Simple Tips For Faster Weight Loss

Successful and permanent weight loss requires small life style decisions that integrate healthy food and exercise choices into a daily routine. While the thought of losing weight may seem overwhelming, incorporating small, easy tips into your life helps trim your waistline in a more effective manner.

Downsize Plate and Bowls

A 2006 Cornell study, "Ice-Cream Illusion: Bowls, Spoons and Self-Served Portion Sizes", revealed that participants who used larger bowls than other participants increased their ice cream intake by 30 percent. Increasing the ice-cream scooper size upped intake by 14.5 percent. Brian Wansink, a consumer researcher affiliated with the study, encourages persons to give their kitchen a makeover and downsize plates, bowls and utensils. Using smaller plates prevents overeating and trims your daily intake of calories, contributing to faster weight loss.

Small Bouts of Exercise

Exercise add ups. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends breaking up exercise throughout the day to meet 30-minute minimum requirement. Increasing daily activity to 60 minutes per day will burn more calories and cause faster weight loss. Exercising for 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes during lunch and 10 minutes after bed is just as effective as exercising for 30 continuous minutes. Using commercial breaks to do a set of push-ups, lunges or any other exercise is an easy way to burn calories and speed up weight loss.

Fruits and Vegetables

Fruits and vegetables are high in water and fiber---they are filling foods that are low in calories and fat. Fruits and vegetables contribute to a healthy diet while lowering caloric intake. Cleaning up your diet and steering away from processed foods and towards fruits and vegetables will hasten your fat loss.

Eat Breakfast Every Day

Eating breakfast helps control blood sugar levels and hunger. A healthy breakfast helps your body stay nourished throughout the day. According to Mayo Clinic, those who don't eat breakfast are vulnerable to overeating and making poor food choices during the rest of the day. Breakfast provides fuel for the body; not eating it leads to feeling sluggish and lethargic and may limit the amount of physical activity that you do throughout the day. Eat breakfast to be active, burn calories during the day and prevent yourself from choosing high calorie or high fat food.

Eat When Hungry

According to Mayo Clinic, food may serve as a distraction during stressful, anxious or boring situations. Learning your body's cues and responding to them appropriately will speed up your weight loss. For example, when you feel a craving or want to eat something, utilize the acronym H.A.L.T. Ask yourself if you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired. If you are hungry, make a smart food choice and eat something. If you want to eat to quell an emotion or avoid a situation, find another coping mechanism. Go for a walk, take a bath or call a friend. Emotional eating hinders well-meaning efforts to lose weight---addressing emotional or stress eating will remove it as a weight loss obstacle.