Losing weight is just the first step towards a healthy lifestyle. After you’ve reached your weight goal (or if you’re simply already there), the next step is making sure you don’t get out of shape.
This task isn’t as difficult as losing weight to begin with, since it doesn’t need us to go any extra length and kick our body’s fat burning abilities into high gear. We just have to make sure we maintain a level of balance that stops us from putting on pounds.
Remember – staying in shape is easier than going on a full on diet. With that said, here are 6 easy tips to stop you from putting on weight:
#1. Make sure your meals include a healthy dose of fibers
Fibers act as a kind of natural laxative which forms a barrier in the intestine that hinders the passage of fat and glucose.
#2. Eat fat-burning foods
Certain ingredients we can add to our daily meals provide helpful substances that increase our resistance during workouts and influence the fat burning process.
You can learn more about what those ingredients are here (link). For instance, the substance called norepinephrine raises our body’s internal heat levels, making us sweat more and, as a result, burn more calories – especially during workouts.
#3. Manage your meal size (or calories per meal)
What we eat handles 70% of our weight loss and weight management efforts. That’s right. Working out can be a good way to burn a few extra calories and keep our bodies active, but the way we eat still bears far greater influence over the success of our weight management goals.
A general rule you can follow is this:
If you’re going to eat more than you should in a day, you can include a small workout session to make up the difference. If you don’t plan (or have time) for an exercise routine, make sure your daily calorie intake matches (or at least closely resembles) your recommended count.
#4. Work out
Ever heard of the 7 minute workout challenge? We don’t need to go too far, or even subscribe to any gym, but making sure that some form of workout is present in our weekly (if not daily) routine can be good for our health in a variety of important ways.
Working out may not be as effective for weight loss as eating less, but it helps us burn calories, and more importantly, it speeds up our metabolism and helps with our immune system.
#5. Swap juice with fruits
Natural juices are indeed good for our health and even better if they don’t contain any sugar. Even so, if you’re drinking juice for wellness reasons, keep in mind that eating raw fruit is still better.
For starters, juices tend to use up more fruit than you would have if you ate them raw. This increases their overall calorie count without providing us any added benefits.
#6. Stay away from restrictive diets
Diets that ask us to completely cut out certain food types, such as those that contain fats or carbohydrates, may lead to rapid weight loss, but also take away substances that our bodies need to function properly.
If carried out for too long, our bodies will try to adapt and compensate for the lack of certain nutrients by overstimulating other organs like our liver and kidneys.
Not only that, but as soon as we do end our restrictive diet programs and go back to eating normally, our bodies will once again adapt to the change and use it as an “opportunity” to gain back the lost weight.
