Tips to lose weight
In your effort to lose weight, make decisions that you can stick to in the long term. Here are some tips.
To walk
How much do you walk every day? A good way to measure this would be to invest in a step counter, which keeps track of how many steps you take in a day. If you are looking to lose weight but have not been able to, it is most likely not consistent with your weight loss program. Maybe you like it too much too soon. Or maybe you try to diet, but give up in no time. Instead, if you find that you can’t exercise regularly due to lack of time or motivation, try taking more steps in a day. If you take about 5,000 steps in an average day, to see some benefits for your health, try doubling this count, down to at least ten to eleven thousand per day. This should be easily achievable if you just try to walk a little more a day, whenever you get the chance.
You have a dog? Instead of sending your kids or helping walk the dog every day, try taking it out yourself, at least once a day. Not only can walking your pet be very relaxing, depending, of course, on the type of pet and breed you have, but it also increases the number of steps you take in a day.
Instead of someone placing a bottle of water and a glass on your workstation, every hour or a couple of hours, get up and walk to the pantry to have water filled. This stretches the legs a bit and gets the blood circulating, and while it may seem like there is hardly any exercise, making this a habit for an extended period increases your walking time. This is so easy it would be a shame if you DIDN’T do it!
Sugar
If you are overweight, try reducing the number of calories you eat each day by a small amount. Have a tablespoon and a half of sugar in your cup of tea instead of two. After a period of time, you can reduce it further to a spoon.
Milk
Switch to skim or 1% milk. Milk is something you drink every day, and even if you have just one cup of tea and don’t worry about the fat in the milk, it all builds up over a period of time. Also, if you are concerned about reducing your cholesterol intake, drink low-fat milk.
Butter
If you eat toast every day, stop buttering it or put less butter than you usually do. Dip the toast in his tea to help him drink it, or make a tasty sandwich with egg whites, or onions, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, etc. so you don’t feel the lack of butter. Save the fat intake for when you really want to indulge yourself! So when you delve into a chocolate cake, you will only replace the fat you avoided by omitting the butter, rather than adding it.
lemon
Mira, 35, drinks a small cup of hot water with unsweetened lemon juice (hot nimbu pani) every day after dinner. He swears it helped him lose weight. Citrus fruits are a natural diuretic and prevent water retention. Mixing it with hot water helps you drink it easily as it does not add sweetener.
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