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Most of us Indians say that only Celebrities can afford the time and money required to stay fit. But the truth is that we often spend more on medication due to our health problems than what the so called “fit” people spend on their healthy lifestyle. So wouldn’t it make more sense to just start getting healthy rather than putting it off for later when you have to do it due to doctor’s recommendation?
25 Simple Tips To Lose Weight At Home
1. Have A Willing Mind:
There is no need for heavy equipment or personal trainer or things of that sort to lose weight at home and stay fit. All that you need is your body and a willing mind. Given that, you need to do some particular things to lose weight. First off you need to assess yourself and decide how much weight you need to lose to be healthy for your height, age and bone structure. Do not expect yourself to look like a supermodel after losing weight. After you make the mental preparations, you can start the actual work.
2. Focus On Your Diet:
What you really need to focus on is your diet. When losing weight, many people expect that eating what they want and then working out a lot is the best option so that they don’t have to give up their favourite food, but the secret behind getting fit is 80 percent in your diet and the rest 20 percent in working out. This is an integral part of the answer to how to lose weight in home.
3. Note Down What You Are Eating:
For a week, eat in your normal manner and record what you eat using just a pen and paper. With the help of this, you can see just how much more you are eating than you think you are. After this exercise, go over the list and think of what all you can avoid eating. Also start writing down what you are eating. Don’t get too crazy with it and start measuring every gram you eat and counting calories, it will only frustrate you. Instead write down what you eat and when you eat a particular kind of food so that you have a general idea.
4. Know What You Eat:
Next assess your normal meals and figure out where you are eating in excess. Can you cut the extra helping of rice? Or cut down the 4 biscuits with tea to two, or even reduce your sugar intake by a little? As with any quest, losing weight is a cumulative effort and the little things take you a long way. Also get rid of fried or fatty food in your fridge and replace it with healthier things, like substituting whole milk for 1.25% percent milk, or switching out for tofu paneer instead of normal paneer when making stir fry. When writing down what you are eating, make sure to be true to yourself. Do not make slight adjustments to make yourself feel like you are eating less. Even though it may be exhausting, try to make sure you write down every little thing you eat, even the little tasting while making your dinner. And also make sure that the portion sizes are accurate. Also be specific about how you made the food. Did you boil, grill, steam, stir fry it? If so, how much oil did you use? Last but not least, stick to it! Take the food log everywhere you go.
5. Change The Way You Eat:
Change the way you eat and drink lots of water to keep you full. Stock up on vegetables and fruits and fiber and nutrient rich food to keep your cravings in check.When you eat is just as important as what you eat. It is better off to eat smaller meals at an interval of 2 hours so that your sugar levels remain stable thus keeping unnecessary cravings at bay. Try to log your food every two-three hours but do not ever have large meals. Cut your normal bigger meals into portions and have it at the allowed frequency. A very sneaky trick is to serve foods on smaller plates. If you place smaller portions on larger plates you will feel like you are consuming less than what you need. But in the opposite case, you will think that what is placed in front of you is filling and satisfactory.When eating, try to make assorted vegetables the main dish, with lesser amount of meat, fish or dairy. Try a stir fry or salad without unnecessary sauces or dressings. In this case, even a larger helping will make you feel full but you won’t be adding any unhealthy things to your body. You could even have vegetables like cucumber, carrot and celery sticks as snacks. If you have a sweet tooth and crave desserts after dinner, substitute with cut fruits and a light drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon. These are only a few suggestions, get creative and invent more healthy options for yourself. One of the wonderful home tips for weight loss!
6. What to eat?
a. Foods that Boost your metabolism:
Include those foods in your diet that are rich in proteins and will increase metabolic rate so that your body will actually burn more fat than consumed. But if your metabolism gets slow, the fat burning capacity becomes weak and the fat is piled up in your body leading to weight gain.Soybeans: Soybeans are rich in proteins that increases metabolism and helps burn more calories.
Hot peppers: All types of hot peppers like chillies (green and red), jalapenos have a special ingredient called capsaicin that magically increases your heart rate and thereby improves metabolism by a good 30%. You calories get to burn much faster and reduce chances of weight gain.Spices: Add some spices to your food so that it increases you metabolic rate like in the case of cinnamon. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon powder to any curry of your choice.Special smoothie: This special and yummy smoothie will increase your metabolism and burn down fat. Peel some orange slices and blend them along with half a cup of yogurt and half a cup of skimmed milk. Blend it and pour it out in a glass and enjoy. It burns down the fat preventing fat storing hormone called calcitrol, and indirectly putting on weight.Fish: Salmon, tuna, mackerel are some fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids and burn excess calories. You may also take a fish oil capsule every day.
b. Foods that have Fiber:
Foods rich in fibers are good weight loss diet. It keep your stomach full for longer time, improves you digestive system and regulates blood sugar.Incorporate some foods that are good sources of fiber for lunch. Have a medium bowl of pulses with lean meat or fish and some chapattis or brown rice, chapattis with a mixture of a few grains like wheat, bajra, jowar or gram flour. Eat good breakfast with rich sources of fiber as it kick-starts your metabolism for the rest of the day. Cereals or oats with some diced fruits and skimmed milk make a nutrition-rich and fat-free breakfast. Optional ingredient come in the form of strawberries, raspberries or bananas as these are all rich in fiber.For your snacks, have a bowl of fruits or maybe sprouts or opt for two slices of brown bread.Have something light for dinner like chapattis, fiber foods and a bowl of green veggie soup with spinach, broccoli or peas in your soup.
c. Anti-oxidants:Anti-oxidants should also an important part of your daily diet as they improve metabolism and prevent from the urge of having unhealthy high-calorie foods. All types of berries, raisins, broccoli, spinach, cherries, eggplant, oranges, onions and red bell peppers are rich in anti-oxidants.
