Guess what’s the most demotivating thing about weight loss? Losing weight slowly! Agreed that losing weight can be a slow process, but shedding just 1 kg over a few months can be demotivating enough to make you contemplate quitting. A majority of people think crash dieting leads to faster weight loss, but it would often involve starving and compromising on health. Additionally, your metabolism would slow down, and you will gain all the weight back once you are done crash dieting. To make things easy for you, in this article, we are going to share 4 secrets to losing weight nobody tells about that you can include in your everyday life.
Right off the bat, here’s one of the best secrets to losing weight – control your portions with every meal, eating only till you are 80% full, and avoid going for seconds.
3 Secrets To Losing Weight Nobody Tells About:
1. Increase Protein Intake:
Generally, our Indian meals are usually carb rich and low on the protein factor, but we can do some variations and amp up the protein factor in every meal. Protein is one of the most important macronutrients whether you are trying to get fit, build muscle, or trying to lose weight. Even for overall well being, protein is an important source, which should be a part of our every meal. Most importantly, begin your day with a breakfast rich in protein. Increasing protein intake at breakfast is one of the best secrets to losing weight that hardly anyone talks about.
Here are 4 breakfast options that you can have if you are trying to lose weight because they are high in protein. For example, if you are eating poha for breakfast, you can add paneer or sprouted moong. You can also make moong dal chilla with paneer filling. Paratha with egg burji or anda paratha (egg paratha) in very less oil is another great option.
If you are craving for something sweet, you can have a small tub of Greek yogurt and then add roasted oats along with roasted seeds, roasted nuts, and very little honey. If you don’t want to add honey, you can add half a banana on top of it and that makes a lovely complete meal.
2. Sleep Like a Baby:
Getting quality sleep each night is one of the biggest factors when it comes to the secrets to losing weight. Maintain a proper sleep hygiene – which would involve not just keeping the room clean before you go to bed amnd avoiding browsing on the phone at least one hour before sleep, there’s more you can do. In the evening, there should be a small evening routine that you should follow – where you clean the bed, fluff the pillows up, and keep the bedroom dark and quiet. As mentioned above, please don’t check your phone just before going to sleep because the blue light from gadgets would interfere with your sleep.
Even if you are unable to get 8 hours of sleep, even the 2 to 4 hours of sleep that you get, should be deep sleep that helps you recover. So, it works like a vicious cycle – if you don’t sleep well at night, you would wake up tired. If you wake up tired, with a slow metabolism, and increased cravings for sugary and calorie-dense foods. You would also have no energy to do exercise or hit the gym.
So, do a consicous effort to get at least 8 hours of restful sleep. It is one of the biggest lifestyle changes that you have to make just to stay fit and for your overall well being, and it’s the most important thing for weight loss.
3. Eat Slowly and Mindfully:
If you are on your weight loss journey, there’s one more thing that you can do, which is very simple, which is to eat slowly and mindfully, and you wouldn’t even believe the impact it would have on your weight loss journey. In a study done in Japan, mentioned on the National Library of Medicine website, people were divided into “fast eating” and “slow eating” categories, and researchers found that the faster-eating group had a higher risk of developing diabetes!
Experts also say people who eat slowly are skinnier compared to people who are fast eaters, just by the speed of eating and just being intentional in what they were eating on their plate. There’s one more study where they found out that people who eat fast consume more calories compared to people who eat slow.
Also Read: 7-Day Vegetarian Diet Plan For Weight Loss
When you eat your food, from the brain to the digestive system, there’s a signal relay, but for that signal to form, it takes time. When you are consuming food, from chewing to swallowing the food, to the pressure of food in the stomach, to the movement of food in the small intestine, it takes time for the signal to get relayed.
So, when you are eating food in a hurry, your body would not be able to register that your tummy is full and then you end up eating more because you feel you are not yet full and would continue eating food. One of the secrets to losing weight is to eat slowly, just being intentional, sitting comfortably, blessing your food with folded hands, and not sitting with any technology, phone or movies or anything; just sitting with the plate of food, and that little thing would change the game for you in your weight loss journey.
4. Get Adequate Vitamin C:
Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that works as an antioxidant and helps in neutralizing the harmful effect of free radicals in the body. It is required for production of collagen and also boosts the body’s ability to fight infection. If you are trying to lose weight, vitamin C can boost your fat loss effort. Fat oxidation requires iron, which carries oxygen, and vitamin C increases iron absorption from food.
Vitamin C is also required in the synthesis of “carnitine” – a molecule that is required for the oxidation of fatty acids. One of the secrets to losing weight is to maintain adequate vitamin C levels in the body. Individuals with adequate vitamin C status oxidize 30% more fat during a moderate exercise session than individuals with low vitamin C. An adult man requires 90 mg of vitamin C per day and a woman requires 75 mg of vitamin C per day. The best sources for vitamin C are oranges, kiwi, broccoli, bell peppers, strawberries, and tomatoes. So, eat a variety of fruits and vegetables during the day to get a sufficient dose of vitamin C in your body.
