5 Weight Loss Tips

Now that the New Year is upon us it is time to make an extra effort to lose weight and get fit. Here we provide you with 5 simple tips to help you lose weight. These tips are really quite obvious, but sometimes we just need a reminder of how to lose weight and stay in shape.

How to Lose Weight and Trim Fat

1. Burn more energy than you consume.

We actually require much fewer calories every day than most people think. On average, all that is required to lose two pounds per week is to reduce daily calorific intake by 1000kcal. Although a calorie restrictive diet is not always the best solution in the long term, it can be an effective way to lose unwanted fat.

2. Keep a Food and Exercise Journal

Deep down inside most of us know when we are eating the wrong things, and we often live in denial of the truth – we are overweight because we eat too much junk food. By keeping a food diary, it is possible to look objectively at what we are eating everyday. This can really help to motivate you to stick to the diet plan, as often just the act of writing “today I ate a Big Mac” is enough to shake yourself out of your state of denial and start focussing on eating healthily again.

The same rule applies to exercise. If you diary is blank for a week, it is glaringly obvious that you have not been exercising enough!

Why not share your diary online?

3. Don’t have your cake or eat it!

Simple reminder – cakes make us fat. And biscuits and sweet breads too. Cakes are full of refined flour (empty calories), sugar and fat. They may taste great, but they are certainly not good for those looking to lose a few pounds. And as they contain empty calories and sugars, your body will not be nutritionally fulfilled after eating, so will still crave more food, especially after the blood sugar levels drop again.

4. Grill meat rather than fry

This is really the easiest way to quickly cut a lot of fat from your diet without resorting to hiring a personal dietician. Grilling does not require any additional fat to be added when cooking, and also allows fat from the meat to be drained during cooking. Also get into the habit of pouring off as much oil as possible before dishing up, or adding the meats to a stew.

5. The 20 minute rule

It takes approximately 20 minutes for your belly to feel full from the time you start eating. Many people eat their meals quickly, and then feel the need to eat more. Often by just waiting an additional 5 minutes people lose their appetite. Arnold Schwarzenegger follows this rule.

If you follow these simple rules you should start to lose some additional weight. To help with your weight loss plans, read up on our tips to lose belly fat. Learn more about losing weight in our weight loss section.

Exercising is essential to weight loss. We provide many celebrity workouts, home fitness workouts and strength training workouts, all of which will help you to tone up and lose weight. Attaining your ideal weight really is possible if you take a sensible approach to weight loss, using both diet and exercise to help to reduce and improve food intake, as well as train your body and tone up.

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Recommended Reading

• Action Plan to Lose Weight for BMI 28+ Part 2
• The MotleyHealth Weight Loss Plan: Stage 1 – Preparation
• The New Rules for Weight Loss and Losing Belly Fat
• Simple Weight Loss Advice
• How to Lose Belly Fat and Get a Flat Stomach

Tags: Diet, Fitness, home workout, lose weight, Weight Loss

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.