Losing weight is something that most of us look forward to, but what we don’t have is the patience to wait for the effective results. Thankfully, there are some healthy was to kick start the weight loss effect faster than ever! And the best part? No need to starve, waste money on fascinating supplements or punishing yourself with hardcore exercise.
In this blog, you will find the fastest ways of losing weight without overdoing dieting or exercise. These expert ways will bring you long-lasting results and if you do it right, you need not stop dreaming of that cheesy pizza! Read on.
How to lose weight fast naturally
Go for quality not quantity
As per experts, if you re expending more calories than what you take in, you should see some loss in weight. Alicia Romano, a clinical registered dietician from Boston says you need not be too focused on calories that you miss out on a wholesome diet.
But, by focusing on the quality of the food you eat, you can have a better nutrient intake that will keep you full for long, believing the words of another registered dietician with Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition, Lauren Sullivan.
Keep a track of what you eat
Dr. Seltzer says, no food should be inherently classified as good or bad. And if you feel stressed or guilty by the idea of writing down what you eat in a day, skip it entirely.
That being said, people who keep a track of their diet and more likely to lose weight successfully and faster as they are more aware of what goes into their bodies and what they need to avoid. Following the array of studies published by the Journal of Personalized Medicine, it was suggested that people who took the help of a tracking app to keep a check on their diet and daily physical activity experienced a considerable increase in weight loss.
But, you need to be honest. In the end, it is just an app in which you must enter everything you eat in a day. If you don’t, that’s of no use altogether.
Focus more on plant foods
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a 20-year study that involved 100,000 individuals, researchers concluded that people who ate more amount of whole grains in place of refined grains, included more veggies and fruits in place of sweets and preferred coffee and tea in place of sweetened juices and drinks, gained less weight over a long period of time.
In a small study published in Journal of General Internal Medicine involving over 1000 people, it was suggested that people on vegan and vegetarian diets, rich in fruits, legumes, veggies, whole grains, buts and produce, lost more weight that people on other diet plans such as low-arid Atkins diet for the same time period.
It is because fiber like fat a protein slows your digestion process and helps in optimizing fullness and a good amount of nutrient intake during meals. According to Romano, a plant-based diet keeps you full and satiated long after eating.
Go for low-glycemic carbs
A food’s GI (Glycemic Index) tells us how fast the sugar (In our food) enters the bloodstream and how slow it gets digested. Eating food with a low glycemic load, say less than 55, as in most fruits, green veggies, kidney beans, lentils, raw carrots and bran breakfast cereals, helps us have a consistently processed metabolism, which directly impacts weight loss. Foods with higher GI, say 70 or more, as in white bread, potatoes, short-grain, slows our metabolism, making it harder for us to lose weight.
In various studies, it was inferred by diet experts that foods with high glycemic load increased weight faster. Make small changes in your daily diet
And when we say small, we mean little changes like replacing juices with tea. One change at one time. Making such small changes in your existing dietary habits supports sustainable weight loss, as per the reports published in The European Journal of Obesity. So, instead of giving up your favorite BLT bagels for an egg-white wrap, try changing your sandwich choice to English muffin. Or if you have a habit of eating a snack bar every day in the afternoon, change it from 300 calories to 150 calorie snack bar. When you commit to little food swaps like these, you are more likely to adapt to new behaviors faster.
No matter which way you choose, make sure you focus on ‘small manageable changes’. Over-commitment will lead you nowhere. S
Never skip your meals
According to Romano, eating something at regular intervals throughout the day keeps your blood sugar level optimized, implying that you can avoid the spike and crash that happens when you eat a complete meal on an empty stomach. When you try to avoid eating when you are hungry, you invite food cravings, hunger pains ad drowsiness, which ultimately leads you to snacking on items high in sugar and fat.
Moreover, when you are down with calories before going out on a dinner date with your friends or before satisfying your midnight cravings, the chances of you falling victim to ‘break a rule and give up’ are higher.
Imbibe protein from lean food sources
Dietary proteins are the most important tool to boost your weight loss regime, because it makes you expend more energy-digesting protein in vs. fat and carbs. However, mostly it comes with naturally-produced fats that increase the calorie of every serving.
As per the research by Harvard School of Public Health, eating leaner protein sources such as white fish, chicken breast and low-fat dairy products gives you fewer calories than burgers and bacons. Cheese, Greek Yogurt and cottage cheese can also be your mart choices.
Combine protein with sweets
On combining a carbohydrate, such as toast with healthy fats/protein, such as peanut butter, your digestion slows down, making you feel fuller than eating only the carbohydrate. So, next time when you are craving sugar, combine nut butter with dark chocolate and enjoy!
Go for higher-fiber carbs
Same as protein, fiber slows down the digestion of carb calories, so you feel full for long, thus maintaining steadier sugar levels. This is one of the reasons, why health and diet experts combine fiber to weight loss. This indicates that fibber whole grain bread is a way better choice than opting for white bread as your breakfast. This theory also tells us why fruits rich in valuable fiber, vitamins and sugar can beat candies every time.
