8 Weight-Loss Tips To Motivate Yourself

8 Weight-Loss Tips To Motivate Yourself

With today’s lifestyle, it is not surprising that people all over the world struggle with containing their weight. Being obese and fat is pretty much a modern day disorder – there were no obese people until the end of 19th century.

So why is this recent phenomenon happening? The answer lies in the food we eat, the amount of sleep we get, and how often we exercise. Now, exercising does not always mean having to go to the gym hitting the treadmill or lifting weights. Exercising basically means to do any type of physical activity that would cause you to sweat, thus burning calories or increasing your metabolism which ultimately leads to breaking down those fat cells stored in your belly, legs, arms, or other parts of your body. Jogging, playing a sport, taking an extra detour walk around your estate or even doing housework can help you to burn fat.

One interesting fact first: When you burn fat, it actually exits your body through your lungs, which means you’re exhaling the fat away. Research by scientists show that more than 80% of fat that left the human body was actually through exhaling carbon dioxide while the remaining fats was converted to water.

However, breathing alone without exercising won’t cause you to lose weight. Thus, we give you some popular tips that will help you along your weight losing journey:

1.    Eat healthier: It’s something you’ve surely caught yourself doing, and it goes like this – after a hard workout at the gym, you go home, take a shower, and then eat some chips you found sitting on your kitchen table. This simply has to stop!

You must control what you eat, when you eat, and how you eat, because without eating properly, there will be no net weight loss at all. Do not see food as your enemy, but if you fall head over heels for something sweet or unhealthy, you will find yourself struggling to lose weight, or worse, even putting on excess weight.

2.    No sugar: Removing sweets from your diet is one of the simplest way to lose weight. This goes for all those chocolate bars, cupcakes or dessert you baked or bought.

When your insulin goes down, fat can get out of the fat storage centre with ease, which means the body will burn fat, not carbohydrates. Ditching sugar can help you lose as much as several pounds within the first two weeks, so you definitely have something ‘sweet’ to look forward to!

3.    Do not skip breakfast: As you may already know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Not only must you have breakfast, you must also choose the healthiest combination of carbohydrates and protein as your first meal. Picking something healthy, like boiled eggs, yogurt, a salad, and oats is probably the perfect combination of those two important foods. They are all healthy and packed with nutrients that will not only help you eat healthily, but the protein found in egg-whites is key to maintaining your muscle mass.

4.    Exercise: It’s as simple as that – do whatever you want, but for the best results, find a perfect combination between cardio exercises and those class weight-lifting exercises (which include squats, deadlifts, bench press, etc.). Exercise doesn’t have to be lengthy, just focus on breaking sweat and giving it all every time you work out in a short 30-45min gym session.

5.    Have enough sleep: If you think finding the perfect set of exercises and eating right is all it takes to lose weight, there’s other factors as well. As much as you need to be active throughout your day, having a good night’s rest is crucial.

Studies have shown that sleep-deprived people have health issues including impaired metabolisms and poor glucose control, both of which affects your ability to lose weight efficiently.

Also, if you are not sleeping well, you will always find yourself struggling with your exercises – you just won’t be able to maintain the usual level of your exercise and the intensity of it. Therefore, make sure you get approximately 7-8h hours of sleep every night in perform optimally for the day ahead.

6.    Before and after photos: One of the best ways to get yourself motivated is to take a picture of yourself just before the start of your long journey. Visualise your goals – imagine a body shape you want to achieve as this can help you keep focus every time you find yourself struggling.

You will also want to wear tighter clothes as you start to see yourself fit into them with ease as you progress. That’s another cool trick to keep your mind focused.

7.    Drink water: Finding yourself dehydrated is probably as bad as snacking on chocolates at night. Water is a key component of our body, and staying hydrated throughout the day will help you stay away from excess food, as you’ll be curbing your hunger with zero calories water.

Having a bottle of water next to you while working out at the gym is strongly recommended.

8.    Have cheat days: Yes, it’s true. Cheat days are simply a way of rewarding your brain for all the good work it has done keeping you away from those desserts and sweet drinks.

So how does this work? The best solution would be to plan a week in which you will follow your diet plan and give everything you got from Monday to Saturday, and on Sunday, that is your cheat day.

The term ‘cheat day’ does not mean you can get to eat whatever you want for 24 hours. This simply means to have only one meal consisting of your favourite foods. Cheat days are not supposed to make you feel guilty. Many research have proven their effectiveness to keep your mind focused on the task at hand instead, which is to lose weight by pushing hard to get that result!