Healthy Weight Loss Tips

These following healthy weight loss tips explain the best weight loss foods and strategies for losing pounds.

With so much information and misinformation available, it can be confusing to know what and how to eat to reach your desired weight and maintain it.

The Best Diet for Weight Loss

What is the best diet for weight loss?

After much research, trial and error, I have concluded that the best diet for weight loss is a sensible plan you can stick with. The best healthy weight loss tips are the ones you follow and make part of your life. And the best foods for weight loss are healthy, satisfying foods you enjoy and feel good about eating.

Generally-accepted healthy weight loss tips

You could drive yourself crazy trying to figure out which healthy weight loss tips and plans are best, which ones to avoid, and why. Studies can offer contradictory outcomes, interpretations vary, and agendas can twist the truth and keep it from coming out. Sometimes the truth is still, "We don't know." Perhaps, the silver lining in this cloud is that you may have leeway to make choices based on what makes the most sense for your body, mindset, and lifestyle.

For the most part, there are certain facts and guidelines that many diet experts agree on in whole or part. I've done my best to distill those tips for you here.

Remember:

Food and beverage tips

Follow a healthy living diet. This common-sense Mediterranean-type style of eating may be one of the best diets for weight loss because it is a life long meal plan. Real foods are the best weight loss foods because they are tasty, nutritious and satisfying. Modify the plan in a way that helps you lose weight. For example, you may want to favor certain food groups or cap your calories to a certain number.

Emphasize fiber-rich, whole plant-based foods. Many experts favor a lower carbohydrate, higher healthy fat ratio of calories for weight loss and insulin sensitivity. Each gram of fiber escorts seven calories of food out of your body. Add konjac glucomannon, ground flax seeds, or chia seeds to a big glass of water before meals to slow digestion, slow blood sugar spikes, aid elimination, and keep you feeling full longer. Aiming for 40 grams of fiber a day is one of the top healthy weight loss tips.

Enjoy a healthy meal replacement beverage. If you enjoy smoothies or shakes, you can substitute one meal a day with a nutritious shake or meal replacement beverage you concoct on your own. If you purchase a meal replacement beverage, choose organic from a reputable company like Garden of Life.

A super healthy smoothie includes a serving of your favorite vegetable protein blend, a cup of coconut milk, a handful of berries and a handful of greens. Add chia or freshly ground flax for added fiber. Go for chocolate if you want to mask the flavor of the greens. Adjust the consistency with extra water if needed. Drink up before it thickens too much.

This should keep you satisfied for hours and provides your body the protein and nutrients it needs for healthy detoxification.

When your sweet tooth beckons, enjoy low glycemic fruits including berries and grapefruit. Limit high glycemic fruits to one or two servings per day. Cap fructose from all sources to 25 grams (15 grams for losing weight). Two medium bananas, two whole grapefruits, and two cups of blueberries each contain approximately 15 grams.

Keep healthy snacks on hand. An apple on your desk or a bag of cut up carrots and celery makes it easy to grab a healthy treat. A few nuts or a piece of cheese provide protein. Choose healthy alternatives to junk food most of the time. Make substitutions to get the taste you want without a lot of calories.

For added sweetness, use stevia or lo han. Small amounts of sugar alcohols like xylitol or erythritol are okay if your digestive system tolerates them. Avoid aspartame, sucralose and other artificial sweeteners. hey are unhealthy and trick your body into thinking sugar is coming. The body responds by secreting insulin, which makes you to eat more, store fat, and gain weight. A tiny bit of sugar or honey is better than toxic chemicals.

Drink a big glass of water as soon as you wake up and several times during the day. Even slight dehydration causes fluid retention. Add a twist of lemon for flavor and a dash of cayenne if you need help eliminating waste. Thirst sometimes masquerades as hunger because your body wants the water in food. Have a glass of water and wait 10 minutes before deciding if you are really hungry.

