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Blog, Weight Loss, Weight Loss Tips

Diets, exercise and fasting, are some of the most popular results on the Internet pages on how to lose weight. You may find an overwhelming amount of information, making it difficult to choose a particular weight loss method or slimming treatment. Whatever you decide, you will see that there are many methods recommended in each of those categories. Out of the more traditional fasting methods, intermittent fasting is gaining ground.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting involves having a scheduled time to eat and another time to fast. When you begin intermittent fasting, you eat for a specified period and fast before and after. In this type of fasting, you do not eat anything for a minimum of 16 hours. However, the time you go on fast varies based on the kind of fasting you choose.

In 5:2 diets, you eat well for five days and fast or eat less for two days every week. You can go on juice diet or have water only on fasting days. In between the days of fasting/dieting, ensure that you leave at least two-day gap. Studies show that fasting with only water consumption provides excellent weight loss benefits.

How Does Intermittent Fasting Help in Weight Loss

When you follow intermittent fasting, you commit yourself to an eating pattern. When you fast for a specified number of hours after eating, your body uses the calories you had consumed before your fasting session. As you fast, the toxins are cleansed, and you enjoy the benefits of detoxification. Thus, you end up feeling energised while slowly losing weight in the process.

When you fast, your weekly calorie intake is reduced as you skip a few frequent meals. Not only is your calorie intake reduced leading to weight loss, but your stored fat is also depleted as your body uses it when you fast.

Why is Intermittent Fasting Becoming More Popular?

The obvious reason is that it is a highly effective way of losing weight. Apart from weight loss, it is a straightforward type of fasting that can be easily adhered to. There are no strict dos and don’ts regarding your intake. You need not worry about counting the calories you consume. You can eat your regular meal during the days you do not fast.

It does not require you to spend considerable time cooking your meals. Since you are not going to eat as regularly as you normally would, your work in the kitchen will be reduced.

Best Choice of Food on Fasting Days

If you would prefer to have something light on the days of fasting instead of going ‘all juice’ or ‘all water’, here are some suggestions to help you get started.

Have a banana or any fruit that does not make you feel full. Drink some unsweetened or herbal tea. Have vegetable soup for lunch and eat a light dinner with vegetables.

Other than weight loss benefits, you enjoy great health benefits if you go on an intermittent fast. Try it out to feel the difference. After all, how often do you get to eat what you want during a “diet” and still enjoy the results?

Blog, Weight Loss, Weight Loss Tips

If you are looking to shed that extra fat, you should take into account your lifestyle. In most cases, obesity is due to lack of exercise and improper diet. If these two factors are addressed, weight loss will be more achievable. Other factors that could contribute to weight gain could be certain health conditions that affect the performance of the glands and organs, resulting in excess weight.It all ultimately boils down to how you plan your diet and if you follow a weight loss program. You may have heard about carbs being talked about frequently when it comes to weight loss. Here are some insights about carbs and its role in weight gain.

Should You Say ‘No’ To Carbs

For those that browsed the Internet about diet plans for weight loss, you may find carbs being portrayed as your enemy. The truth is just the opposite. Carbs are as much a necessary part of your diet to stay healthy as other nutrients and minerals. You get your energy supply from carbohydrates, and hence they should be included in your regular diet. Carbs are used as soon as you consume them, and hence your body does not store them. The proteins and fats you consume are converted into carbs. The fat that is stored aids and energises you when you are hungry. Hence, cutting down on your fair share of carbs will make you tired. Carbs are essential; it all depends on the type and amount of carbs that you consume.

Avoid Consuming Excessive Starchy Carbs

Starchy carbs are turned into glucose by enzymes that digest them. As you are well aware, glucose supplies required energy to the body. However, when you cross the required limit of starchy carbs consumption, excess glucose is produced, which is stored in the liver as glycogen or in adipose tissue as fat. That eventually leads to weight gain. It is hence essential to check one’s consumption of starchy carbs if you aim to have healthy weight loss.

Carbs To Be Included

Fruits and vegetables contain carbs and fibres that are essential for keeping you fit. Go for whole grains as well. Your diet should include a variety of fruits and vegetables to ensure that you get the right amount of nutrients and vitamins to keep you going. Dieticians usually suggest an intake of at least five fruits a day.

Fruits such as plums, peaches, apricots, strawberries, blackberries and cherries should be a part of your diet. Other food items include onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and radishes as those can provide you with the energy you need to see the day through.