Drink more water
Cut down on fluids and your body will secrete an antidiuretic hormone leading to water retention. Water retention can possibly lead to a low measure of body mass loss, which you can balance by drinking more water or specifically calorie-free drinks like unsweetened tea or coffee.
Limit your alcohol intake
You might not know this, but every 1 gram of booze contains 7 calories, which is more than proteins and carbs (4 per gram). So, you are having a calorie intake without actually filling you with any essential nutrients. Alcohol takes away your inhibitions and then, those French fries at the bar looks no less delicious and don’t come with the late night pizza halt on your way back home.
Sp, we can put it this way – Boozing not only makes you eat more but makes you eat shit. If you want to lose weight, stop drinking. We know it’s not possible to quit alcohol right away, but you can definitely reduce it and eventually stop it. If you alcohol intake is moderate, like one drink or less, you don’t need to quit. However, drinking more than 4 glasses of wine, will make you eat more as it gives way to food cravings.
Make some effort to handle stress
In today’s modern lifestyle, a 10 year old kid and 60 year old adult, both experience stress. It has become a chronic condition in more than 90% people. And the more you are stressed, the more you look forward to eating. Science says, the stress hormone, cortisol increases your appetite for fatty and sugary foods. According to an obesity study of 2007, chronic stress is the most common reason for higher body weight. More than 2000 adults’ hair had cortisol concentrations.
Whatever may be your weight loss strategy, it won’t work until you find an effective stress-management tactic. It can be anything, meditation, calling your mom, best friend or just chilling out listening to music. You just need to make sure, it is hunger that drives you to the kitchen, not stress.
Sleep a little more
Everyone talks about adequate sleep to achieve targeted weight, but we would like to draw your attention sleeping 30 minutes extra each night. So, if you sleep for 7 hours a night, make it 7 hours 30 minutes. Inadequate or poor sleep is one of the causes of slower metabolism. Moreover, if you are awake longer, you will end up eating more. According to a Sleep study in 2016, sleep deprivation activates the brain receptors that are responsible for marijuana munchies.
Engage in exercise, but not excessively
Physical activity is important in balancing healthy body weight, but that doesn’t mean you must hit the gym doing weight lifting and pull-ups, right on your first day. Brought to you from the experts, exercise can never help you lose weight dramatically just in a week. It is an effective but slower process.
Dr. Seltzer says, “resistance training might initially contribute a pound or two due to the body’s inflammatory response, and people who do low-intensity exercise might burn calories, but they often end up eating more or subconsciously moving less throughout the day to conserve energy”. Various researches also support his theory.
It could take you weeks or even months to see the metabolic effects of exercising on the scale, and still, you might end up gaining a little weight because of the building muscle, which is quite denser than body fat. But, that doesn’t mean exercise is not helpful, it is in fact awesome for your mental health, heart and various other things, but not everything can be measured on the scale.
How fast will I lose weight?
Now, this is a question most of us have in mind, even before starting with a weight loss regime. We want things to be done very quickly and get results even quicker. Well, you can lose about 5-10 pounds or more in the 1st week, followed by a consistent loss in weight.
If you follow the process strictly, you can get to 3-4 pounds weight loss every week consistently. If you are going to try diet plans for the first time, things will flow at a faster pace. The more weight you want to lose, the faster you can lose it.
The first few might be difficult and you might not be able to cope with the changes. Our body keeps burning carbs and when all of a sudden, it starts doing it the other way, burning fats, it takes a little time to get accustomed.
It is named as the keto-flu or low-carb flu, which goes away in a few days. For some, it is 3, for some 4 or may be a week, but your body will get used to burning fats. Try adding some extra salt to your food that might help!
After a few days of dieting, people feel really good, most of them report feeling more energized than earlier.
Besides faster weight loss, following a low-carb diet can help you in several other ways:
- Your blood sugar levels are reduced with low-carb diets.
- Triglycerides fall down.
- Small, dense LDL the bad cholesterol gets controlled
- HDL, the good cholesterol increases
- Blood pressure improves
There is no need to starve yourself to lose weight fast
In case you have a medical condition that keeps you under medication, talk to your doctor before starting with a diet plan or any other weight loss regime as it reduces the need for medication. By reducing insulin levels and carbs, your body’s hormonal environment changes and it starts wanting to lose weight.
This, as a result, reduces hunger and appetite, which is the main reason why most people fail following the conventional ways of weight loss. Following a keto-diet, makes you lose two to three times more as compared to a calorie-restricted, low-fat diet.
Like many, if you are impatient to lose weight, low-carb diet brings in another great benefit of the drop in water weight. It can show you a major change in the scale on the very next day.
You can eat as much food as you need to be full and still lose weight, that too faster!
To sum up
The fastest ways of losing weight includes drinking more water, opting for low-carbs diet, quitting alcohol, eating high-fiber diet and more.