Practical Tips on how to use Intermittent Fasting for Fat Loss (Many Studies included!)
I’m sure you’ve heard of Intermittent Fasting (IF) before. It is basically specifying when you should eat instead of what you should eat. Many claim that IF can not only help with fat loss, it can improve cardiovascular health, decrease cancer risk and even increase lifespan! But it seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? After all, IF is skipping meals for hours or even days, and then feasting within a designated time frame, which seems to be going against the norm.
But fasting isn’t a new concept by any means. Our ancestors have actually been doing it during our hunter-gatherer days, where they have to fast for days if they are unable to find food. IF is just a rebranding of this. Furthermore, we are actually already fasting when we are asleep. And some of us are already doing IF but may not even know it! Most commonly known as skipping breakfast.
So what is the truth? Can IF magically help with fat loss and other benefits? And if so, how exactly should you do IF to see the best results? Here I’ll be covering the types of IF, benefits and shortcomings of IF, how long to fast for, and how much to eat. Let’s dive in.
5 Science-Based Diet Tips to Lose Weight without Feeling Hungry
If you’re aiming to lose weight, it is no doubt that having the right nutrition strategy is the most important factor. Many think that it is simply eating less, since we know that in order to lose weight, you should be eating less calories than you burn. However, the problem with this simplistic model is that it fails to account for how the different types of food that you eat can affect both the amount of calories in and the amount of calories out.
If you feel like you are eating so little that you’re constantly hungry, your nutrition strategy might just be the wrong one. In fact, studies have shown that the biggest reason why people fail their diet is because of high hunger levels.
What you should do instead is to focus on the types of food you’re eating and how you’re eating them, which can make a huge difference to your hunger levels. And in this article, we will use a science-based approach to look at some ways you should be eating to lose weight without feeling hungry. Let’s dive in.
5 Ways to Make Weight Loss Less Stressful
Losing weight , like any other goal that you choose to work towards, can be stressful. On the surface, weight loss can be as simple as “Calories in, Calories out” and “Exercise more, Eat less”. But because of stress, it can be much more complicated than that.
A little stress can be good - it motivates you, pushes you, and keeps you on your toes. But if you are too stressed out, you lose your healthy habits, you sleep less, you skip workouts, and you eat highly palatable food for comfort. Your energy gets depleted which could have been used for self-control. Hormones are also induced which tells your body to store body fat. This creates a downward spiral that makes weight loss harder than it already is. In fact, stress has shown to have strong links with obesity.
If you’re experiencing the above symptoms due to stress, you should know that weight loss isn't meant to be like that. Here are some ways you can make weight loss less stressful and more manageable.
Step-by-Step Tips on how to Break a Weight Loss Plateau
When you first start your weight loss journey, everything is smooth-sailing. You see your scale weight dropping consistently for days as you start exercising and going on a diet. You’re happy that everything is working, and look forward to achieving your dream body soon.
But one fateful morning, as you step on the scale, you realize that your weight isn’t falling like it used to. You get stressed up, but brush it off as a one-time event. However, the following morning, the same thing happens - same weight, or worse, heavier than the previous morning! The weight that was previously falling off consistently seems to be sticking onto you for its dear life now. This continues for a week and you get demoralized and feel like you’re just not meant to be lean. You then search the internet for answers, and get things like “carb cycling”, “intermittent fasting” or “starvation mode”, but get even more confused.
This is something you’ve probably experienced before. And if you have not, you can actually count on this to happen sometime.
Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re actually not in a weight loss plateau. But if you’re really in one, breaking it is actually much simpler than you think. And in this article, we will check out what weight loss plateau really is, and what you can do about it.
6 Small Lifestyle Habits to Lose Weight without Trying too Hard
Many times, losing weight can feel daunting. It seems like making huge changes in your life like meal prepping and spending hours in the gym is the only way to achieve your goals. Fortunately, that is not how sustainable weight loss works. Making such a drastic change can help you lose weight fast, but it will not be lasting. What we should aim to achieve here is to lose weight and keep it off.
And how do we achieve that? Through making small changes to your existing lifestyle! As you incorporate minor adjustments day by day, you’ll soon begin to see how they can add up to something very significant. The more these adjustments are repeated, the stronger and more automatic the habit will be, and you’ll be more likely to stick to them.
We have seen how powerful a habit can be in my previous article. Now we will specifically look at small habits we can make to achieve sustainable weight loss. Let’s dive right in.