Fitness Hopes

Being active is key to losing weight and keeping it off. As well as providing lots of health benefits, exercise can help burn off the excess calories you cannot lose through diet alone.

Skipping breakfast will not help you lose weight. You could miss out on essential nutrients and you may end up snacking more throughout the day because you feel hungry.

A good starting point is to work out whether you actually need to lose weight. You can use the body mass index (BMI) calculator to find out if you are a healthy weight for your height. It's advised you also measure your waist to check you're not carrying too much fat around your stomach, which can increase your risk of disease, type 2 diabetes and strokes.

Plan tomorrow’s meals today. Planning ahead stops that “grab what you see” panic that sets in when you wait to plan dinner until you’re starving at 6 p.m. Scaring up dinner on the fly is likely to bring less nutritious, higher-calorie choices to your table. Adopted from Cleveland Clinic dietician program.

Make plants the foundation of your diet. Different weight loss approaches work for different people. But plant foods should be the foundation of any diet. Research strongly supports the benefits of plant-based nutrition approaches for weight loss, disease prevention, and overall health. That means enjoying lots of non-starchy vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cucumbers and bok choy, and fruits like berries, apples and pears. Plant-based foods contain a variety of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that help support your cells and reduce inflammation, she says. They also provide fiber and water, both of which help you feel fuller.

Taking healthy beverages like milk, almond milk, buttermilk, vegetable juice, detox waters and green tea helps in weight loss. Avoid sodas, colas, canned and fresh juices as they are rich in sugar and will increase your insulin level which will speed up fat accumulation and make it difficult for you to reduce weight.

When we are trying to lose weight, water plays the most important role as it helps to remove toxins, transport nutrients, in better digestion, muscle function, in speeding up calorie burning, fat burning, etc. So, drink at least 2-3 litres of water a day.

Foods rich in fibre are very important when trying to lose weight as they help in reducing blood sugar level and also keeping our heart healthy. Fibre absorbs water as it moves through digestive tract. As a result, our stomach fills faster and we don’t feel hungry very often. So, one must consume more vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains like oats, quinoa.

Increasing the amount you cook for yourself will make you more aware of what’s going in your food and help you avoid high calorie and fat counts, especially those from unexpected places. Also, cooking is fun! If you’re not sure where to start in the kitchen, healthy recipe boxes can be a big help.

Losing weight is never easy and there’s no one tip that’s going to change that. However, it doesn’t have to be as complicated a process as many of us make it, like counting every calorie or stripping our diet of entire food groups while trying to follow aggressively restrictive diet plans.