3 Painless Ways to Lose Weight

Painless weight loss? If you're desperately trying to squeeze in workouts and avoid your favorite high-calorie treats, it can seem like there's nothing pain-free about it. Yet while eating healthier and slipping in exercise does take some work, it really doesn't have to require heroic effort. Making just a few simple lifestyle changes can pack a big weight loss punch over time. WebMD spoke to weight loss experts and everyday people who've figured out a few painless ways to lose weight -- and keep it off. Here are their top tips on how to lose weight without sweating it too much. 1. Add, Don't Subtract Forget diet denial: Try adding foods to your diet instead of subtracting them. Add in healthy goodies you really love, like deep-red cherries, juicy grapes, or crunchy snow peas. Slip those favorite fruits into your bag lunch and breakfast cereal; add the veggies into soups, stews, and sauces. "Adding in really works, taking away never does," says registered dietitian David Grotto, RD, LDN, author of 101 Optimal Life Foods, but do remember to keep an eye on overall calories. And don't forget to add in something physical, too, whether it's doing a few dance moves before dinner, shooting hoops, or taking a quick stroll. 2. Forget About Working Out If the word "exercise" inspires you to creative avoidance, then avoid it. Maybe the trick to enjoying a workout may be to never call it working out. "There's some truth to that," Grotto tells WebMD, and once you start your not-calling-it-exercise plan, Grotto says you'll discover "the way good health feels knocks down the roadblocks that were preventing you from exercising in the first place." So burn calories and invigorate muscles by beachcombing, riding bikes, grass skiing, making snow angels, hiking, washing the car, playing Frisbee, chasing the dog around the yard, or even enjoying great sex. After all, a rose by any other name ... 3. Go Walking Walking when the weather's nice is a super-easy way to keep fit, says Diane Virginias, a certified nursing assistant from New York. "I enjoy the seasons," she says, adding that even when she's short on time she'll go out for a few minutes. "Even a five minute walk is a five minute walk."

Top 5 foods that can help you lose weight

Diet food 1: Grapefruit
We've all heard of the grapefruit diet but you don't have to live on a diet of grapefruit alone to lose weight. It's been found that that eating half a grapefruit before each meal or drinking a serving of the juice three times a day can help you drop the pounds. The magic ingredient is the fruit's phytochemicals and their effect of reducing insulin levels which stimulates your body to convert calories into energy rather than storing as flabby fat.

Diet food 2: Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a super spice when it comes to boosting your wellbeing as it has many health-giving properties. In terms of weight loss, it's all to do with controlling those post-meal insulin spikes, which is what make you feel hungry. And you don't need to get much of the stuff to get the benefits; studies have shown that just a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon a day can lower the blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels. To up your cinnamon intake either sprinkle it on to your breakfast cereal, or maybe mix it into your morning latte.

Diet food 3: Chili peppers
Adding a bit of heat to your diet can give you a weight-loss boost. Studies show that having a spicy start to your morning, i.e. eating chilies as a part of your breakfast can make you opt for a smaller lunch. Apparently it's down to capsaicin which is found in chilies and red peppers that has appetite suppressing properties. Granted — chilies aren't the easiest of items to face as your morning meal but how about as a part of a spicy egg-white omelette or stirred into scrambled eggs for a spicy weight loss kick.

Diet food 4: Fennel tea
Again fennel tea is a food stuff that boasts a list of health giving benefits; it's packed with good levels of potassium, magnesium and calcium as well as the vitamins B and C. But when it comes to the weight-loss stakes fennel had a double benefit: working both as an appetite suppressant and a metabolism booster which really are both useful if you're trying to lose weight. Fennel tea is widely available in supermarkets so add it to your daily diet to stave off cravings and boost your fuel burn.

Diet food 5: Salad
Eating a low-calorie salad before your main meals can help you to lose weight and ensure you get recommended daily intake of veggies. And it's not rocket science as to how it works for weight loss, the key is the sheer volume of a salad, which makes you feel too full to pig out when it comes to your main meal. You need to make sure you don't drown it in a fatty dressing though — a little olive oil and balsamic vineg

How to Lose Weight - The Basics of Weight Loss

At it's most basic, losing weight is about burning more calories than you eat. That seems simple enough, but if were really that simple, none of us would have a weight problem. Too often we take drastic measures to see results -- diets, pills or those weird fitness gadgets on infomercials that promise instant success.

Maybe you lose weight but what happens when you go off that diet or stop that crazy workout program? You gain it all back and more. The real secret to weight loss is to make small, lasting changes. The key is to forget about instant results and settle in for the long run.

To lose one pound of fat, you must burn approximately 3500 calories over and above what you already burn doing daily activities.

That sounds like a lot of calories and you certainly wouldn't want to try to burn 3500 calories in one day. However, by taking it step-by-step, you can determine just what you need to do each day to burn or cut out those extra calories. Below is a step by step process for getting started.

1. Calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate). Your BMR is the amount of calories your body needs to maintain basic bodily functions like breathing and digestion. This is the minimum number of calories you need to eat each day. Keep in mind that no calculator will be 100% accurate, so you may need to adjust these numbers as you learn more about your own metabolism.

