If you are like most Americans, you want to lose weight. The Calorie Control Council reported that in 2010, about 54% of all American adults were on a diet. This represented a big jump from 2004 when that number was 33%. It was the most people recorded as being on some sort of diet since 1986. Most people who diet, try at least four times a year to lose weight. Weight loss center experts list the following as being great tips for improving weight loss.
Expert Tips for Losing Weight
- Keep track of your beverages. People have a tendency to discount the calories they get from what they drink. One problem with this is that many of us do not know how many calories are in our favorite drinks. We may know that eating a Big Mac is bad for us but the same people will slam a grande mocha without batting an eye. High calorie beverages have another disadvantage, they do not fill us up or leave us as satisfied as their food counterparts. The same can be said of sodas. The remedy is simple: Avoid high calorie drinks. Make sure you put juices on that list, they are high in sugars that we should avoid.
- Cut back on salt. More salt means we retain more water and that means we weigh more. Weight loss center experts recommend cutting back on the amount of salt we consume. Keep an eye on labels to avoid hidden salt. This is also a big problem with frozen and canned foods. They are often loaded with salt.
- Add spice to your life. Hot and spicy foods do a few good things that can help with weight loss. They jump start our metabolism and they make us feel full a lot sooner. Capsaicin makes our bodies release more hormones like adrenaline that get our heart rate up and increase our resting metabolism.
- Do not skip sleep. Sleep deprivation lowers your metabolism. People who sleep more, especially if they can get eight or more hours of sleep a night, burn more calories than those who do not.
- Do not skip meals. This may be a good way to lose weight in the short term but you will gain more in the long run. Some people pick doctor supervised weight loss programs so that they cannot give into the impulse to starve themselves. What happens when you skip meals is you make your body think it is starving and it then wants to keep hold of every calorie it can. This means your metabolism falls through the floor and when you start eating again, you gain weight. Staff at any weight loss center will tell you fasting is bad for real weight loss.
- Lift weights. This is another way to increase your metabolism. When you build muscle mass, you increase your metabolism and end up burning more calories even when you are resting. Muscle takes more energy than other tissue so having more of it is good for weight loss. To lose a pound, you have to burn about 3,500 calories more than you take in. Some estimate you need to have a caloric deficit of about 500 calories a day to start to lose weight.
- Move more. Most people do not move enough. Getting 20 minutes of moderate or high intensity exercise every day will help you drop the pounds. You do not have to join a gym to move more. Take the stairs rather than the elevator. Try to walk more. Work in your garden. This 20 minutes of exercise can burn up to 700 calories.
- Hydrate! A well hydrated body will burn calories more than one that is not. This means you should get that recommended eight glasses a day. Experts from weight loss centers agree drinking more water can help with weight loss.
- Ignore the fads. There are a lot of people out there selling various weight loss plans and programs that are nothing but hype. The only thing they can help lose weight is your wallet.
There are new weight loss plans and diet fads all the time. The bottom line is that you need to burn more calories than you take in. That is the key to real weight loss.