6. Don’t Skip Meals:
Make sure that you are not skipping meals, as this is a common mistake we tend to make. You need to give food to your body to make it lose weight. If you want a machine to start working properly, you will try to get rid of what is wrong with it while trying to get it to work again. So, the same thing applies with our body too. When you skip meals, our body will utilize precious muscle instead of fat to perform our bodily functions, and that is not what we want.
8. Don’t Overdo:
Although I am all for eating vegetables and fruits, I know just how much tempting the occasional cake or cookie can be. So always be prepared for such encounters, do not say no to what you want as long term restriction. It can cause you to succumb to temptation, and you will end up overdoing it.
9. Eat As Much As You Can At Home:
Make sure you eat as much as you can from home, while losing weight. As there will always be temptations when eating out, and it will be too hard to say no. So try to keep yourself from eating out till you are in complete control of your impulses to binge eating.
10. Fluids:
Just as important as solid food intake is fluid intake. You need to drink as much water as you can, and start avoiding drinking your calories by intake of fruit juices, cold drinks or alcohol. Pure water or water with some flavoring is the best. You could also make yourself the occasional treat by making some smoothies, but do not add excess sugar, or heavy dairy to it.
11. Exercise:
The next aspect is exercise. People often think that it is a chore, but if you find an activity that you truly enjoy, exercise can be just as good a stress buster as a good book, or a cup of tea can be. But you will be getting fitter along with feeling better immediately. Losing weight is a good time to try out things you have always wanted to but never did. Losing weight is as much about changing how you look as changing how you look at things. So it’s the right time to get out of your box and try new things.
12. Try To Start Off Small:
Just like with food, assess your activities and switch out things you can do better. If you have a treadmill, try to power walk on it while watching a serial marathon. Try to park a few blocks away from work and walk to work/class. Take the steps instead of the elevator, walk around the room while on a long phone call. Little things like this can increase your metabolic rate, thus helping you lose weight faster. You can even add a few small exercises to your routine to do at home if you don’t have the time for a gym. Here are 3 simple options or weight loss tips for women at home .
a. Jumping jacks:
Before starting off with the rest of the exercise, do jumping jacks to warm up. It increases your heart beat and also stamina o do the rest of the workouts.- Stand with your feet at ease and hands by your side.
- Now jump to set your feet apart and simultaneously flinging your arms in the air.
- Jump gain to get back to position 1.
b. Jumping ropes:
Relive your childhood days with jumping ropes. It tones your legs and works on flab and other parts of the body too.
c. Squats:
Squats is like the king of exercise. It works on your thighs, abs, the lower back and also the cuffs of your legs.- Stand with your legs apart at a distance of 1 foot.
- Bend your knees and lower yourself as if you will be sitting on a chair. Lift your hands up straight.
- Bend your knees and stoop down as much as you can.
- Hold this for a few seconds and stand up straight.
- Repeat as many times as possible.
Other than these, you can do crunches and sit-ups.
13. Cardio:
Introduce light cardio into your daily routine, start by walking for shorter periods of time and then switch to jogging, you could also start running on the treadmill or use the elliptical.
14. Workout Videos:
The latest workout trend is workout videos specifically focused on people at home trying to lose weight. You can choose from a variety of things that might possibly interest you, like salsa dancing, ball room dancing, hip hop, kickboxing, martial arts, hula hooping, working the pole, strength training, yoga, Pilates. The list is endless! All you have to do is just check online about things that catch your interest.
15. Gym At Home:
Get some gym equipments at home!! Things like weights, push up bars, pull up bars etc can be even bought online these days on Indian sites like Healthkart.
16. Try A New Sport:
You could also start to get into a new sport. There are a lot of sports you might have wanted to play, but never did because you were ashamed of how you’d look while playing them! This is the right time to start playing them. Focus on the end result and not what you look like right now.
17. Make Your Own Workout Routine:
Another thing you can do is to make your own Workout routine by incorporating various exercises that can be easily and inexpensively done at home. A good routine I like to do when Icannot go out is by,- First Warm up for 5 minutes by jogging in place.
- Then stretch your body out making sure not to overdo it.
- Then start by jump roping for 5 minutes vigorously.
- Then take a break and climb the stair for five minutes.
- Then get on the ground and do 20 push-ups, 20 supermans, and 20 crunches.
- Then get up and do 30 squats, 30 skaters and 30 lunges. If you are at higher level, you could hold some dumb-bells of a comfortable weight while doing the squatting and lunging.
- Then go back to running up and down the stairs for 10 minutes and finally finish off with jump roping for 10 minutes.
This is a very effective routine that combines strength and heavy duty cardio. This routine is enough for anyone trying to lose weight as it works all the muscle groups and gets your heart rate up.
18. Stay Motivated:
One of the most important aspects is MOTIVATION. A person becomes fat due to accumulating bad habits and bad dietary choices as much as with lack of motivation. Most people become fat and remain so, because they try once or twice and then when they fail at it, they refuse to go back for more. You need to know how to keep yourself motivated to keep coming back for more. This is another wonderful tips for weight loss at home.
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