What is the best weight loss advice you have ever received? And how close to the truth was it? Advice can be sometimes really helpful and sometimes they can be as far from the truth as one can imagine. Once in awhile, one might have to take it with a grain of salt. While at other times, it might be the best thing that you have ever tried. There's no easy way to find out whether a piece of advice is worth your time or not. It is the right of passage and something that you will have to find out over time and with experience. It seems like when it comes to lifting weights, everybody has an opinion. You are either too thin, too bulky, or just plain fat. Let us reminisce on some of the best weight loss advice that you should be grateful for, and some of the absolutely worst.
This is one of the oldest pieces of advice out there, and many people follow it to a T and it is true in most cases. Apparently, drinking water can hike up the metabolism by a whopping 24–30%, helping you burn off more calories than usual. Also, your stomach feels fuller and your appetite gets a little tamed after having water, which prevents you from binging on food. So have a glass of water before your meals and watch out for the results.
Diets work, but they can fail to be a part of your consistent lifestyle. You cannot possibly diet for the entirety of your life. In fact, there is research that shows dieting can in fact increase the possibility of future weight gain. On the other hand, having a healthy lifestyle is more of a long term solution and the focus here is not on losing weight but on being healthy. If there is a consistent focus on living a healthy life, weight loss will follow organically.
While getting your weekly groceries, make an effort to be a little more mindful about what you are adding to your cart. Read the labels and understand what you are putting into your cart. Staying informed and being conscious of your food intake is something that should be practiced every day, as it means you care about your nutrition. It also means you are putting in extra effort to find out the ingredients in packaged food and the potential effect to your diet. It might take some practice but you will get better at reading labels and calorie information as opposed to just your calorie recommendation.
What are the facts regarding green tea? Like coffee, green tea comes with many health benefits, and one of them just happens to be losing weight. Green tea is abundant in antioxidants and these antioxidants work together with the caffeine to boost your metabolism and burn fat. It is also packed with polyphenols that reduce inflammation, help fight free radicals that cause cancer, and improve brain function. With so many benefits you should be drinking green tea every day.
This is a simple optical illusion trick which still holds true to this day. Smaller plates let you feel full faster while you eat, thereby tricking your brain into thinking you are getting enough food to eat. This is especially true for the people who tend to overeat and are not trying to control their portion. An overweight person can benefits best from this idea.
Even though coffee comes with some stigmas attached to it, it is actually true that having black coffee can help you with your weight loss journey. Good quality coffee comes packed with antioxidants, which has several health benefits. The caffeine in coffee can not only boost your metabolism by a striking 11%, but it can also speed up the fat burning by up to 29%, which makes it a favorite beverage of many who are fighting with their weight loss journey. However, the purpose will be defeated if you add a lot of sugar or cream to your coffee.
Any nutritionist or doctor will tell you too much sugar is a diet killer. But sugar in liquid form, especially in drinks is very tricky and can creep up on you faster than when you are eating them. Drinking soda or other sugary beverages daily increases the risk of obesity by 60%. Even if you don't drink carbonated soft drinks, the fruit juices and blended drinks can be just as bad. So swap fruit juice for the real fruits and skip the sugar rush.
Eating fats does not essentially make you fat. Similarly, it does not mean eating less fat will make you healthier, smaller or help you shed those pounds faster. It is important to know the difference between good fat, (omega 3's) and bad fats like saturated fat. In fact, healthy fat is required for the body. What one should really limit intake of are refined carbohydrates and ‘bad fats’.
This might be a strange one, but most people believe you should avoid fruits if you are trying to lose weight. This is mainly because fruits contain sugar and sugar will help you put on the weight. However, what most people fail to understand is that table sugar is much different from the sugar in fruits, even when they are composed of the same fructose and glucose. Fruits come with several additional benefits that table sugar doesn't have. So if you are cutting out your fruit intake based on some bogus advice you can stop that right now.
Artificial sweetener comes with fewer calories as compared to the real sugar, but that doesn't automatically mean it will help you lose weight. In fact, some may say that since you can get away with using artificial sugar, it means you will not be able to get over your sugar dependency. If you are not taking an alternative at all, you will have lesser temptations, and wouldn't have to hide it with a sugar alternative or diet sodas.
Just because calories are counted in numbers does not mean that 100 calories of one food are the same as 100 calories of the other. Take those 100 calorie snack packs of chips for example. They are only 100 calories however they are not the nutritional equivalent of an apple or some carrot sticks that might have the same or calorie higher count. Just because your calorie counts are low you can still be prone to gaining those pounds on the scale if you are not making the right food choices. There are a lot of different factors that come into play when it comes to weight loss. So just because it's low calorie don't be fooled.
Everybody is on a cleanse these days and there seems to be a new cleanse every time. Water cleanse? Juice cleanse? You name it, and it is out there. However, is it really that effective? Apparently, not so much. It is preferred that you keep a close eye on your micronutrients and calories, which is something more sustainable and adaptable than a cleanses. Can you survive on water or juice the entire time? We are guessing not. Your weight loss journey is not a quick fix fad but is a change in your lifestyle, so go for something which is more realistic for your lifestyle, rather than making a drastic change.
Supplements are there to help you when you are falling short on certain nutrients. However, it is by no means meant to replace your daily intake of food altogether. The rumor about taking supplements alone to lose weight is nothing but a hoax. Even though the idea sounds great, let's face it who doesn't want a magic pill. But truth be told it is not practical. Supplements are undoubtedly helpful; however, they can never replace eating healthy.
Throughout the years' weight loss advice comes and goes. Only time will tell the truth behind which methods are sound or not. Use your better judgment while making the call as to what advice to adhere to. Following one blindly can not only be time wasted but also lead to physical and nutritional issues, especially when it comes to what you put in your body. Double-check your facts to see if they come from credible sources before you make something a part of your lifestyle.
Grant Donovan is a successful entrepreneur and expert in many disciplines including aviation, automotive, political, anti-aging and life coaching to name a few. But it is his passion for health, nutrition and fitness that he attributes as the leading factor for his success. All of which led him to create mensfitclub.com to share his large breadth of knowledge with the everyday man, and empower them to make the changes that will help lead to their success. He believes a life in balance of mind, body and soul is a life well lived and only when achieved can one unlock their true potential. At age 60, Grant serves as a living example of why staying healthy not only helps you live longer, but the improved quality of life, will allow you to push past boundaries and reach new heights you never knew were possible. With his inspirational personal journey of achievement he has motivated over 350,000+ subscribers to make a positive change in their life and guide them on their pursuit of happiness.