2. Calculate your activity level. For a week or so, keep an activity journal and use a calorie calculator to figure out how many calories you burn while sitting, standing, exercising, lifting weights, etc. throughout the day. Another, easier option is to wear a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned. After a week, add your totals for each day and average them out to get a general idea of how many calories you burn each day.

3. Keep track of how many calories you eat. For at least a week, enter and track your calories online (e.g., with Calorie Count) or use a food journal to write down what you eat and drink each day. Be as accurate as possible, measuring when you need to or looking up nutritional information for restaurants, if you eat out. After a week, add your totals for each day and average them out to get a general idea of how many calories you eat each day.

4. Add it up. Take your BMR number and add your activity calories. Then subtract your food calories from that total. If you're eating more than your BMR + your activity calories, you're at risk for gaining weight.

WHY WE SHOULD LOSE WEIGHT

It's no wonder losing weight is on the minds of so many people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 68 percent of American adults are either overweight or obese. But understanding the reasons behind why you should lose weight can be one of the most motivating factors, especially for people who may be facing life-threatening medical conditions.

Health Risks
The impact being overweight or obese has on your body is one of the main reasons to lose weight. The more weight you gain, the more at risk you put yourself for some serious medical conditions. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, type-2 diabetes, sleep apnea, arthritis and even some forms of cancer are linked to carrying around excess weight. According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 112,000 people die every year from conditions related to being overweight or obese. Even losing a moderate amount of weight when you're obese -- 5 to 10 percent -- can significantly reduce your risk for chronic disease.

Physical Fitness
Being overweight or obese also prevents you from being in top physical condition. Even if you're not looking to become a triathlon champion, physical fitness has an impact on your daily life. Excess weight, especially around your midsection, may make it harder for you to breath, making simple tasks like walking up stairs or even walking out to your mailbox more difficult. Exercise that leads to weight loss will help you get back your physique and make it easier to perform the everyday tasks that now seem difficult.

Self-Confidence
For many, how much you weigh has a direct influence on how you feel about yourself. Being overweight can make it so you can't fit in your favorite clothes. Some people are even embarrassed about going out in public because of their weight. According to the CDC, people who lose weight and keep it off end up feeling not only better physically, but emotionally as well.

Considerations
Talk to your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. If you have certain medical conditions or are severely overweight, your doctor can help customize a weight-loss program that will meet your special needs. Be sure to set realistic and reachable goals with your weight loss. Failing to do so may result in setbacks and frustration that could cause you to abandon your weight-loss efforts.

5 small changes to help you lose weight

Tim Kassouf lost 45 pounds, and it all started when he got really mad at his girlfriend.
Kassouf, a 24-year-old marketing manager in Baltimore, Maryland, was moaning to his beloved that he'd gained weight recently.

He was worried. The men in his family are prone to heart attacks, and his grandfather died of one at age 29.But instead of giving Kassouf the sympathy he expected, his girlfriend told him off.

"She said, 'You keep complaining about it but do nothing about it.' I was angry she said that, but she was totally right," Kassouf said.


Inspired, Kassouf made radical changes in his diet."That would last about a day," he said.So he moved on to Plan B: small changes.

That worked. Four years after he got mad at his girlfriend, Kassouf weighs 200 pounds, down from 245, mostly by focusing on a few parts of his diet without changing everything.

"What I started to realize is, it didn't have to be all or nothing," he said.
There's actually a name for what Kassouf did: It's called the "small changes approach." James Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is the father of the movement, and in this month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he writes about how "small changes are more feasible to achieve and maintain than large changes."
For Kassouf, small changes started with soda.

"I was probably drinking 10 Cokes a day," he said. By switching out those Cokes for water, Kassouf saved 1,400 calories a day.

Then he worked on his snacking. He used to eat a 12-ounce bag of Doritos while watching television.

"The show would be over, and the bag would be empty," he said.
Now, he takes a handful out of the bag and puts it on a plate, and that's all he eats, saving 1,350 calories a day.

Kassouf said he lost about 5 pounds just by making the Coke and Doritos changes and then lost 15 more by cutting down on sweets and switching from white flour to wheat flour. Exercising helped him shed 25 more pounds.

Hill said it's tough to say exactly how many calories you have to cut to lose a pound, but he encourages people to think of it this way: By eating 100 fewer calories each day, you can avoid the weight gain that comes with getting older.
Most people gain a pound or two a year, he said, which can really add up. A svelte 130-pound 18-year-old could turn into an overweight 170-pound 38-year-old.

Why Do You Want To Lose Weight

Reasons may vary from person to person, but the main reason for why lose weight has to be the pressure to look and be perfect.

Everywhere you look you are surrounded by constant reminders which tell you that in order to be happy, successful, respected and have strong personal relationships you need to be thin and beautiful.

However from this description alone, this desire to fit into what is considered ‘beautiful’ can undermine your self- esteem, your confidence and how you actually perceive yourself.

