Tag: lose weight

This is part one of a series titled, “Weight Loss Hacks”. Enjoy these simple tips for regaining control of your life and supercharging your weight loss!

Weight Loss Hack #1: SLEEP

One of the most important, and often overlooked necessities of a solid weight loss regimen is quality sleep. In fact, many have said that if it were a supplement, sleep would be considered a SUPER PILL, based on the benefits it provides.

It is recommended that we get 7-8 hours of quality sleep every night. This allows our body to replenish and rebuild optimally.

Here is a quick guide on how to get the best sleep possible:

1. Turn down the thermostat – keeping a cool room is best for getting good sleep. Some recommend temperatures in range from 67-71 degrees for better sleep.
2. Make it Dark – turn off all lights, close all blinds and curtains, block lights emitting from devices like TVs and alarm clocks. The darker the room, the better.
3. Don’t eat before bed – this one is fairly obvious, but eating before bed can cause your body to have trouble staying a sleep. Also, depending on what you eat, it can cause reflux.
4. Turn your phone and TV off an hour before bed – this allows your body to properly produce the melatonin needed to fall asleep and stay asleep.
5. Bonus Tip – Tape your mouth shut. This one is the hardest for most people, but the benefits are amazing. Breathing through your nose is always best as it produces high levels of nitric oxide, which increases blood flow and relaxes blood vessels.

Hack #2: Up your Protein

To stay satiated and burn fat at a higher level, try to approach 1g of Protein per pound of your desired weight in pounds. For example, if you want to way 185 and currently weigh 225, eat 185g of protein a day.

Hack this step by using the benefits of low calorie/high protein shakes and protein bars. Also, snacking on things like Tuna can help raise your protein without breaking the caloric bank, so to speak.

Here is the links to the protein powder I use and the protein bars I eat (they are DELICIOUS):

Ghost Protein Powder – https://amzn.to/3JCRu7B

Barebell Protein Bars – https://amzn.to/3DDFJKd

Hack #3: Snack on Low calorie-dense foods

This hack is the basis for the Noom diet app. Eating low calorie-dense foods helps you to feel full, while consuming a low number of calories. A great example of low calorie-dense snacks are:

1. Grapes – about 104 calories per cup
2. Oats – 154 calories per 1/2 cup
3. Greek Yogurt – 150 calories for 1 cup
4. Berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries) – 86 calories for 1 cup of blueberries
5. Eggs – 72 calories per egg (bonus – 6 grams protein per egg)
6. Popcorn (MY FAVORITE) – 31 calories in 1 cup of popcorn. (also high in fiber)
7. Chia Seeds – 138 calories for 1 ounce
8. Cottage Cheese – 163 calories for 1 cup (plus 28 grams of protein)
9. Watermelon – 46 calories for 1 cup

Weight Loss Hack #4: Step Count

Although the number 10,000 is somewhat arbitrary, it is still a good reference point to stick to. The number 10,000 came from the development of step-counters in China. There was no scientific point to it, just a random number that they thought would be a good amount of steps.

Even though this number was picked at somewhat random, 10,000 steps a day has shown to raise fat-burning significantly. The number isn’t what makes the difference, but the average American only walks 3-4,000 steps a day. Upping that to 10,000 can burn an extra 300-400 calories for the average person per day. This becomes significant in the long run.

Set your phone or smart watch to a 10,000 step goal and try to reach that on average each day. I promise that you will see results from this step quickly. Not only will the weight come off, but you will also get stronger and gain endurance.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE WEIGHT LOSS HACKS!

There are many myths about weight loss. Here are just a few.

Myth #1: Healthier Food is more expensive

The top of the list of weight loss myths is that food is more expensive the healthier it is. While eating from higher end organic sources may cost you more, there are many more options to eating healthy that can even be purchased at Walmart.

The idea is that you replace what you are eating with healthier alternatives. There are many healthy alternatives that cost the same and even sometimes cheaper than their unhealthy counterparts.

Yes, eating the dollar menu at McDonald’s is way cheaper than eating a healthy meal from Chipotle, but that’s an extreme. Plus, McDonald’s is a near guaranteed “heart attack in a box”.

Besides, eating out is the most expensive form of food consumption. When you eat healthier, many times you are choosing to cook meals at home. This leads to healthier eating because you can choose the ingredients you put in your food and know exactly how many calories, fat, carbs, and protein you are eating. This is also the cheaper option. That is why this is Myth #1.

Myth #2: Carbs Make You Fat

If I could write a book about this being one of the big weight loss myths, it would be this one. For one, which carbs are we talking about? Complex or simple? Second, fiber is a carb and is vitally important to our health.

