We are all pretty aware of what it takes to lose weight. From the meticulous calorie counting every single thing that touches your lips, to spending all day cooking healthy meals for the week, to racking up hours sweating at the gym, it’s a grind. These weight-loss strategies are usually guaranteed to work, but remember that they are often time-consuming and a definite lifestyle change. If you aren’t completely ready to make the commitment, for time consumption reasons or otherwise, have no fear – there are more than a handful of ways to shed those pounds just by applying to your current routine. It’s relatively easy and effortless – just the way we like it!
Here are 10 easy and effortless ways to lose weight:
1. Order your drinks unsweetened. Opting for a plain latte or iced tea over the flavored (read: sugary) will save you about 40 calories per 16 ounce serving. Also, forgoing half-and-half creamer in your coffee will save you even more unnecessary calories. It may seem small, but when you add them up by each serving, they add up!
2. Grab Greek yogurt or cottage cheese for breakfast. Aside from being easy and no cooking involved, both are packed with protein, which helps you feeling fuller for longer.
3. Eat sitting down. Mindless eating is the enemy of weight loss, but sitting down and being conscious of what you are putting into your mouth can make your more aware of what – and how much – is going into your body.
4. Ditch the diet soda. Research has found those who drink diet soda have larger waists. A better bet: make water your go-to beverage.
5. Get adequate sleep. Sleeping fewer than than five hours a night could send the scale soaring 30% higher than if you got seven hours or more, suggests a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
6. Go raw. When you’re hungry, grabbing a piece of raw fruit can be particularly satisfying – there’s no cooking involved so it’s effortless and it’s so much better for you. By filling up on raw fruits, you are less likely to want something else. Raw veggies have that same effect as well.
7. Choose either alcohol or dessert – not both. In order to lose weight, you have to cut out calories. By starting out a meal with a glass of wine and end with dessert, that’s already an extra 500 to 1,000 calories. Unless you order a plain salad with balsamic as an entree, you’re at 2,000 calories for a single meal, easy. Pick one or the other: if you like wine, say no to dessert. If you want to splurge on dessert, turn away those liquid calories.
8. Play video games. Turns out that playing video games reduces the vividness and frequency of cravings compared with waiting it out, according to new research in the journal Appetite. Let the Candy Crush addiction commence.
9. Get spicy! By consuming spicy food, you could be tricking your body into eating less.
10. Relax. It’s been tested and proven that a low-stress lifestyle may help keep the belly fat away. Researchers found that eating unhealthy foods frequently predicted metabolic risk, including a larger waistline and more belly fat —but only in the high-stress group. Women in the low-stress group who ate similarly did not experience the same negative metabolic effects.
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