Weight Loss Tips That Work

Distract Yourself from Mindless Eating

One of the most common reasons that people gain weight excessively is that they’re not just eating when they’re hungry. They might be eating just casually without thinking about it just because it’s become a habit.

When you eat without thinking about it, you can very easily end up eating way more food than you intended to, which can cause your calorie limits to vanish for the day. To prevent mindless eating, a good option for you might be distractions.

Because people eat mindlessly out of habit, it can easily be substituted for any other hands-on habit to fill that gap. Mindless eating is often done just as something to do with your hands while you’re not doing anything else, but you can do many things as distractions that won’t cause you to eat excessively.

One option is to take up arts and crafts. When you don’t have a specific goal in mind, arts and crafts can be a great way to take your mind off of mindlessly eating. You can do something as simple as sketching in a notebook with a pencil, or try learning new things like sewing or crocheting.

Not only will this take your mind off of eating, but it can also help you learn new skills, and you can keep getting better and make some things you’re proud of or to give as a gift.

Another option that some have taken to is cleaning. Instead of eating, you can pretty mindlessly clean up around the house while you’re not doing anything. While it may seem like a chore, you just need the right mindset.

Treating it as something that you’re choosing to do rather than something you have to do can make a significant difference. If your house is already generally clean, you can always initiate some deeper cleaning tasks, getting into the spots that you tend to overlook – like closets or the attic.

Finally, it’s worth trying to learn new skills as hobbies to take your mind off of eating. Find something that you’re interested in learning how to do. This could be anything from working on a car to learning an instrument.

No matter what it is you choose, you’ll be able to distract yourself from eating by devoting more time to that skill. For example, learning how to play the guitar can take a long time.

Whenever you next feel like eating a snack, you could pick up the guitar instead and spend some time working on learning it. At the end of the day, you can become proficient in something interesting, while losing weight in the process.

Give Yourself an 8-Week Weight Loss Jumpstart

Often times when people are just starting to get their weight loss regimen in order, they’ll look for a few diets and some workout programs and then just dive right in. Many have found that this kind of head on weight loss routine just doesn’t work.

People tend to stop doing it after the first month or two. In order to prevent this and to help lose more weight faster, dieticians are now recommending a simple eight-week program to get you ready for your diet.

This eight-week program involves eating an extremely low number of calories every day for the allotted eight weeks, and then moving into the diet you had planned out. For these eight weeks, you’re not supposed to eat more than around 800 calories per day, which is essentially just enough for your body to run on.

During those eight weeks, your body will be taking in so few calories that it’ll start to burn off other sources for fuel, namely your excess fat cells. An important part of this program involves where you get those 800 calories from.

The general consensus says that you should have a breakfast shake or smoothie, then some meal replacement bars for lunch, and finally some kind of soup for dinner. Each of these meals should be around 260 calories if you spread it out evenly, though you could have 300 calorie breakfasts and dinners with a 200-calorie lunch.

In previous years, programs like these that result in a sharp and sudden weight drop were thought to be counterproductive, often leading to you regaining that weight after you stop.

However, by following it up with a normal diet and exercise program, this jumpstart program has shown to be almost four times better at helping you lose weight than a standard start to a diet program.

Another major benefit of this jumpstart is that you’ll be a lot more likely to stick with the diet you move into after it. By consuming such low calories for those eight weeks, a normal diet afterwards will feel a lot more filling.

Normally if you transitioned from an unhealthy diet to a healthy one, you’d feel underwhelmed, but by transitioning from a really low diet to a healthy one, you feel like you’re eating a feast every meal. This is great way for you to see some quick results and help you encourage yourself to stick with your program.

Use Lavender to Prevent Emotional Eating

Many people today have taken to using essential oils and other sensory treatments to change their moods and improve their health. Psychologists believe that certain smells and certain colors can affect how a person behaves or feels.

Certain smells can make you hungry, some colors can get you fired up, and certain sounds can make you upset. When it comes to calming you down, no smell is better than lavender.

One of the main triggers that drives some people to overeat is stress. So many people choose comfort foods, which are typically high calorie, to calm them down when they’re upset.

After a bad day, they might come home and eat a bunch of ice cream or sweets to make themselves a bit happier. The problem is, this can also lead to serious weight gain, which can upset you even more.

The smell of lavender has an inherent soothing property. Lab based research has proven that lavender’s scent reduces anxiety and stress, both of which can cause someone to overeat.

It has certain properties so that when you smell it, your brain receives certain signals, which helps you calm down. Now, ideally, it would be very efficient to have some actual lavender sitting around in your room that you could smell every time you were feeling stressed – but that would be very expensive.

