Ways to Lose Weight Naturally
The one scientific fact to successfully lose weight is simple. Eat less, move more. Easier said than done, right? There are degrees to which we should do those things. Eating less does not mean depriving your body to the point it goes into starvation mode. And moving more does not mean exercising to the point of injury. Here are just a few tips to help you along.
Food is good! It’s flavorful and nourishing. We eat with our families, friends, at social outings and on special occasions. No one wants to give that up completely. Very few people want to eat a carrot stick when Grandma’s lasagna just came out of the oven.
Let’s address a few ways we can accomplish our goal.
- If there is something that you enjoy, but know has more calories than you should indulge in, cut it in half, or a third. You will still be able to savor the flavor you crave, but with a significant percentage less. For example, the average slice of pizza has approximately 250 calories. By cutting it in half, down the center, it just became a 125 calorie slice of cheese pizza! If you make a sandwich, cut it in half and save the other half for lunch the next day. These reductions will add up over time, and you won’t really be missing out.
- Using smaller dishes, such as a salad plate, controls how much food you could eat at a given sitting. Of course you could pile that food as high as the plate is wide, but then you would only be defeating the purpose and cheating yourself. Your stomach should only be the size of your clenched fist. When we overeat, we stretch out our bellies. Try to eye what you’re eating and if it is obviously going to be larger than your fist, you know that is too much for one sitting.
Just like your car, your body needs fuel. The type of fuel we put in our body makes a difference. There are reasons we have different food groups. When you incorporate a balanced diet, you get the vitamins and minerals your body needs to run efficiently. You need to start reading labels. Most people think something as simple as fruit juice would be healthy. Ironically, there is more sugar than fruit in the average bottle of fruit juice in your supermarket. When shopping at the supermarket, try to only make purchases from the outer perimeters. These are the aisles that are fruits and vegetables, dairy and meats.
- Getting active when we are used to a sedentary lifestyle can be tough. Some people think of getting active as joining a gym or doing hours of cross-fit a day. It doesn’t have to. We can begin with baby steps. For example, in the morning while you’re waiting for the water in the shower to get hot, you can do 25 jumping jacks to get that heart rate up. Metabolisms increase when we adopt a more active lifestyle. And, an increased metabolism equals an increased rate in which our bodies burn calories. You can start out small, and increase on a scale that you are comfortable with. An example can be doing 10 pushups, 10 jumping jacks, and 10 sit-ups one day. And then maybe 11 of each the next day, and then 12 the day after that, and so on. If you want to be more active, and you live in one of our apartment homes, you can still workout in your apartment without driving your neighbors crazy!
Good luck with your journey and remember it’s not just weight loss, but healthy living that matters most.
