Drink plenty of water. Water is not only way to flush out toxins. If you have more water in your body you are going to generally feel more healthy and more fit. It also helps you feel full, therefore you you do not have the need to eat so much. And water has no calories at all.
Begin your day with a glass of water. It’s a wonderful way to begin you day. A glass of water lubricates your insides. You can still have your morning cup of tea, but have it after a glass of water.
Drink a glass of water before you eat each meal. Water takes up space in your stomach, so you feel fuller without eating as much.
Have another glass of water while you are having your meal. Once again this is another way of making yourself full. Rather than drinking it all at once, take a sip after each bite of food. It will help the food settle and you'll feel full faster.
Avoid sweetened bottle drinks, especially sodas. They are full of sugar and calories.
Include foods that contain more water, like tomatoes and watermelons. They contain 90 - 95 % water, so feast on them as much as you like. They fill you up without having adding pounds.
Eat fresh fruit instead of drinking fruit juice. Juice is often sweetened with sugar, but fresh fruit has natural sugars. When you eat fruit, you are taking in a lot of fiber, which the body needs, and fruit is an excellent source of vitamins.
If you have a craving for fruit juice, try making your own. There are lots of juicing machines on the market.
Select fresh fruit instead of processed fruit. Processed and canned fruit don't have as much fiber as fresh fruit and processed and canned fruit is nearly always sweetened with sugar.
Increase your fiber intake. Your body needs a lot of fiber, so try to include it in your diet. Eat as many fruits and vegetables as you can.
Eat lots of vegetables. Leafy green vegetables are the best. Include a salad in you meal plan everyday.
Eat intelligently. Choose your foods wisely. Instead of grabbing chips or candy bars, grab a fruit or vegetable.
Watch what you eat. Sometimes the garnishes can be richer than the food itself. Accompaniments can be very rich too.
Control your sweet tooth. Sweets generally mean calories. You don't have to cut sweets out of your diet completely, but eat them in moderation. Every sweet you put in your mouth adds fat cells to your body.
Develop a meal schedule and stick to it. Try to have food at fixed times of the day. You can stretch these times by half an hour, but anything more is going to affect your eating pattern.
Eat only when you are hungry. Some of us have a tendency to eat whenever we see food.
Quit snacking between meals. The main problem with most snacks and junk food is, they are usually less filling and contain a lot of fat and calories.
Snack on vegetables if you have to snack.
Go easy on tea and coffee. Tea and coffee are harmless by themselves, but when you add cream and sugar they become fattening. Having a cup of tea or coffee with cream and sugar is as bad as having a piece of chocolate cake.
Drink black tea/coffee. Black tea or coffee can actually be good for you. But personally I would like to recommend tea rather than coffee. The caffeine in the coffee is not really good for you because it is an alkaloid and can affect other functions of your body like the metabolism.
Count the calories as you eat. Check the label of any packaged product for the number of calories and the serving size. For unpackaged food, buy a calorie counting book.
If you consume more calories than you should one day, add a bit of extra physical activity to your routine for the following day.
Stay away from fried foods. The oil used for frying penetrates into the food and adds unwanted calories.
Do not skip meals. The worst thing you can do while watching your weight is skip a meal. It has just the opposite effect of what you want. You need to have at least three regular meals every day.
Fresh vegetables are better than cooked or canned vegetables. Try to eat your vegetables raw. When you cook them, you are removing nearly half the vitamins.
One egg a day. It's best if you reduce your egg intake to three a week. If you're in the habit of eating eggs everyday, limit your eggs to one a day maximum.
Make chocolates a luxury and not a routine.
Choose a variety of foods from all food groups every day. In addition to helping you lose weight, it also helps your body fight deficiency diseases. Change the foods you eat each day so you do not get bored of your diet.
Very limited or no alcoholic beverages.
Try to have breakfast within one hour of waking up, so your body can charge itself with the energy it needs for the day. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but it does not mean that it should be the most filling meal of the day.
50% - 55% of your diet should be carbohydrates. It is a myth that you should try and avoid carbohydrates when you are on a diet. Carbohydrates are an instant source of energy.
25% - 30% of your diet should be proteins. Protein is an active part of keeping your body healthy.
Fats should only be 15% - 20 % of your diet
Try and adopt a vegetarian style diet. A vegetarian diet is healthy, but research has shown it often is missing vital minerals that come from eating meat. If you try a vegetarian diet, allow yourself to eat meat on the weekends.
Choose white meat rather than red. White meat, which includes fish and fowl, is healthier than red meat.
High Fiber multigrain breads are better than white breads. Multigrain breads allow you to increase your fiber and protein intake.
Reduce your intake of pork. Pork is not something that can help you to lose weight. So the lesser pork you eat the better chances you have of losing weight. And remember that pork includes the pork products as well, things like bacon, ham and sausages.
Limit your sugar intake. Use sugar substitutes to sweeten your food. They are just as sweetening, but not fattening.
