faq >> how to lose weight


I have five reasons that contribute to people today losing weight. Try these top tips and you will definitely be on your way to a slimmer waistline.

1. reduce saturated fats
2. cut down alcohol consumption
3. reduce portion sizes
4. get more sleep
5. eat to match your size

reduce saturated fats
Start to trim all excess and visible fats from your diet. These include taking the skin off chicken, trimming any visible fats from your steak, grilling instead of frying your meals and choosing leaner sauces andleaner meats. Prepare most of your meals yourself so that you can see what's being put into them. Eating out is eating blind, as you do not know how the food is being prepared. Reducing saturated fats from your diet lessens the total calorie intake. And this is the key to weight loss.

reduce alcohol
Alcohol holds 7kcal per gram, and that's a lot when you compare it to water, which holds zero (0kcal) per gram. By comparison, one gram of fat holds 9kcal. When drinking alcohol it actually makes you feel tired and hungry so you are less likely to eat a healthy meal. You also tend to munch on bar snacks or takeaway foods. This is all adding to your total calorific intake.

reduce portion sizes
It is seen as a sign of a good restaurant if they over feed you, or offer you more food than what you are capable of eating. It is also seen as polite to eat all you've been given. Accordingly, we are eating far more calories than what we need or want. Even if the food is healthy or low fat, it will still hold calories. All food holds calories however, low fat foods hold less. So eating a large healthy meal could equal the same amount of calories as eating a small McDonalds takeaway. Reduce your portion sizes to halve your consumption of calories.

Also, try to stay in tune with your body. Understand when it's hungry and when you are eating because you are bored, or because the food is in front of you. Ask yourself on a 1-10 scale how hungry are you, before you eat. You might find that you are more bored than hungry. Or drink some water. We often replace our feelings of thirst with hunger. So you might feel hungry but you are actually thirsty. Again, you will be able to find these things out if you are in tune with your body. Before you eat ask yourself if you are hungry or do you need to eat that much? Remember to eat just until you feel full.

get more sleep
Well this is one for the books, isn't it? But the truth doesn't really lie in sleeping more to lose weight, it's more about just getting enough sleep to lose weight.

Living in one of the biggest growing and fastest moving cities in Australia now means more of us are getting less and less sleep. If you are not enjoying eight hours sleep your body finds it hard to process and control your weight related hormones, which can then lead to cells storing excess fat, which in turn lowers the body's ability to burn fat.

So make sure you get your body tired through the day with some regular exercise so that you will want to sleep eight hours at night. And consuming alcohol or caffeine or anything that will raise your energy levels prior to sleeping.

small people don't need to
eat as much as bigger people
How many times have you tried to diet, and found that in the first few weeks everything goes well, but then things start to stagnate? This is because of two important factors. The first one is that you are more motivated at the start so try harder, and the second is because the biggest adaptations to your body occur in the first few weeks.

Say you have lost 5-6 kilos in your first 8 weeks of exercise and dieting but then find your results start to slow up. You start to only lose 0.5kg and 0.2kg per week now and then you just maintain a certain weight and can't move from it - why?

Well, the taller you are the more calories you need to live. Taller people burn more than smaller people. The bigger you are the more calories you will need. So larger people (whether it be muscular or fat) need more than smaller people do. Basically the more room you take up on this planet the more calories you will need. So when you started dieting you were bigger than what you are now. Therefore you needed more calories than what you do now because you have lost some weight. As you start to lose weight your body doesn't need as many calories as it did before.

For example, if you were a 25-year-old man weighing 80kg and with a height of 1.8meters you will need to eat less than 2652kcal to lose weight, and eat dead on 2652kcals to maintain your current weight. Then after 8 weeks and a loss of 6kilos eating just below the original 2652kcal, as you were doing before, will not bring you results. This is because your maintenance weight is now 2521kcal. You now need to eat below 2521kcal.

So as you reduce your size you will also reduce the amount of calories needed for your weight loss goal. Eating the same amount of foods as you were doing before will only help hold your weight.