Instead, because most people don’t have that luxury, there are many options available to help you get that calming smell flowing around your room or house without having to deal with actual flowers.

They vary in effectiveness and cost, but it’s recommended that you try a few of them and see what works for you. One option that you can take is a basic air freshener. These are fairly cheap, and can just plug into any wall outlet.

They come in a wide variety of scents, and lavender is among the most popular. The problem with air fresheners is that they can burn out quickly and the smell might not be very potent.

Another option that many have taken to is incense. Incense sticks are usually set up in a room and lit at one end, slowly burning down throughout the day. They have been used in some cultures for spiritual purposes, but in many western cultures, they’re either for show or for smell. Lavender incense sticks are easily available and can help brighten any room. The smell you get from these sticks is also much more potent than other options.

Health Apps That Help You Lose Weight

Sometimes, it can be pretty difficult to try to mentally keep track of all the things you need to be doing to keep up with your weight loss plan. You need to track your weight, your diet, your workouts, and everything in between.

While keeping a fitness notebook isn’t the worst thing, it’s a bit inconvenient and difficult to keep up with regularly. Instead, many people are now taking to using their smartphones to help them lose weight in various ways.

There are tons of apps and services available today that can help you lose weight in a way that can make it more fun, rewarding, or easy. First off, there are the tracking apps. Tracking all of your meals can be a pain, especially when you have to look all over the packaging for the information and tally it all out.

Luckily, there are apps available that can help make your job a lot easier. By putting in some basic information, these apps will tell you what kind of dietary plan you should have, and will automatically make the calculations showing you how many calories you have left in that day.

Additionally, instead of having to check all over the packaging, you can simply search for the foods and the stats will already be pre-entered. One type of service that has seen great success for a lot of people are the weight betting websites.

Users are able to bet real money that they’ll meet certain weight goals within an allotted timeframe, and if they do meet their scheduled goals, they’ll get more money back than they put in.

However, if they fail to meet their weight goals, they don’t get any money back. That money would then go on to fund other people’s successful bets. This gives people a more tangible goal and can give them even more motivation to keep up with their diets and workouts.

Finally, there are apps that allow you to have fun by working out. Some services like FitBit allow you to compete against your friends over who gets the most steps in over a weekend or week, which can help more competitive people get out and start exercising.

It can even recommend good scenic trails and give you virtual rewards for walking a certain distance. Getting out and walking a trail or even just walking around a city is great for weight loss as well as your cardiovascular system.

What You Can Learn from Weight Watcher’s New Branding

You may have heard by now that Weight Watchers has undergone new branding. The reason that the company has done this is because over time, thoughts and views about dieting have changed.

There’s no longer a concentrated focus on just dieting because people striving to lose weight need more than that. In order to keep up with the changing consumer outlook on what getting in shape should be, the company took a fresh look at losing weight.

Instead of solely focusing on dieting, Weight Watchers decided they needed to approach losing weight as a journey of wellness. Instead of only getting the weight off, it’s a total evolution into what helps a person reach what’s best for them.

It’s a better approach to your health. You can take a page out of Weight Watcher’s book to use their changes in your own life. Whatever your goals are, you can take the focus off of dieting and instead choose to look at losing weight as a journey into well-being.

Choose to get rid of the extra pounds that you want to lose by focusing your attention on consuming meals and snacks that are healthier for your body. This will give you a lifetime of new eating habits that are good for you rather than limiting yourself to a diet that’s just focused on losing weight.

Like the Weight Watcher’s new branding difference, you can make sure that you’re less sedentary than you were. By choosing to exercise or be more physically active, you’re taking steps in the right direction.

You’ll also want to make sure you get rid of the negative self-talk or defeatist attitude and focus your mind on what’s good, on what’s healthy and what’s positive. A positive attitude can go a long way toward keeping your motivation at a high level.

What Weight Watchers did with their rebranding was to shed the connotation about weight being the all-important phrase. They’re using in their branding exactly what consumers are looking for and that’s a healthy lifestyle that’s obtainable.

Something that the company is doing even through the change is it’s still relying on a system of awards for positive behavioral changes that are healthy. These changes are things like going to the gym or paying attention to what you eat.

You can follow the same system even if you don’t necessarily follow the Weight Watchers. You can track your good habits and reward yourself when you accomplish something that leads to a healthier lifestyle. Decide what your own rewards system is going to look like and what prize you’re going to give yourself when you reach each of your positive change goals.