Six Weight Loss Tricks
The most basic approach to weight loss is to burn more calories than you take in, but sometimes no matter what you do it just doesn’t seem to be working. When you need an ace up your sleeve for a critical moment, try one of these tricks to jump-start your weight loss.
Add weights to your routine.
Adding weight-lifting to your routine is one of the fastest ways to see results. Your body will respond almost immediately, shaping and toning muscle, and remember, the more muscle you have, the more fats you burn! To determine the weight you should start with, grab a 5-lb. dumbbell and do as many bicep curls as possible. If you can do more than ten reps comfortably, use a higher weight. On the other hand, if you can’t do more than eight repetitions without strain, try using a 3-lb. weight instead. For those of you already training with weights, go up to the next highest weight to see results. If you don’t have weights at your home, it is highly recommended that you invest in a set that ranges from three to ten pounds. These usually cost less than $30 and are well worth the investment.
Increase the intensity.
During your cardio workout routine, assess the intensity level to determine how hard you’re working. If you can carry on a conversation with ease while exercising, it’s time to boost the intensity. You can do that by taking deeper strides as you move and placing a greater demand on the muscles of the thighs and buttocks, which in turns burns more calories. The best way to gauge the intensity of a workout is to pretend to carry on a conversation. You should be able to speak in short sentences with a breath after each one. Never exercise to the point where you cannot talk.
Shake up your routine.
Despite being called a routine, your exercise program should keep you interested. Add different activities for variety and you not only maintain your concentration but also constantly challenge your body to meet new obstacles and developing more than just a few muscles. More muscles equal a greater calorie burn – what’s not to love? Try new activities that keep your mind engaged and experience an extra boost for your brain!
Give your diet a makeover.
The daily diet is most frequently the worst problem area when you’re trying to lose weight. Between home and work and the responsibilities that come with each, it can be almost impossible to find healthy choices at the last minute. Spare yourself the daily scrounging and stock up on healthy foods that can be ready at a moment’s notice. Make a point to stash some of your good-for-you snacks at work so that when the mid-afternoon cravings hit, you have something satisfying and diet-friendly.
Challenge yourself.
Set personal goals for yourself and don’t forget to reward your accomplishment! If your goal is to be more active at work, buy a pedometer and challenge yourself to take 6,000 steps during your workday. Be creative about it: walk to a colleague’s desk rather than email, take the stairs instead of the elevator, and go to the bathroom three floors down instead of the one on your floor. Challenging yourself can be very fulfilling on a personal level when you achieve your goals, and can encourage you on to greater achievement.
Keep a food journal.
One of the most common characteristics of successful dieters is keeping a daily journal of food intake. There’s no real mystery about this: when you must write down everything that goes in your mouth, it forces you to realize exactly how many calories you consume. Keeping a journal is also beneficial because you can pick up patterns in your eating – for instance, if you become ravenous at a certain time everyday or if your meals and snacks are too far apart. It can also be helpful to note your frame of mind when you eat or mention the circumstances. Binging as soon as you get home from work could indicate a stressful job or it could mean it’s just been too long since lunch. A basic food journal requires you to enter the food you ate, number of calories, amount of fat, and how much you consumed. This can be expanded as much as necessary to meet individual needs. Just make sure you review it every few days to spot any habits that need to be brought under control.
Helpful resources:
Take the weight off no matter how hopeless it appears. Take the Weight Off
The negative calorie weight loss solution. You Can do It
Take control of your weight problem with a good workout program. Take Control
One of the Best weight Loss Secrets. The Amazing Trigger Effect
Another Great Weight Loss Secret. Hoodia, Does It Really Work?
Cellulite, How Can I Get Rid of It? Dissolve the Cellulite
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Take the weight off no matter how hopeless it appears.
Take the Weight Off
The negative calorie weight loss solution.
You Can do It
Take control of your weight problem with a good workout program.
Take Control
One of the Best weight Loss Secrets.
The Amazing Trigger Effect
Take the Weight Off
The negative calorie weight loss solution.
You Can do It
Take control of your weight problem with a good workout program.
Take Control
One of the Best weight Loss Secrets.
