10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (We Tried Them!)

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Tried-and-true tips)

Sick of chasing fad diets? Time to hop off the bandwagon and get some down-to-earth advice from people who have been there, done that.

Sure, we spend our days sifting through the latest research and asking super-toned celebrities about their workout secrets. At the end of the day, though, peeling off the pounds is just as challenging for us as it is for anyone else.

These 10 diet tricks aren't always easy to stick to, but they've worked for us.

 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Put away the food scale)

"Portion control isn't about measuring; it's about ordering two appetizers instead of an entrée and cutting back on bread if you have pasta."

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Stash fruit)

"Keep fruit at work. It helps during the I-need-chocolate part of the afternoon."
 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Shake chocolate)

"When I'm trying to drop a few pounds, I carry around a shaker cup of chocolate protein powder. If I'm ravenous, I add the water, and it fills me up so I don't eat something high-calorie instead."

 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Set limits, then go nuts!)

 

"In the cafeteria I use a 4-by-4-inch Styrofoam box, and I put whatever I want in there. It's almost impossible to overeat."

 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Floss for dessert)

"Brushing my teeth after dinner makes me less likely to eat again before I go to bed."

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Take a 'before' photo)

"Before I got in shape, a friend convinced me to take photos of myself wearing nothing but a sports bra and underwear. Anytime I fall off the wagon I look at those pics—that's all the motivation I need!"

 

 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Avoid liquid calories)

"Cut out drinks with calories—juice, lemonade, and, hardest of all, after-work wine."

 

 

 

 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Break out the skinny jeans)

"Wear something tight! It provides the extra bit of motivation to lay off the fries."

 

 

 

 

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Pitcher this)

"Fill a pitcher with water and cucumbers. It's pretty—and it feels like a treat."

10 Fast Weight Loss Tips (Set aside leftovers)

 "Serve yourself, then immediately pack the leftovers in a Tupperware container and store in the fridge."

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Eat When Hungry

Don’t be hungry. The most common mistake when starting a low carb diet: Reducing carb intake while still being afraid of fat. The problem is that carbs and fat are the body’s two main energy sources. It needs at least one.

Low carb AND low fat = starvation
Avoiding both carbs and fat results in hunger, cravings and fatigue. Sooner or later people can’t stand it and give up. The solution is to eat more natural fat until you feel satisfied. For example:

• Butter
• Full-fat cream
• Olive oil
• Meat (including the fat)
• Fatty fish
• Bacon
• Eggs
• Coconut oil, etc.

Always eat enough, so that you feel satisfied, especially in the beginning of the weight-loss process. Doing this on a low carb diet means that the fat you eat will be burned as fuel by your body, as your levels of the fat storing hormone insulin will be lowered. You’ll become a fat burning machine. You’ll lose excess weight without hunger.
Do you still fear saturated fat? Don’t. The fear of saturated fat is based on obsolete theories that have been proven incorrect by modern science. Butter is fine food. However, feel free to eat mostly unsaturated fat (e.g. olive oil, avocado, fatty fish) if you prefer. This could be called a Mediterranean low carb diet and works great too.
Eating when hungry also implies something else: If you’re not hungry you probably don’t need to eat yet. When on a LCHF diet you can trust your feelings of hunger and satiety again. Feel free to eat the number of times per day that works best for you.
Some people eat three times a day and occasionally snack in between (note that frequent snacking could mean that you’d benefit from adding fat to your meals, to increase satiety). Some people only eat once or twice a day and never snack. Whatever works for you. Just eat when you’re hungry.

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Choose a Low Carb Diet

If you want to lose weight you should start by avoiding sugar and starch (like bread). This is an old idea: For 150 years or more there have been an infinite number of weight loss diets based on eating less carbs. What’s new is that at least 17 modern scientific studies have proven that, yes, low carb is the most effective way to lose weight.

Obviously it’s still possible to lose weight on any diet – just eat less calories than you burn, right? The problem with this simplistic advice is that it ignores the elephant in the room: Hunger. Most people don’t like to “just eat less”, i.e. being hungry forever. That’s dieting for masochists. Sooner or later a normal person gives up and eats, hence the prevalence of “yo-yo dieting”.
The main advantage of low carb diets is that they cause you to want to eat less. Even without counting calories most overweight people eat far fewer calories on low carb. Sugar and starch may increase your hunger, avoiding it may decrease your appetite to an adequate level. If your body wants to eat a suitable number of calories you don’t need to bother counting them. Thus: Calories count, but you don’t need to count them.
A 2012 study also showed that people on a low carb diet burned 300 more calories a day – while resting! According to one of the Harvard professors behind the study this advantage “would equal the number of calories typically burned in an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity”. Imagine that: an entire bonus hour of exercise every day, without actually doing it.
Bottom line: A low carb diet reduces your hunger and makes it easier to eat less. And it might even increase your fat burning at rest. Study after study show that low carb is the smart way to lose weight and that it improves important health markers.
How to do it: LCHF for beginners
Inspiration: Weight loss stories on low carb

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Eat Real Food

Another common mistake when eating a low carb diet is getting fooled by the creative marketing of special “low carb” products. Remember:  An effective low carb diet for weight loss should be based on real food, like this:

Real food is what humans have been eating for thousands or (even better) millions of years, e.g. meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, butter, olive oil, nuts etc.
If you want to lose weight you’d better avoid special “low carb” products that are full of carbs. This should be obvious but creative marketers are doing all they can to fool you (and get your money). They will tell you that you can eat cookies, pasta, ice cream, bread and plenty of chocolate on a low carb diet, as long as you buy their brand. They’re full of it. Don’t be fooled.
Here are three examples of what to avoid:

1. Atkins’ Fairy Tale Cookies
2. Julian Bakery’s High Carb Low Carb Bread
3. The Dreamfields Pasta Fraud

These three companies are not unique. There are thousands of similar companies trying to trick you into buying their “low carb” junk food, full of starch, sugar alcohols, flour, sweeteners and strange additives. Two simple rules to avoid this junk:

• Don’t eat “low carb” versions of high carb stuff, like cookies, bars, chocolate, bread, pasta or ice cream – unless you are SURE of the ingredients (perhaps by making it yourself).
• Avoid products with the words “net carbs” on them. That’s usually just a way to fool you.

Focus on eating good quality, minimally processed real food. Ideally the food you buy shouldn’t even have a list of ingredients (or it should be very short).

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