Starchy fried foods are obviously detrimental to your health and can cause many health issues, like fatty liver disease, obesity, and high blood pressure. Yes starchy fried foods are loaded with carbs. However, there are other kinds of healthy and, indeed necessary carbohydrates.

Complex carbohydrates play a very important role in many of our necessary biological functions like digestion, metabolism, blood sugar regulation, hormone health, and even sleep patterns. Complex carbs also reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease when properly balanced in our diets.

The takeaway is that we need to be more specific when talking about carbohydrate intake. Eat carbs, don’t go crazy with them, and make sure they are complex.

Myth #3: Exercising like a crazy person is the only way to lose weight fast

The rule of thumb is that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. You can exercise like the top athlete in the world and not lose one pound of fat if your diet is not on point. Let me explain with an example…

If you go to www.calculator.net/calories-burned-calculator.html, you can find out roughly how many calories you burn per activity you do. If you eat a cheeseburger from McDonalds, you have consumed 313 calories (according to their website). To burn 313 calories, you would have to run vigorously for approximately 1 hour (depending on your weight and level of difficulty).

I don’t know about you, but I think it would be much easier to swap something for the cheeseburger than run an hour.

I actually only run 1 to 2 times a week, and no more than 2 miles on average. I run very slow when I do and I hate it. Most of my exercise comes from walking 10,000 plus steps each day. I lost and continue to lose most of my weight due to changing my eating habits. Eating healthy is the most important key to losing weight. It has the greatest effect on weight loss.

Myth #4: Sit-ups are the best exercise for losing belly fat

While sit-ups are a great exercise, no one exercise is going to target fat loss to a specific body area. When you are in a burning state, and while exercising, your body loses fat on an overall scale. Wherever your fat has accumulated the most you will see the biggest changes.

Anaerobic exercises like weight lifting and sit-ups/crunches build muscle. Muscle burns fat, and there you have it. So, sit-ups are a great addition to your exercise routine, but they do not target fat loss in your belly alone.

Myth #5: “Low Fat” or “Reduced Fat” is the healthier choice.

Fat, like carbohydrates is another important component of a healthy diet and weight loss. Consuming too little fat it not healthy for our bodies. The USDA recommends getting up to 35% of your daily calories from fat. That is somewhere around 90-100 grams.

If you are eating “low fat” or “reduced fat” foods you can have one of too scenarios. Either it is still too high in fat (funny right?!) or it contains a higher amount of sugar in the ingredients. Either way, you need to learn to read the labels on food boxes to see what you actually consuming before buying a “low fat” or “reduced fat” product.

Still, the best way to control what you eat is to cook at home. That way you know exactly what you are putting in your body each meal.

Regardless of the vast amount of information and misinformation out there about diet and exercise, weight loss is not that complicated.

Having gone through the ups and downs of weight gain and loss for the past 6 years has taught me a lot. Mainly is the fact that the process of losing weight isn’t as difficult as some would make it out to be. It’s fairly simple when you look at the broader picture, in fact.

What Makes it Simple

The simple fact is, if you eat less than you burn, you WILL lose weight. That’s a scientific fact! Calories in, versus calories out is the only way you can lose weight. That seems like common sense, but it is also the part that everyone seems to struggle with the most.

Why is the struggle so real?

If weight loss is not that complicated, then why do so many people struggle to make is a sustainable lifestyle? In 2017, 42.4% of Americans were obese. That’s up from 30.9% in 1999. The average American consumes between 2500 to 3500 calories a day. To lose weight, one should eat in ranges from 1500 to 2000 calories a day.

The Math Behind Weight Loss

1 pound of body fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. Therefore, to lose 1 pound of body fat, a person would have to be a caloric deficit of 3500 calories. That is the simple and honest truth behind the math of weight loss.

While technically it doesn’t matter what you consume to lose weight, your health heavily depends on the type of calories you eat. You CAN lose weight eating 2000 calories of cheesecake every day, but your body will hate you. 2000 calories of a balanced diet would do your body much better, while also losing weight.

My goal is to provide you with the resources to lose weight and be healthy at the same time. In fact, if you can combine CICO (Calories In Calories Out) with healthy food and exercise, you can lose a lot of weight fast and have a healthy body, inside and out.

If you follow my blog and click on the “join list” button below, you will receive a FREE INTRODUCTORY VIDEO and a FREE PDF of the basics of losing weight fast. This will get you started on the journey of becoming a better, healthier, fitter YOU! Will you join me?