Insider Secrets To Weight Loss

Those extra pounds you're packing around your waist don't just affect your appearance, but they also raise your risk of encountering health problems like high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. If you find staying on your weight loss track more difficult than staying on a treadmill running at 100 mph, weight loss experts have identified a few secrets for weight loss success. Their tips may seem unconventional, but they may be just what you need to drop those pounds.

Break Your Diet

Once a week, binge and eat anything you want. If you crave donuts, a pint of ice cream or a rack of ribs, go ahead and enjoy them once every seven days. This helps you lose weight in two ways. First, it revs up your metabolism and creates a hormonal change that can help you lose weight. When you're on a strict diet, caloric restriction can cause your body to enter into "starvation mode," which also slows down your metabolism. This breaks that cycle. Second, knowing that you'll get to enjoy all your favorite foods soon can help motivate you to stick to your diet the rest of the week.

Limit Your Options

If you've ever ordered a six-course meal in a restaurant, you've probably noticed how you felt full after the first five courses, but suddenly had more room to eat once dessert was offered. That's not just your imagination. Your brain experiences satiety associated with a specific food or flavor. Therefore, limit your meal selection to just one or two different foods. The more options you have, the more tempted you'll be to keep eating.

Spoil Your Meal

Your mom probably scolded you when you snacked before dinner, telling you that you were spoiling your meal. But that's exactly what you want when you're trying to lose weight. Try eating a 100-calorie snack 30 minutes before lunch and dinner -- that's a handful of nuts or a cup of fresh fruit. This starts the hormone process that tells your brain that you are full.

Do Morning Workouts

Running, jogging and other forms of cardio burn up excess calories and can help you lose weight faster than by just dieting. Working out in the morning ranks as one of the top secrets to weight loss by "Health" magazine. If you schedule your workouts during the late afternoon or evening, it's easy to postpone it when you're tired or bump it to another day if you're caught up in a busy day in the office.

Drink 10 Glasses of Water

Staying properly hydrated doesn't just keep your body humming along in tip-top shape. It also fills your stomach and helps zap any hunger pains you may be experiencing. Best of all, water has zero calories so you don't do your waist any wrong. If water bores you to death, try other zero or low-calorie drinks, like antioxidant-rich green tea.