Chances are you already know diet and exercise help you lose weight. But to see real results you need to do more than just skip dessert and take a walk. Step up your results by changing what you eat and drink, how much you sleep, and what you do in the gym.
1. Drink Water
Dieters often confuse thirst for hunger and reach for a snack. Aim for 96 ounces of water daily to prevent this and keep yourself hydrated. Drinking 16 ounces of water before a meal reduces the likelihood of overeating.
2. Ditch Soda and Juice
Fruit juices and sugar-laden sodas offer empty calories that leave you wanting more. Even diet sodas are correlated with increased weight gain. Skip both if you want to lose weight.
3. Avoid Alcohol
Alcoholic beverages often harbor excessive calories from sugar. Even those that don't still postpone fat burning while your body metabolizes the alcohol. If you wish to imbibe, aim for no more than one drink per day for women or two drinks per day for men.
4. Exercise Vigorously
Exercising at a moderate pace burns a moderate number of calories. Vigorous exercise---especially cardio interval training---boosts calorie burn for even greater weight loss.
5. Move Around
A sedentary lifestyle stagnates weight loss. So whether yours is the "couch potato" kind of inactivity or you're a slave to the desk chair, get up and move as often as you can.
6. Sleep More
Sleeping seven or more hours a night offers two benefits: reduced appetite the following day due to changes in the hormones ghrelin and leptin, and a faster metabolism. Now you don't need any more excuses for a little more shut-eye.
7. Build Strength
Because a pound of muscle burns calories just to stay alive, build lean muscle to burn fat around the clock. Do this with a strength training program that exercises muscles to exhaustion within about 10 to 12 repetitions. This builds muscle size versus muscle endurance as seen with lighter weights and greater numbers of repetitions.
8. Eat Lean Protein
Eat protein from lean meat, low-fat dairy products and plant sources. Consuming a diet with 30 percent of calories coming from protein results in greater weight loss, according to a study published in the July 2005 issue of the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."
9. Replace Refined Grains and Sugars
Refined sugar and white flour sabotage your weight loss efforts by supplying a rush of energy followed by a crash, which typically sends you back to the kitchen for more of the sweet stuff. Eliminate white pasta, white rice, white bread and sugar from your diet and replace them with whole-grain bread, brown rice and the natural sugars in fruit.
10. Eat Your Veggies
Enjoy a fresh, green salad before lunches and dinners to fill up on fiber, water and precious nutrients. With calories in the single digits, leafy greens are a solid foundation for your weight loss efforts. Fill up on these and you'll leave less room for calorie-dense dinners.
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