Eat 5 to 6 times a day. Instead of sticking to just three meals a day, try grazing. Grazing means having 5 or 6 smaller meals instead of three large meals. It is an excellent way of having smaller quantities of food.
Eat cheat food occasionally, but only for flavor. There are many foods you need to avoid in your diet, but you may have an undying craving for them. Do not avoid them altogether. Indulge in them once in a while, but only in moderation. Don't use them to fill up, but simply to fill a craving. Enjoy the flavor.
Watch your fat intake. Each fat gram contains 9 calories. By knowing the total calories and the quantity of fat in your food, you can estimate the percentage of fat. Fat content should not exceed 30%.
Go easy on salt. Too much salt is one of the causes of being overweight
Change from butter to cholesterol free butter. It tastes the same, but is much healthier for you.
Instead of frying food, try baking it. Baking is a healthier method of preparing food because it doesn't require excessive amounts of fat or oil.
Use a non stick frying pan for your cooking so you do not have to add oil.
Steam your vegetables instead of cooking them. The best option is eating your vegetables fresh, however, if you do not like eating fresh vegetables, try steaming them without adding any additional salt or seasoning. This is the healthiest way to eat cabbages, cauliflowers and a host of other vegetables.
Develop a habit of chewing all your food including liquid food and soft foods like sweets, and ice cream, at least 8 to 12 times. This is essential to add saliva to the food, as it starts the digestion process.
Dry wine is better than sweet wine. Sweet wines naturally contain a lot of sugar, but in dry wines, most of the sugar has been fermented away.
When you decide it’s time to start working out, start slowly and don’t get discouraged if you don’t achieve your fitness goals after the first week. If you try to push your body too much in the first few weeks, you are likely to end up with injuries.
Take a day off from exercise every week. Your body needs a day or two each week to relax and rejuvenate itself.
Exercise outdoors as much as possible. It gives your body a chance to get fresh air and sunshine. It also keeps you perked up and it's a break from being inside all day.
Exercise at home. You don't need to join a gym to exercise. You don't even need to buy exercise equipment. Visit the library or look online for exercises you can do without equipment. If you do want to get some equipment, a Wii Fit is a great investment and it makes exercising a lot of fun.
Stop when your body has had enough. There is no need to push it. When you have worked out for a considerable time, your body will start giving you signals.
Listen to your body, especially in the initial stages. Take one step at a time. Stop when you are out of breath or when a certain part of your body tells you that it has had enough.
Don’t stand, walk. If you can walk about then do so. Do not stand in a fixed position. Pacing about is a good thing to do. If you are thinking deeply about something, try pacing, it will aid in your thinking too.
Don’t sit, stand. If you can stand, then do not sit. The golden rule is to choose a position that is less comfortable.
Don’t lie down, sit. The rule that we mentioned above rings true here as well.
Replace the comfortable couch and chairs in front of the TV. If you have less comfortable furniture in front of the TV, you are less likely to sit in front of it.
If you have a sitting job, stand up and stretch every half hour. Most jobs today are sitting jobs that are sedentary. By stretching every half hour you help your body stay awake and your metabolism running, which helps burn fat.
Smoking is bad for weight loss. Smoking may not contribute to weight loss but smoking leads to other conditions like erratic eating habits and excessive dependence on things like coffee.
If you hate running, remember, you do not have to run a marathon to stay fit. 10 minutes of cardio each day is good enough for most people.
If you can’t run, try walking. 15 minutes of brisk walking a day is enough to keep most people fit.
Avoid drinking coffee in excess, as it tends to desensitize your body to the fat burning effects of caffeine.
Tuck in your tummy whenever you walk. Get that proper gait and exercise your muscles at the same time.
Try breathing exercises. Breathing exercises can lead to weight loss. If you are doing the breathing exercises properly, you will find that you can exert a lot of pressure on the muscles around the mid section.
You can feel a tightening of these muscles each time you breathe in or breathe out. So breathe properly, it is good for you.
Try yoga. Yoga is one of the best ways of losing weight. One of the benefits of yoga is, you learn to control virtually every muscle and joint of your body so the issue of weight gain will cease to exist.
Try massaging your partner. This is a fun way to lose weight. It is something that can give your partner a lot of pleasure and at the same time can help you exercise.
If there is a pool nearby, go for a swim as often as you can. Swimming is one of the best exercises to move your whole body.
Any work out should start with a 5 to 10 minute warm up and should end with a 5 to 10 minute cool down session. Your body needs to reach a certain level of readiness before it can actually start responding to exercise.
While traveling in an elevator, raise up on your toes and then back onto your feet again. Do this several times. Also try flexing your buttock muscles.
Breathe in as strongly as you can and tuck in your tummy as much as you can. Hold it for a few seconds and slowly release your breath, taking care not to let out your tummy. Try to keep breathing like this at least fifty or sixty times a day.