5 Habits that Supercharge Your Weight Loss Efforts
Hey Angels and Alphas,
As you’re reading this, advertisements for fad diets are influencing people into a promise for quick results if they overhaul their diet and take drastic action for a few weeks.
Real talk: we know it’s a trap. Shed pounds quickly, they come back. This affects your metabolism, making losing weight even more difficult. In a similar way, cutting out your favorite foods from your diet (or entire food groups) is difficult to maintain in the long-term, leading to an ever larger risk of yo-yo dieting.
A better alternative is to create weight loss changes by gradually adopting small, sustainable habits into your life. And when you’re starting a new weight-loss program, and you want to make it as easy as possible at the outset and remove all the limiting factors, you’re guaranteed to make progress.
To keep your motivation going strong and keep you losing weight in a healthy way, try implementing these weight-loss promoting habits into your day and see what happens:
#1 SET A FIBER GOAL
It’s pretty well-known that tracking what you eat is a great tool to achieve faster success and better management. But you can dial-in even further and starting with one single goal: getting 20-30 grams of fiber every day.
High-fiber foods include oatmeal, whole grains, leafy greens, legumes, and fruit, all of which can help you fill up for fewer calories.
Research has shown that people who aimed at a 30-gram per day goal for their fiber intake (and successfully reached an intake of about 10 grams per day on average) ended up losing nearly 5 pounds over the course of a year.
#2 TAKE YOUR TIME DURING YOUR LUNCH BREAK
Taking the time to slow down and be mindful about why and what you’re eating will actually go a long way toward helping you feel more satisfied by the meal and reducing your overall levels of stress.
In fact, during one study, people who listened to a form of guided meditation during lunch and brought their conscious attention to the look, smell, and flavor of the meal, ate about 440 fewer calories than people who just zoned out in an audiobook. That’s a massive difference.
#3 DRINK BEFORE YOU EAT A MEAL
The next time you’re experiencing a hunger craving, what you should try is simply drinking a glass of water. Drinking two cups of water before each meal can actually make you feel more satisfied and lower your calorie intake by about 10-12 percent.
Drinking a cup of water before breakfast, lunch, and dinner, could help you save about 50-70 calories every meal, amounting to over 20 pounds a year. Might seem like a small number but adds up in the long run. Not only that, you’ll find it much easier to hit your hydration goals.
#4 ADD BURSTS OF MOVEMENT TO YOUR DAY
If you’re someone working from home or at a desk, you should stand up and stretch for about 1-2 minutes every 30 minutes to an hour.
You can literally set it as an alarm in your phone or calendar, and you’ll be able to get in 15 minutes of stretching which is about 45 calories every day.
That’s about 5 pounds when spread out throughout the whole year, and not to mention, you get the added relief from tightness and knots in your shoulders and back.
#5 DO MORE STRENGTH TRAINING
When it comes to training, few types of exercise are as effective for losing weight as strength training. Strength training is one of the most effective exercises for increasing your metabolic function.
This means that, when lifting heavy weights and challenging your muscles, you’ll be able to burn more calories and rev up your metabolism as your body will recover and rebuild, and further maintain lean muscle mass as you lose weight.
If you were to simply add one hour of rigorous resistance training to your week, you’ll be able to burn about 440 calories every single week and achieve the lean, muscular, athletic build you might be looking for when trying to lose weight.
Leave a Comment