The Amazing Trigger Effect
The first step in losing fat and weight loss is to stop eating the wrong foods.
Stop the Dieting Madness
The information you need to know about low calorie diets.
Low Carb Diets vs Low Calorie Diets
How to Finally Get the Weight Off.
Secrets of Losing Weight
Stop the Dieting Madness
The information you need to know about low calorie diets.
Low Carb Diets vs Low Calorie Diets
How to Finally Get the Weight Off.
Secrets of Losing Weight
Why You Aren't Losing Weight
Oh, So Frustrating...
Losing weight can be a frustrating business, especially when you’re going it alone. Stepping on the scale and seeing that same hated number appear again and again is almost enough to drive a person batty. Maybe you’ve been doing all the right things: exercising regularly, watching your diet, maybe you’re even using some weights every once in a while, but it just isn’t enough. The change that you want to see is too slow in coming. Before you give up and give in, here are a few ideas about why you may not be losing weight. Quite often there’s a hidden culprit that can be identified if we are willing to take a close look at ourselves.
You’re exercising – just not hard enough.
This may be a hard one to swallow. Surely, you think, if I am moving then that is enough to drop some pounds! That absolutely depends on how intensely you are moving. If walking is your workout but you’re just strolling through the neighborhood, then don’t expect to see any drastic change. In order to actually start burning calories, you must increase your heart rate until it reaches between 75-85 percent of your maximum heart rate. How do you find your maximum heart rate? There are several free calculators available on the Internet for public use, but the general formula is to subtract your age from 220 to find your absolute maximum heart rate. For a thirty-two-year old, the maximum heart rate would be 188. Calculate 75-85 percent of that and the answer is that the ideal heart rate range for a 32-year-old is between 141 and 160 beats per minute. Keep your heart rate within your target range and you’ll burn calories.
Food keeps sneaking into your mouth.
Many times the day can get so busy that you don’t have time to go out for lunch, so you have a handful of M&Ms from your colleague’s candy jar. You get home late and have to start dinner for the kids, sampling the pizza rolls as you do so. Finally the day calms down enough for you to spend some peaceful time with yourself, so you decide to have a treat of rich chocolate ice cream. When you finally go to bed, your stomach is growling and you think, ‘I haven’t eaten a thing today!’ Did you actually not eat a thing? No. The trouble is you ate all the wrong things and you weren’t thinking when you did it. Unconscious eating is one of the biggest enemies of weight loss. Too often our lives are so busy that we forget to stop and actually consider what we are about to eat. Being wrapped up in other issues can lead to being wide open to answer the call of temptation with an emphatic yes. Take steps to correct your unconscious eating. Buy a food journal and make a daily commitment to write down everything you eat –everything! Before you put food in your mouth, stop and ask yourself what you are eating and if you really want it. Oftentimes people eat food that they don’t really want simply because it’s available. Promise yourself to monitor every bite of food you take and you increase your odds for success.
You’re secretly very, very thirsty.
When your body is dehydrated, it sends out signals to the brain. Unfortunately, these signals frequently get crossed and the brain ends up telling you that your stomach is empty. Since the signal said that the stomach was empty, you go to get a snack (probably unconsciously) and another calorie-laden, sugar-full goodie slides down your throat. Stop this case of crossed wires by keeping your body adequately hydrated. Drinking water is one of the easiest of all dieting tricks. Simply fill up a plastic bottle and take it with you everywhere you go! Despite the simplicity of this many people skip water. Some say they honestly dislike the taste of water while others dread having to take multiple trips to the bathroom. If you don’t like the way water tastes in your mouth, use one of the new flavored mixes offered by companies like Crystal Light. You simply pour the powder into the water, shake or stir, and drink. The powders come in a variety of flavors including lemonade and peach tea. For the ones who want to stay out of the bathroom, your urine output may increase the first few days that you drink additional water but fortunately your bladder will soon become accustomed to the extra demand and treat it as nothing special. In a week or less you will be back to a normal schedule.
Try one of these three tricks in your schedule this week as an experiment – just see if it makes a difference. Incorporate all three and within two to three weeks you will see and feel a remarkable change in your body.
