HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT?

First of all, there are a lot of terms that we need to know in order to understand the principles better and to adapt each principle to suit our individual body needs. Bear in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all method when it comes to weight loss since every one of us is unique. Also, the method that worked for you initially may not work all the way due to the dynamic nature of the interaction between our body and the loss of weight. Therefore, in order for you to achieve the ultimate results you desire, do take some time to click on the respective terms that will link you to the detailed explanations for your deeper understanding.

Weight Loss Principles:

To begin, keep the title of this blog in mind, Your Lifestyle Your weight, as the key to weight-loss, is really about changing your lifestyle.

1. INPUT less than OUTPUT

In order to lose weight, we have to ensure that we don't eat more than we need! Sounds quite obvious right? You may, most of the time, think that you did not eat a lot, but in actual fact, you have always been consuming more than you need for the day, thus resulting in the increase in weight. Do calculate how much calories you need and see for yourself how much extra you have been eating in a day!

2. EAT LOW FAT AND LOW CARBOHYDRATE FOOD

We all know that there are food that are more sinful than some others, but what are these kind of food? To keep it simple for your identification purposes, anything that’s sweet, is sinful, so are fat-laden stuff. But bear in mind that we can’t avoid them altogether since they are important to our daily functions like thinking and keeping warm. To give a comparison, between a Kickapo and Aloe Vera drink with pulp, Kickapo has 166kcal of calories whereas Aloe Vera drink with pulp has only 104kcal. Without referring to the nutrition facts label, the way to tell which one has less calories will be to decide which is sweeter. Of course, this test won’t work for those that uses artificial sweetener, but otherwise, it'll work alright :).

3. INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM

Metabolism is the the rate in which your body converts food into energy, for storage or for usage. Naturally, the faster your body converts food into energy, the lesser there is to be converted into stored fats! The detailed methods are written in another post. To summarise, the methods are tone up muscles, increase the number ofmitochondria, sleep more, eat less but more often, eat right, eat fish, allow your body’s natural cooling and heating system to work, and lastly, do interval training.

Other FUN methods:

Slimming down really doesn’t have to bring you agony, all you need is to know some tricks to achieving that figure you've always dreamt of.

1. Drink lots of water before going into that food court – so that you won’t feel like you want to eat everything in the stalls!

2. Eat fruits before meals – this is the latest research that, by eating fruits before meals, you actually prepare your stomach for the food that’s coming in, thus better absorbing the minerals. Also, the fiber and carbohydrate makes you fuller faster thus preventing you from eating too much.

3. Always say “less” – when ordering, make it a point to say “less rice”, “less gravy”, “less oil”, or even better, say “no oil”!

Remember, slimming down is not rocket-science and it doesn’t have to bring you “pain”, enjoy the process of making yourself nimble and fit again. Cheers!

Why is it so easy to gain back the weight I've lost?

There are many reasons why weight lost are so easily gained back, but we can safely generalise them under one principle, which is the loss of METABOLISM. Allow me to illustrate that by listing the reasons one by one:

1. When you lose weight, your body naturally doesn't metabolise as fast since you don't need so much energy anymore for basic movements, so, your metabolism slows down, resulting in an increased demand to reduce your calories intake or to increase your metabolism.

2. People who engage in dieting (cutting down on more calories than recommended) tend to fall into the natural body process known as 'starvation response', where the body starts conserving energy in order to allow the body to last long enough without food intake in the next few hours/days. This is done by decreasing metabolism.

3. People who engage in dieting (cutting down on more calories than recommended) without appropriate amount of exercise will find themselves losing their muscles, which are the key component in our body which drives metabolism. Thus, a loss of muscles will result in a decrease of metabolism.

Once the metabolism drops drastically, all the initial loss of weight will be regained with every extra calorie consumed. Therefore, it is important that we know how to lose weight correctly, if not, all the loss will be regained eventually, wasting all your initial efforts.