Enjoy healthy low-cal beverages in place of calorie laden sugary drinks. Green tea, herbal infusions, yummy smoothies and meal replacement shakes provide needed fluid and nutrients at a low calorie cost. Avoid artificially sweetened drinks.

Add a teaspoon of certified organic matcha tea powder to your smoothie. Green tea boosts metabolism 4-8%. Matcha boosts metabolism up to 40% thanks to its generous ECGC content. ECGC scavenges free radicals, directly inhibits cortisol (which tells your body to store belly fat), and balances leptin levels that regulate appetite.

How you eat is just as important as what you eat. Eat slowly and mindfully. Follow the 80/20 rule - eat until you are 80% full and limit junk food to 20% of your diet. Cook foods over low heat. New research shows that super heated foods can destroy your health and make you fat. Eat every four or five hours to stabilize blood sugar and keep you feeling satisfied. Include high quality protein at each meal or snack.

Eat fermented foods and/or take probiotic supplements. Obese people can have 40% less bacterial diversity than others, which results in metabolic defects and weight gain. These defects can be corrected by supplementing with raw sauerkraut, live-culture yogurt and kefir, and other cultured foods.

Have two tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar a day. Among its health benefits, ACV has been shown to promote a lower blood sugar rise after eating carbohydrates and increase satiety so you eat less. Include ACV in salad dressing or enjoy as a drink. A trending health beverage is switchel, a blend of apple cider vinegar, fresh ginger (known for its anti-inflammatory benefits), maple syrup, and water or seltzer water.

Dietary Weight Loss Strategies

In addition to choosing what you will eat, the following weight loss strategies will help curb cravings and excess hunger while you lose weight and keep it off.

Rule out food sensitivity.

If you are following the healthy weight loss tips with poor results, troublesome food may be to blame. Ask your doctor for a blood test or go on an elimination diet. For three weeks, do not eat any food containing gluten, soy, eggs, dairy, peanuts, corn, sugar and chemical sweeteners. A meal containing less than five grams of added sugar is okay. Avoid sneaking ingredients called natural flavors, textured vegetable protein, words ending in -ose, and casein to name a few. Eat plenty of high fiber whole foods, healthy fats, and lean protein.

Take high quality probiotics containing bifido and lacto species to help heal your gut at the same time. After three weeks, add back one food every few days. Eliminate foods that cause symptoms.

You will probably get several pounds lighter on this diet. Getting offending foods out of your diet will also reward you with more energy, less inflammation, and less abdominal fat.

In the following video, "Food Allergies-Are They Making You Fat?", Dr. Mark Hyman explains what food allergies are and how they affect your weight.

Preplan daily meals.

Write down what you plan to eat and drink for the day and stick to it. Aim for 800-1800 calories per day depending on your size, how fast you want to lose weight, your age, health, and your activity level. Some experts suggest that you eat at least 1200 a day to keep your metabolism up. Others suggest that you limit yourself to 800 calories a day for the first few weeks to lower insulin resistance and speed initial weight loss. Still others suggest a varied approach where you eat 0-800 calories two days a week and regularly the rest of the week with an emphasis on sensible, healthy eating.

Practice healthy eating habits.

Healthy eating habits include attitudes about food, when you eat and how you eat. For example, one of healthy weight loss habit of dieters is to eat a protein-rich breakfast (or first meal of the day). Two eggs, two ounces of meat or fish, a half cup of cottage cheese or a cup of Greek yogurt will provide around 15 grams. Protein bars with whey or vegetable protein, not soy, are good if you have to eat on the run. Or add a scoop of protein powder to your oatmeal.

According to a large research study, people who lost a lot of weight and kept it off for years had only two habits in common. They ate a protein-rich breakfast every day and exercised regularly.

Eat enough food.

Do not under-eat or you will experience cravings. How many calories you eat does not correlate with how much food you eat. Three cups of broccoli provide only 150 calories while three cups of ice cream boasts 900 calories. Choose less calorie-dense foods that fill you up.

