daily activities, but at night however, you slow down and you should
consider eating less in order to put out the fire. I would tend to agree that
at night, your heart rate slows down, your energy levels should be kept to a
minimum and it would be useless to go to bed on a full stomach in order to have
those calories stored into fat cells while you are lying down motionless.
Athletes are known to run in the morning after a fulfilling breakfast while
others stop eating 3-5 hours before bed in order to lose weight or simply to
sleep better.
In a nutshell: Eat breakfast like a prince, and supper like a
pauper.
3- Remove simple sugars from your diet (Chocolate bars, ice cream,
candy, alcohol, juice, soft drinks)
Simple sugars are awesome and they have their place in the hall of
pleasures, but a chocolate bar has often more calories than a full meal. Did
you know that by eating 5-10 (depending on the person's size) chocolate bars
you often exceed your daily caloric intake? Sugar is a fast an easy way to gain
weight, so if you actually go ahead and remove those sources from your diet,
you can bet that you will end up losing weight rapidly.
Also, I would like to mention that fruit juice and all its friends
in the coca cola aisle are even more dangerous than cake, because liquid is
often absorbed more quickly than solid food leading to an even bigger increase
in weight gain.
PS: fruits are basically sugar with water; they won't make you fat
because they are mainly water content, but beware!
In a nutshell: If it tastes good and sugary, don't eat it! No juice,
booze and cola, only water.
For the strong minded
1- Build muscle
Every time you build muscle, you raise your MBR (Metabolic Basal
Rate) forever. You can imagine that each extra kilogram of muscle on your body
needs to eat around 10-20kcal at the end of the day just to stay attached to
your arm.
In a nutshell: Muscles eat the food that would have gone to your
fat deposits.
Myth: Women cannot get as big as men (unless they use steroids)
simply because they don't have enough testosterone. Hence, I invite women to
lift in order to look like those ripped fitness models.
2- Walk to places, use the stairs!
Don't take the elevator! Walk up the stairs instead! Do all the
things you have been doing until now! , but instead take the time to walk to
places that are nearby without constantly using an elevator, a car, or a bus.
I once read an article about a patient that Dr.Ericsson(a famous
psychologist) had. The patient was an obese smoker and alcoholic who couldn't
find the motivation to lose weight. Ericsson after failing the conventional
therapies to cure obesity, he told the patient to keep on smoking and drinking,
but to buy his liquor from a store located 1 mile from his house. The obese
patient was so addicted that he often went to the store a few times per day,
tricking him into actually exercising without his knowledge. In the end, all
this unintentional walking got him to a normal Body Mass Index.
In a nutshell: if you can get there on foot, don't wait for the
bus or the elevator.
3- Replace all carbs (no bread, rice, potatoes...and so on) with
vegetables (no fruits) and add more proteins to your diet
If you literally replace all carbs, sugars with vegetables you
will lose weight like a boxing champ. Basically a 1kg of vegetables has about
300kcal (the equivalent of a chocolate bar), yet another great way to get all
the necessary nutrients, dietary fibers and this feeling of fullness after a
meal.
Proteins on the other hand, are digested slowly, don't participate in weight gain and often boost metabolism. By proteins, I mainly mean, lean meat, beans and fish. Make sure to watch out for nuts as they are very calorie dense.
4- HIIT Training
Don't you like to run for hours? High Intensity Interval Training
is for you! Just run intensely for 20minutes (60%-70% of your maximum Heart
Rate) with periods of recovery in between.
More info at:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/exercise/how-to-do-high-intensity-interval-training?page=all
More info at:
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/exercise/how-to-do-high-intensity-interval-training?page=all
I hope you enjoyed those tips, and remember that you can apply all
of them at once. It will just speed up the weight loss process.