On this blog I’ve placed some different helpful programs that are designed to help and aid in achieving weight loss goals for everyone...
Another Great Weight Loss Secret. Hoodia, Does It Really Work?
Cellulite, How Can I Get Rid of It? Dissolve the Cellulite
Losing weight can be a frustrating business, especially when you’re going it alone. Stepping on the scale and seeing that same hated number appear again and again is almost enough to drive a person batty. Maybe you’ve been doing all the right things: exercising regularly, watching your diet, maybe you’re even using some weights every once in a while, but it just isn’t enough. The change that you want to see is too slow in coming. Before you give up and give in, here are a few ideas about why you may not be losing weight. Quite often there’s a hidden culprit that can be identified if we are willing to take a close look at ourselves.
You’re exercising – just not hard enough.
This may be a hard one to swallow. Surely, you think, if I am moving then that is enough to drop some pounds! That absolutely depends on how intensely you are moving. If walking is your workout but you’re just strolling through the neighborhood, then don’t expect to see any drastic change. In order to actually start burning calories, you must increase your heart rate until it reaches between 75-85 percent of your maximum heart rate. How do you find your maximum heart rate? There are several free calculators available on the Internet for public use, but the general formula is to subtract your age from 220 to find your absolute maximum heart rate. For a thirty-two-year old, the maximum heart rate would be 188. Calculate 75-85 percent of that and the answer is that the ideal heart rate range for a 32-year-old is between 141 and 160 beats per minute. Keep your heart rate within your target range and you’ll burn calories.
Food keeps sneaking into your mouth.
Many times the day can get so busy that you don’t have time to go out for lunch, so you have a handful of M&Ms from your colleague’s candy jar. You get home late and have to start dinner for the kids, sampling the pizza rolls as you do so. Finally the day calms down enough for you to spend some peaceful time with yourself, so you decide to have a treat of rich chocolate ice cream. When you finally go to bed, your stomach is growling and you think, ‘I haven’t eaten a thing today!’ Did you actually not eat a thing? No. The trouble is you ate all the wrong things and you weren’t thinking when you did it. Unconscious eating is one of the biggest enemies of weight loss. Too often our lives are so busy that we forget to stop and actually consider what we are about to eat. Being wrapped up in other issues can lead to being wide open to answer the call of temptation with an emphatic yes. Take steps to correct your unconscious eating. Buy a food journal and make a daily commitment to write down everything you eat –everything! Before you put food in your mouth, stop and ask yourself what you are eating and if you really want it. Oftentimes people eat food that they don’t really want simply because it’s available. Promise yourself to monitor every bite of food you take and you increase your odds for success.
You’re secretly very, very thirsty.
When your body is dehydrated, it sends out signals to the brain. Unfortunately, these signals frequently get crossed and the brain ends up telling you that your stomach is empty. Since the signal said that the stomach was empty, you go to get a snack (probably unconsciously) and another calorie-laden, sugar-full goodie slides down your throat. Stop this case of crossed wires by keeping your body adequately hydrated. Drinking water is one of the easiest of all dieting tricks. Simply fill up a plastic bottle and take it with you everywhere you go! Despite the simplicity of this many people skip water. Some say they honestly dislike the taste of water while others dread having to take multiple trips to the bathroom. If you don’t like the way water tastes in your mouth, use one of the new flavored mixes offered by companies like Crystal Light. You simply pour the powder into the water, shake or stir, and drink. The powders come in a variety of flavors including lemonade and peach tea. For the ones who want to stay out of the bathroom, your urine output may increase the first few days that you drink additional water but fortunately your bladder will soon become accustomed to the extra demand and treat it as nothing special. In a week or less you will be back to a normal schedule.
Try one of these three tricks in your schedule this week as an experiment – just see if it makes a difference. Incorporate all three and within two to three weeks you will see and feel a remarkable change in your body.
On this blog I’ve placed some different helpful programs that are designed to help and aid in achieving weight loss goals for everyone...
Another Great Weight Loss Secret. Hoodia, Does It Really Work?
Cellulite, How Can I Get Rid of It? Dissolve the Cellulite
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