At the same time, don't forgo healthy fats because of their calorie count. They keep you full and are needed by your body. Your body can burn fat when you reduce sugar intake. Adequate amounts of healthy fats do not make you fat. People on a ketogenic diet eat upwards of 85 grams of fat per day from animal foods, chia seeds, flax seeds, coconut oil, avocados, etc. Avoid trans-fats and processed vegetable seed fats, such as canola, soybean, and corn oils.

Boost insulin sensitivity.

Re-balance insulin and other hormone levels related to appetite, fat burning and cravings. Eat lower carbohydrate foods that promote fat burning instead of sugar burning. Limiting your carbohydrate intake at meals keeps blood sugar from spiking and therefore insulin levels from elevating in response. Insulin makes your body store sugar as fat. How much is too much? For accelerated fat loss limit added sugar intake to 5 grams per meal. Stay at this level if you can for a few weeks to rebalance hunger hormones and accelerate fat loss.

People on the keto diet aim to keep their total carbohydrate intake to 25 grams a day. That level may be too extreme for most people, but 50 grams a day still gets good results. You still lose weight if you eat more sugar, but it may take longer. Find the carbohydrate level that lets you continue to lose weight without spiking appetite and cravings.

Practice intermittent fasting.

For health benefits and fat burning, include periods of fasting in your daily schedule. Intermittent fasting is not a starvation diet, nor is it for everyone. This controversial practice is getting research support, but is not recommended for very thin people, pregnant and nursing mothers, and people with certain health conditions. It flies in the face of conventional healthy weight loss tips that tell you to eat all day every day to keep your blood sugar up. Turns out that may be poor advice unless you want high insulin levels that promote fat storage.

There are many forms of intermittent fasting. At the least, advocates recommend that almost everyone limits eating to a 12-hour window. For weight loss, an 18-6 or even a 20-4 fasting to eating ratio is suggested. This allows insulin levels to lower and stay low for longer periods of time. Every other day meals or four to eight hour eating times starting at noon are popular choices. Learn about intermittent fasting before deciding if and how you would like to proceed. Experiment until you may find a schedule you like. For benefits such as improved insulin sensitivity and reduced body fat, you must eat a balanced lower carbohydrate diet along with intermittent fasting.

Sniff Grapefruit.

Eating a grapefruit before a meal is one of those healthy weight loss tips that has been around for years with good reason as a way to break down white fat in the body, increase satiety, and reduce sugar cravings. But, did you know that smelling grapefruit essential oil also aids weight loss?

Here's how to use it: Diffuse a few drops of grapefruit essential oil in your room or inhale the vapors straight from the bottle to curb cravings and relieve stress (which can signal you to eat when you aren't hungry). You can also mix two drops of grapefruit oil with a teaspoon of carrier oil, such as coconut or jojoba oil. coconut oil. Massage this blend into your wrists for easy inhaling or into your abdomen to help relieve bloating and aid digestion. Bonus tip: massage this blend into cellulite for a few minutes to improve blood flow in those areas.

Do not take grapefruit oil internally unless it is a 100% pure high-quality therapeutic grade essential oil made only from grapefruit rind. If you have therapeutic grade grapefruit oil, you can add a drop to seltzer water or meals for extra flavor.

Eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice acts as a potent liver stimulant. This is good news unless you are on certain medications. If you are on medication, check with your doctor or pharmacist to see if you should avoid ingesting grapefruit in any form.

There is a lot more to healthy weight loss tips than eating right. Exercise, mindset, managing stress, reducing toxins and getting health issues under control are all important contributors of a successful weight management plan.

Continue Reading about these healthy weight loss tips here.

healthy weight loss tips, standing on scale

Healthy weight loss tips page updated 02/2020

For Educational Purposes Only. This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition. Please consult with your health provider before using natural remedies and/or complementary therapies if you are pregnant, nursing, or you are being treated for a medical condition. Be aware that certain herbs and supplements interact with medications.