What Are The Starchy Carbs To Be Avoided?

Some food with starchy carbs content includes white potatoes, white bread, cookies, pastries, refined grains, doughnuts, honey, sugar, jam, refined white grains and so on.

Know What Food Helps In Weight Loss

Against popular belief, eating carbs wisely could assist you in keeping your body in great shape. Certain foods that are rich in carbs are appetite suppressants. Hence, you get a feeling of fullness with a reduced consumption of such food. While it is true that carbs could shoot up blood sugar levels, eating the right types of carbs can help in keeping your blood sugar level in control. You could replace white rice with brown rice.

Blog, Weight Loss, Weight Loss Tips

If you are trying to lose weight in a short time, here is a secret: starving will not assist you at all, in fact, it will cause more problems and a faster weight gain instead of weight loss. You cannot lose weight by depriving yourself of food. Just because you reduce the number of calories you consumed drastically, you may observe weight loss for a short period, but in the long term, this will inevitably be a massive failure. Simply put, your body gets used to the amount of food that you consume every day, and when it thinks you are in a “malnutrition” state, it stores your calories as fat.

How to lose weight fast without starving

Firstly, you must learn how to eat more intelligently. Eat small meals throughout the day and count the number of calories consumed. If you continue to eat the same number of calories your body burns in a day, you will not lose weight. Try to eat your meals at breakfast and lunch rather than evening. Your body burns calories faster while you are awake and active than it does during the rest periods. You can also go for slimming treatment in order to aid your weight loss.

How does it work?

To lose weight, do not eat meals or snacks high in calories before bedtime. Your body can convert some calories into fat because it burns the calories even while you are sleeping. A person weighing 70 pounds will burn about 12 calories every 10 minutes of sleep. If that same person sleeps, eight hours will burn about 72 calories per hour or 576 calories in just one night. That does not leave much room for snacking in the evening, does it?

Don’t eat before bedtime!

Some people think they should just eat a snack before bedtime to avoid hunger the next day. However, this is a misconception as if you want to lose weight; you need to burn your calorie intake with proper nutrition and regular physical activity instead of adding extra calories.

You can lose weight without having to eat special foods or do a hunger strike, as these practices tend to have the opposite effect than intended. Instead, focus your efforts on eating fewer calories than your body burns each day. That is the only way to lose weight without putting your health at risk.

Blog, Weight Loss Tips

We always hear that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Beyond that, research shows that it also helps your weight loss efforts by curbing hunger, reducing caloric intake and increasing fibre consumption. All of which when combined, can help you to lose weight especially when eaten before meals. The apple has long been said to be the healthiest fruit we have and is the second most popular fruit among Americans after oranges, with an average annual consumption of 7 pounds per person in 2005.

Aside from its delicious flavour, the apple provides several nutrients that contribute to weight loss. It helps to lower cholesterol, reduce inflammation and provide important anti-aging polyphenols. A large apple that weighs about 8 ounces contains 5.4 g of fibre or 22 percent of the 25 g Food and Drug Administration daily value.

The fibre in apples is primarily apple pectin, which slows the absorption of carbohydrates. That helps maintain a balanced blood glucose level that discourages weight gain and development of type-2 diabetes.

An apple a day also plays a vital role in the fight against obesity as seen by the result of a Penn State Study conducted by researchers at Pennsylvania State University. The subjects were 59 men and women who were brought to the test lab for five weeks. They were segmented into groups. One group consumed an apple before lunch, and the other groups were given applesauce, apple juice or nothing at all. The subjects who ate apples consumed 187 fewer calories during lunch, and the researchers suggest that eating a low-calorie food – like apples and other fruits, as well as soups or salads – at the beginning of a meal provides a feeling of fullness which results in less food consumption.

There were also researchers at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who conducted a study in which 400 women were placed into three groups and given oat cookies, apples or pears, respectively, at a rate of three times a day for 12 weeks. The subjects who ate oak cookies did not experience substantial weight loss; however, the groups that consumed either the apples or the pears lost an average of 1.21 kilogrammes, which is equivalent to 2.67 pounds, in the 12-week period. As a bonus, the group eating apples or pear also had lower blood glucose levels.

However, it is also advisable to not consume apples excessively. Although apples are healthy, they still contain calories and sugars, which may inhibit your slimming treatment when consumed with other food.