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Shedding pounds: an easy way to lose weight
Truthfully: Can you still remember your New Year’s resolutions? It definitely feels like it was ages ago. Cookies, stollen and goose over the Christmas season have made the hips and belly even rounder for many of us. So for many, the beginning of the year is a good time to get rid of excess pounds. But only a few can keep up the good work. If you reduce your weight too quickly and with a one-sided diet, you will notice the yo-yo effect after only a short time.
If you want to shed a few pounds and improve your figure, you have to use up more energy than you supply to your body. Because if your body gets more energy in the form of calories than it needs, it stores these for times of need and you inevitably gain weight. There are three basic approaches to successful weight loss. First, you reduce your calorie intake. Second, you increase your energy expenditure, for example through more exercise or muscle building. And third, you combine both and thus achieve a faster and above all more sustainable result. Nevertheless, there are a few tips and tricks to make losing weight easier. Here are just a few:
Eat regularly
Our brain needs glucose to function properly. If you often skip meals, you mess up your body and, above all, you end up with low blood sugar. The disastrous consequence of this is that our brain can no longer regulate our appetite. Examine your eating habits and protect yourself from cravings by learning how to organize yourself better.
Pleasurably slim
If you want to do something for your figure permanently, we recommend consuming fewer carbohydrates and taking in fewer calories by eating natural ingredients of quality. Leave out the sweet stuff and industrially produced food, because they consist mainly sugar and starch, which make you fat, with zero content of vital substances. Soft drinks and other sugary drinks should be omitted. It’s better to drink mineral water and tea – green tea and stinging nettle tea in particular stimulate metabolism. An absolute must are high-quality vegetable oils (such as cold-pressed olive oil, rapeseed oil, linseed and walnut oil). In salads or steamed vegetables, they are a pleasure and good for your health at the same time. Those who prefer seasonal and regional food will enjoy the pleasure of eating and enjoying a diverse seasonal offer.
Not all vegetables are the same
As a rule of thumb, vegetables that grow above the earth tend to contain fewer carbohydrates. These include, for example, peppers, courgettes, cucumbers and leafy greens. Rich in carbohydrates, on the other hand, are vegetables that thrive underground, such as potatoes, carrots, beetroot or celery. Keep this in mind when you shop.
Wine spritzer instead of beer
Alcohol is excreted 100 percent by the body, 99 percent of it via the metabolic processes of the liver. So why drink at all? With seven kilocalories per gram, alcohol also has a real impact. For comparison: sugar, protein and carbohydrates have only about four calories. In addition, alcoholic beverages stimulate hunger, making it a double negative. Think about this: two beers per evening are equivalent to about 2000 calories per week, which corresponds to a total daily requirement for men. If you don’t want to do without alcohol, we recommend red wine or spritzer.
Interval fasting instead of eating out of frustration
Have you ever thought about how often you eat in stressful times, when you are sad or frustrated? It happens more often than you think. Interval fasting helps you to free yourself from undesirable habits. It’s not that simple, though. Interval fasting defines a time window in which you do not eat. The 16:8 principle works best for many people, which means you don’t eat for 16 hours. Normal food is allowed for the remaining 8 hours without any special prohibitions or restrictions. The longer and more consistently you fast, the more noticeable the effect. During the first few days, hunger plagues you, but then it becomes much easier. Interval fasting can score with many advantages: fewer or hardly any cravings, lower blood pressure, increased stress resistance and more mental freshness. Those who eat their first meal around midday feel more efficient throughout the morning.
HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training
Here the key is programme. Power is the order of the day in this athletics programme. High Intensity Interval Training is perfect for efficiently burning fat. Canadian scientists have found that fat burning in this programme is 36 percent higher compared to a moderate endurance program. HIIT is a combination of endurance and muscle training and consists of short, intensive movement units. Most athletes rarely reach the limits of what is possible. There is simply a lack of a sufficiently high stress stimulus. During HIIT you will most likely get to know your physical limits. Before the workout, warm up and activate the muscles. As the training is very intensive and pulse is very high, you should not have any health issues. In case of doubt, please consult a doctor first. And then you’re ready to go! Ideally, you should proceed under the guidance of a personal trainer. Donovan Green, celebrity trainer from the US, shows a 7-minute workout to do at home. Take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVG-geWTsA4
Protein promotes muscle growth
Muscles are the kilns of our bodies. The more you have, the higher your daily basic metabolic rate will be. After training, the body needs energy for regeneration. If you do not supply it with carbohydrates, it will increasingly fall back on the fat deposits, which then shrink. The growth hormones for the muscles are formed from protein. They help muscles grow and recover at the same time. Simple sugars such as sweets or soft drinks quickly supply the body with energy after training, but they also lead to large amounts of insulin being released. And insulin blocks fat loss.
Those who do not sleep gain weight more easily
When you sleep, your body runs at full speed, because most growth hormones are released during sleep. Without them, there’s no cell renewal. And without cell renewal, there is also no muscle growth. During sleep, the body creates the conditions for us to be prepared for the challenges of the next day. If you don’t get enough sleep over a long period, your body will be exposed to enormous stress. And that’s the worst condition for losing weight. Another reason is that at night, metabolism ensures that insulin levels drop; insulin levels tell us whether we are hungry or not. During periods of stress, the insulin in the blood increases and appetite increases with it.
Why lose weight?
Being overweight has many facets. One of them is that being fat makes you unhappy, because if you are overweight, you can easily get into a hormonal imbalance. Abdominal fat in particular inhibits the production of serotonin, a messenger substance that makes us calm, balanced and happy. Serotonin is also involved in appetite and eating habits, and it helps to dampen feelings such as hunger, depression or anxiety. There’s nothing but good that comes of shedding a few pounds. Less weight also increases performance. Top results in sports are only possible if, among other things, body weight is right. But there is another good reason to part with your excess pounds: they often pose a significant health risk. If fat is located mainly in and around the abdomen and is deposited around the organs, the risk of undetected inflammations, which influence the metabolism and promote vascular damage, is high. This automatically results in a restriction of your quality of life.
If you want to break with old habits, you have to do it with fun and motivation. So don’t be too hard on yourself. If you want to live healthier and leaner in the long term and lose weight sustainably, you can’t avoid changing your lifestyle. Our SMOOVE team will show you how you can achieve great things with small steps. Besides, you might finally discover the right sport for yourself. The most important thing is that you take action.
Start today and contact us for a free consultation: kontakt@smoove-retreat.ch