20 Smart Tips For Maintaining Healthy Weight Naturally

Have you gained excess weight and wish to get in shape? Are you looking for natural yet effective ways to shed those excess kilos? If you answered positively, certain lifestyle modifications can help you beat obesity successfully and smoothly without any concerns. Read on to learn all about it.

Obesity and overweight are a growing concern of several individuals worldwide. Obesity can be described as weight above what is considered healthy for a particular person. The easiest way to determine whether a person is overweight or obese is through measuring their body mass index (BMI).

Obesity results due to many factors. A person’s weight is decided by considering the totality of several factors that include genes, metabolism, behavior, culture, and surroundings. Genes and metabolism may help explain approximately 25% to 40% of obesity cases. However, a person’s surroundings also overpower the minor effects of biology or genetic predisposition. While genes may increase one’s risk for weight issues, they do no longer are solely responsible for obesity. Genes definitely can’t explain the rapidly increasing occurrence of obesity across the world.

For many people, weight issues result due to eating an excessive quantity of foods and a lack of physical activity. The overwhelming factors accountable for obesity are environmental. Modern culture society encourages bad diets and poor exercise. Fast-meals restaurants encourage customers to purchase “super-size” options and “value” meals. Many of them focus on children by featuring famous movie stars and caricature characters for their advertising. Further, people consume outside meals more regularly than before, and many restaurants provide offers, to beat the competition, to which people fall prey.

Television contributes to weight problems through advertisements urging people to shop for meals of a low dietary value. Many people happen to snack even while watching television. Less than 33% of adults record that they do at least 30 minutes of brisk walking or other mild activity on maximum days of the week, and almost half do no leisure-time physical activity at all. Almost 50% of students watch television for more than hours daily. This absence of physical activity is adding to an increased number of obesity cases and other well-being-related issues.

Treatment for Obesity:

Weight loss in overweight individuals improves fitness. 10 to 20 pounds of weight loss had been proven to bring down the blood pressure, blood cholesterol, and blood glucose (in people with type 2 diabetes), and to enhance recovery from other health problems. An overweight man or woman now need not lose 50 or 100 kilos to realize health benefits, however, even modest weight losses can prompt significant medical advantages.

20 Weight Management Strategies:

The following are techniques to assist you with moving toward healthy life with an increasingly positive and profitable outlook:

1) Eat Nutritious Balanced Diet:

A healthy diet includes eating lots of fresh seasonal fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, lean proteins, no fats, no alcohol, and no sugars. Practice the healthy plate method, fill half of your plate with salads, 1/4 of the plate with protein-abundant foods (dal, paneer), and the rest of food with carbohydrate foods (roti, rice). Eat the salads first then cooked food.  Foods that will help in weight loss are oats, quinoa, apples, avocados, cayenne peppers, whole eggs, lemons, green leafy vegetables, and almonds. Other metabolism-boosting foods include asparagus, beans, berries, cabbage, cucumber, garlic, oranges, tomatoes, yogurt, and green tea. You can add more fibrous foods to the diet and color your plate and eat more colorful fruits and vegetables.

 

2) Exercise:

Walk for 45 minutes daily. Other good options to burn the extra calories are exercises, such as swimming, jogging, cycling, and yoga.

Maintain the regularity, if not possible daily at least start with alternate day. Walking daily at a steady pace will prove to be quite effective. Doing crunches is the best way to burn belly fat; lunge twists are great for beginners. It is advisable to perform all exercises on an empty stomach for good results. Make exercise interesting, find fun and interesting exercise.

 

3) Following Healthy Sleeping Habits:

The sleep of around 6 to 8 hours in adults enables us to preserve energy and stay away from extra weight gain. Sleeping a further hour at night time could help you drop you’re a few pounds.  The poor sleep spurs junk food cravings. If you are not getting enough sleep, it increases your hunger hormone ghrelin and causes low leptin levels; so much so that even after eating a nutritious meal you may feel unsatisfied. So, if one gets enough sleep, it helps reduce ghrelin, which regulates the regular urge for food and will increase the leptin level due to which one feels satisfied after eating. To improve your sleep at night, block the blue light, preserve your bedroom cool, stick to a strict sleep schedule, reduce the caffeine, avoid alcohol, and limit exercise to 4 hours before going to bed.

 

4) De-stress Yourself and Lose Weight:

 

At present, due to an annoying lifestyle, one happens to consume food emotionally rather than actual physical hunger. Most often, because of emotional pressure, one eats sugary and salty meals which increase the calories.  So, learn to manage your stress, and de-stress yourself by resorting to relaxation techniques, such as meditation. Meditation enables you to govern emotions and help keep emotional triggers at bay. Thus, it helps you prevent eating unnecessarily. One needs to practice mindful eating. Take out time and interact with yourself by pursuing a long-forgotten hobby.

5) Self-Monitor and Track Progress:

Spend some time monitoring your health and lifestyle habits which include focusing on health behavior and recording daily actions such as:

  • Keeping a detailed meals journal
  • Weighing oneself weekly
  • Recording one’s exercise
  • Reviewing the journal regularly
  • Analyzing the behavior and making adjustments if needed

 

While monitoring your records regularly, if by any chance you miss it a couple of days, restart once again.

 

6) Stimulus control: Remove high-calorie foods from the refrigerator and avoid going to fast food centers.

 

7) Make one change at a time, the multiple changes at a time might be hard-to-follow.

8) Surround yourself with supportive people.

9) Set realistic goals.

10) Keep yourself hydrated, and drink a glass of water half an hour before your meal.

11) Celebrate small wins.

12)  Give up comparisons, set your percent.

13) Pacing around the room burns 200+ calories a day.

14) Skip mocha lattes, espresso drinks can boost 700 calories.

15) Beware of salad extras and toppings consisting of cheese.

16) Don’t eat in front of the TV as you could devour greater than your need.

17) Use skimmed milk.

18) Avoid the consumption of extra salt.

19) Cut out soda.

20) Eating habits: Eat 5 small meals daily, never skip breakfast, eat slowly, and know your servings’ size

 

Risky Weight-Loss Strategies to Avoid:

Besides the above strategies for weight management, one needs to be aware of risky weight-loss strategies such as:

1) Fasting: Abstaining from eating is not advisable because it deprives your body of nutrients and energy. Your body may become dehydrated and may even begin to break down proteins in muscles for energy.

2) Having diet pills: Many people opt for diet pills that depress appetite, but it’s risky to take such pills as they may cause problems, such as drowsiness, anxiety, and racing heart. Also, it may be addictive and may cause dehydration.

Take charge of your fitness, follow the above weight management tips, and when next time someone gives free meals, don’t count yourself in.

Now that you know these simple yet effective techniques to lose weight, you can keep overweight and obesity at bay easily. So, follow healthy dietary and lifestyle modifications, avoid risky weight-loss strategies, improve your sleep, and increase your physical activity to get in shape healthily.

 

  • Written by Dr. Mithila K, Associate doctor to Dr. Rajesh Shah, MD (Hom)

 

 

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