If you’re trying to drop a few pounds, don’t start off by trying to
overhaul all your eating and exercise habits. You’re better off finding
several simple things you can do on a daily basis — along with following
the cardinal rules of eating more vegetables and less fat and getting
more physical activity. Together, they should send the scale numbers in
the right direction: down.
Here are 10 easy ideas to lose weight that works for me and they are adapted from the Readers Digest.
1. Treat high-calorie foods as jewels in the crown.
Make a spoonful of ice cream the jewel and a bowl of fruit the crown.
Cut down on the chips by pairing each bite with lots of chunky, filling
fresh salsa, suggests Jeff Novick, director of nutrition at the Pritikin
Longevity Center & Spa in Florida. Balance a little cheese with a
lot of salad.
2. After breakfast, make water your primary drink. At breakfast, go ahead and drink orange juice. But throughout the rest of the day, focus on water instead of juice or soda.
The average American consumes an extra 245 calories a day from soft
drinks. That’s nearly 90,000 calories a year — or 25 pounds! And
research shows that despite the calories, sugary drinks don’t trigger a
sense of fullness the way that food does.
3. Eat five or six small meals or snacks a day instead of three large meals.
A 1999 South African study found that when men ate parts of their
morning meal at intervals over five hours, they consumed almost 30
percent fewer calories at lunch than when they ate a single breakfast.
Other studies show that even if you eat the same number of calories
distributed this way, your body releases less insulin, which keeps blood
sugar steady and helps control hunger.
4. Walk for 45 minutes a day. The reason we’re
suggesting 45 minutes instead of the typical 30 is that a Duke
University study found that while 30 minutes of daily walking is enough
to prevent weight gain in most relatively sedentary people, exercise beyond
30 minutes results in weight and fat loss. Burning an additional 300
calories a day with three miles of brisk walking (45 minutes should do
it) could help you lose 30 pounds in a year without even changing how
much you’re eating.
5. Bring the color blue into your life more often.
There’s a good reason you won’t see many fast-food restaurants decorated
in blue: Believe it or not, the color blue functions as an appetite
suppressant. So serve up dinner on blue plates, dress in blue while you
eat, and cover your table with a blue tablecloth. Conversely, avoid red,
yellow, and orange in your dining areas. Studies find they encourage
eating.
6. Clean your closet of the “fat” clothes. Once
you’ve reached your target weight, throw out or give away every piece of
clothing that doesn’t fit. The idea of having to buy a whole new
wardrobe if you gain the weight back will serve as a strong incentive to
maintain your new figure.
7. Downsize your dinner plates. Studies find that
the less food put in front of you, the less food you’ll eat. Conversely,
the more food in front of you, the more you’ll eat — regardless of how
hungry you are. So instead of using regular dinner plates that range
these days from 10-14 inches (making them look forlornly empty if
they’re not heaped with food), serve your main course on salad plates
(about 7-9 inches wide). The same goes for liquids. Instead of 16-ounce
glasses and oversized coffee mugs, return to the old days of 8-ounce
glasses and 6-ounce coffee cups.
8. Clean your closet of the “fat” clothes. Once
you’ve reached your target weight, throw out or give away every piece of
clothing that doesn’t fit. The idea of having to buy a whole new
wardrobe if you gain the weight back will serve as a strong incentive to
maintain your new figure.
9. Avoid white foods. There is some scientific
legitimacy to today’s lower-carb diets: Large amounts of simple
carbohydrates from white flour and added sugar can wreak havoc on your
blood sugar and lead to weight gain. But you shouldn’t toss out the baby
with the bathwater. While avoiding sugar, white rice, and white flour,
you should eat plenty of whole grain breads
and brown rice. One Harvard study of 74,000 women found that those who
ate more than two daily servings of whole grains were 49 percent less
likely to be overweight than those who ate the white stuff.
10. Put out a vegetable platter. A body of research out
of Pennsylvania State University finds that eating water-rich foods
such as zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers during meals reduces your
overall calorie consumption. Other water-rich foods include soups and
salads. You won’t get the same benefits by just drinking your water,
though. Because the body processes hunger and thirst through different
mechanisms, it simply doesn’t register a sense of fullness with water
(or soda, tea, coffee, or juice).
