Losing just 10 percent of your body weight can improve your health and well-being. While there are many different ways to lose weight quickly, the best ones have both science and practical experience to support their use. We'll look at some home remedies that are proven winners, some to definitely avoid, and some that may not have the best data to back them up but may be worth a try.
Proven Home Remedies for Weight Loss
Drink water. Not only vital for life, water can create a temporary feeling of fullness in your stomach. Drinking very cold water may increase the number of calories that you burn as your body has to spend energy to heat the water in your stomach. This number is very small, but every little bit counts over the long term.
Eat fiber. An old home remedy is to eat an apple before every meal, as the fiber from the fruit helps to create a feeling of fullness in the stomach so that you eat less. Raw and lightly cooked fruits and vegetables as well as whole-grain foods and legumes are also rich in fiber.
Home Remedies for Weight Loss to Avoid
Stay away from dieter's tea, sold by many different manufacturers. The main ingredient is usually an herbal laxative such as cascara sagrada. Laxatives may cause short-term weight loss but at a high price: bloating, cramping, diarrhea and a disruption in normal bowel regulation. Most of the weight loss from laxatives is from water, so avoid this so-called tea and other bowel stimulants.
Also avoid over-the-counter herbal stimulants or "energy boosters," as most contain large amounts of caffeine, which can lead to nervousness and insomnia. Some contain synephrine, which is similar to ma huang or ephedra, another very powerful stimulant. While having more energy may be beneficial in the short term, if you use that energy to exercise, with repeated use the effects may diminish. Once you stop using the pills you may experience the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal including headaches, irritability and low energy. That's on top of regaining all of the weight you may have lost while on the pills.
Quirky Home Remedies That Might Be Worth a Try
Tie a string around your waist. As your stomach expands with a meal you'll feel your skin pressing more firmly against the string, encouraging you to stop eating. This is especially useful if you're prone to gobbling food quickly, as your body tends not to receive the "full" signal until about 20 minutes into a meal.
Buy new tableware. Our eyes can indeed be bigger than our stomachs, as research from the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University have shown. Smaller plates, bowls and cups can encourage eating normal-sized portions of food. A cup of soup in a giant bowl will look tiny, but a cup of soup in a bowl that is just a bit larger than one cup appears much more satisfying.
References
- "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition"; Inverse relation between dietary fiber intake and visceral adiposity in overweight Latino youth, Jaimie N Davis, Katharine E Alexander, Emily E Ventura, Claudia M Toledo-Corral and Michael I Goran, November 2009
- "Journal of the American Medical Association"; Super Bowls: Serving Bowl Size and Food Consumption, Brian Wansink, PhD, Matthew M. Cheney, MS, April 2005
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