FORM A DIET THAT MINIMIZES STARCHES, SUGARS

Starches and sugars form a huge part of our daily diets, but are the worst foods for weight management. Bad starches and sugars to stay away from include: rice, noodles, prata, potato chips, fries, white breads, pastries, soft drinks, candies, and cakes. Increase your fibre intake to reduce the amount of time food stays in your tummy and increase detoxification.

STARVING YOURSELF MIGHT MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT INSTEAD

This is a common mistake a lot of women make. As the body realizes it is getting less food, its metabolism slows down in order to save energy. When this happens, your body starts eating its muscle supply, basically, consuming lean tissue instead of fat reserves.

The really unfortunate thing is that if you do manage to lose weight by starving yourself, it’s really hard for your body to stay lean. Your body’s balance is lost as fats accumulate while you start eating normally. This is because muscles that were destroyed, take a long time to rebuild compared to fat accumulation.

STRESS CAN CAUSE WEIGHT-GAIN

When your body is under stress, it releases cortisol, a counter-stress hormone. Cortisol programs us to want to accumulate and store food into fat, as a warning to impending stress stimuli.

The converse is also true; eating becomes a psychological mechanism that responds to stress to replicate the level of cortisol that was inherent. This is why “comfort food” is a never a raw carrot stick and also why obesity is a first world problem. We are addicted to cheap calories.

BURN MORE CALORIES THAN YOU TAKE IN

This is actually the most direct way to think about weight loss. To lose one pound of weight in a day, you must burn 3,500 more calories than you take in as food. A huge part of creating this weight loss, is to increase your fat-free mass. This directly increases your basal metabolic rate, intense exercise will spike metabolic rates by 30% during activity. But it is your base rate that determines your consistent calorie metabolism all day. Do not use crash diets to create this deficit.

DRINK WATER INSTEAD OF SUGARY DRINKS

Many doctors recommend that males get 13 cups of water per day, which works out to 3 liters, while women are recommended to drink 9 cups per day, about 2.2 liters. You can add lemon or grapefruit extracts which exude some carbohydrate-burning properties.