It is no wonder with such constant pressures that the following statistics have emerged:

• In the past 20+ years, the centre-fold for Playboy has lost 25lbs and weighs 18% less than the medical ideal

• Fashion models are a staggering 23% below the average weight of an ordinary woman. In a recent BMI study many actresses and models were found to have 10-15% body fat compared to 22-26% for a normal, healthy woman

• In the Miss World contest a few years ago it was discovered that the average contestant weighed below the US’s standard weight for anorexia

• In a 1994 survey by Glamour (conducted on 33,000 women), 75% thought they were overweight when in fact only 25% fitted into this category

• Placed in a hall of distorting mirrors, of the women surveyed, the vast majority believed the mirror which made them look fatter was their real selves whilst the mirrors which reflected their real selves or made them look thinner they thought were false

More worryingly, as the ideal body becomes thinner, we as a nation are becoming bigger creating an even more substantial gap between the two.
How to lose weight

If you are genuinely interested in losing weight, it is important that you don’t get caught up in these preconceptions of what is or isn’t considered to be beautiful.
As the above statistics prove, an unhealthy obsession with your weight can result in dangerously low BMI’s or even anorexia; neither of which are not good for your overall health or wellbeing.

To achieve your why lose weight goal you need to plan a proper diet, exercise regularly and possibly use diet pills to help you experience a safe, steady weight loss of 1-2lbs a week.

Natural herbal supplements such as Proactol help you to reduce your dietary fat intake by up to 28% whilst suppressing your appetite, thus helping you to naturally decrease your meal portions at a pace that is right for you.

Want To Lose Weight?: Consider the Situational Values of Values

Dieting and weight control are really pretty simple. We gain weight and have trouble losing it because we eat too much and move too little. If we can switch that around, most of us should be able to maintain a sensible weight without resorting to unhealthy gimmicks.

But that’s just the biology of weight control. What about the psychology? Why do we habitually take in too many calories, even when we know those calories are a ticket to obesity and all sorts of chronic diseases?

There are two major reasons for unhealthy weight, according to experts. One is a simple lack of self-control. We live in a society where every day we confront an abundance of high-calorie foods. Not overeating in this environment requires extraordinary discipline.

The second is an inability to cope with stress. Struggling with ordinary but constant life stresses can drain the cognitive energy needed for discipline, weakening our resolve. Stress-related eating packs on unhealthy calories, contributing to weight gain — and over time to obesity.

What if there were a simple psychological intervention that addressed both of these issues at once — bolstering self-control and buffering against everyday stress?
I know. It sounds like one more gimmick, too good to be true. Perhaps, but in a new study, two psychological scientists propose just such an intervention — along with some preliminary evidence to back it up.

Christine Logel of the University of Waterloo, Ontario, and Geoffrey Cohen of Stanford University describe a brief and simple way to give people the tools for resisting temptation and coping with life’s pressures.

It’s called “values affirmation,” and it’s done with a simple writing exercise. The theory is that focusing on one’s core values triggers a cascade of psychological processes: It bolsters a sense of self-worth and personal integrity.

It underscores our higher values rather than our impulses, and by reminding us what’s really important in life, it buffers against mundane stresses. Since stress saps our limited cognitive resources, such an affirmation frees up these resources for willpower and self-discipline.

At least that’s the theory, which Logel and Cohen tested in a simple experiment. They recruited a group of young women (apparently, women are more prone to stress-related overeating), recording their baseline weight and body mass index, or BMI.

The women were representative of North American women in general. That is, nearly 60 percent were overweight or obese, the rest normal. Notably, all were dissatisfied with their current weight.

Then half of the women wrote an essay about their most cherished values — religious beliefs, relationships, whatever they considered most important to them. The remainder, the controls, wrote about something they did not prize particularly, and why it might be important to someone else. Importantly, none of the values in the exercise had to do with weight or health.

That’s it. That’s the entire intervention. Then the scientists waited for about 2.5 months, at which point they called all the volunteers back into the lab. They again measured their weight and BMI, and also their waistlines.

They also gave the volunteers a test of working memory, which is one of the cognitive processes crucial to self-control. Reducing stress should theoretically boost working memory capacity, and consequently discipline.

The results, reported online in the journal Psychological Science, were clear and quite dramatic. The control subjects gained 2.76 pounds on average, and this gain boosted average BMI as well. Anyone who has ever struggled with weight knows that this is a huge weight gain in just 2.5 months.

It’s the equivalent of more than 13 pounds in a year — for no particular reason. By contrast, those who had completed the values affirmation lost an average of 3.4 pounds — also huge — and trimmed their BMI in the process.

Women in the values intervention also had smaller waistlines, independent of BMI. And these women also had better working memory, suggesting that it was indeed their enhanced cognitive function that bolstered their self control. Even the most seriously overweight women experienced these dramatic results after the brief writing exercise.

Losing even a few pounds and keeping them off can be maddeningly difficult. So how could one brief intervention like this have such long-term results? The scientists believe that people can get stuck in repeating cycles, in which failure to lose weight impairs psychological functioning, which in turn increases the risk of more failure. Even a quick and simple intervention has the power to disrupt this destructive cycle.