How To Lose Weight At Home – Just Follow These 25 Simple Tips

          

One of the main reasons we love flipping through those popular celebrity magazines is to check out those fabulously toned and sculpted figures. Almost all of us have envied these perfect bodies, telling ourselves that the only reason celebs can manage to look so good is because they have the luxury of a personal trainer or dietician.That is absolutely incorrect. Those perfect bodies that you see in magazines can be easily achieved, that too without spending a fortune! You don’t need to sign up for a gym or a nutrition expert or any specific class to achieve a fit body. All you need is a little time each day and the resolve to continue with your healthy habits in the long run. Here are some simple yet effective tips for weight loss at home.

25 Simple Tips for Losing Weight At Home:

Here are some tips to lose weight at home naturally. Have a look at them:

1. Have A Willing Mind:

• The first thing you need in your quest to lose weight and stay fit is a strong mind.
• First off you need to assess yourself and decide how much weight you need to lose.
• This should be based on your overall health, your height, age, and bone structure.
• Be realistic. Do not expect yourself to look like a supermodel after losing weight.
• Once you make the mental preparations, you can start the actual work.

2. Focus On Your Diet:

• What you really need to focus on is your diet.
• When losing weight, many people feel that it is okay to eat what you want and then work out a lot. This is completely incorrect.
• The secret behind getting fit is included 80 percent in your diet, while the rest 20 percent lies in working out.
• This is an integral part in losing weight at home and being able to sustain it.

3. Note Down What You Are Eating:

Making a note of what you are eating will help you assess your fitness requirements.
• For a week, eat in your normal manner and record what you eat. Write down everything in a daily journal.
• This will help you to see just how much extra or unhealthy you are eating than you actually realise.
• Once you start writing this down, go over the list and see what all you can avoid eating.
• The idea is to understand what you should continue to eat and what you shold remove from your diet.
• Do not count calories or start measuring your spoons.

4. Know What You Eat:

• Assess your normal meals and figure out where you are eating in excess. Can you cut the extra helping of rice? Or cut down the 4 biscuits with tea to two, or even reduce your sugar intake by a little? As with any quest, losing weight is a cumulative effort and the little things take you a long way.
• Get rid of fried or fatty food in your fridge.
• Replace the unhealthy with healthier things.
• Substitute whole milk for 1.25% percent milk.
• Switch to tofu paneer instead of normal paneer when making a stir fry.
• When writing down what you are eating, make sure to be true to yourself. Do not make slight adjustments to make yourself feel like you are eating less. Even though it may be exhausting, try to make sure you write down every little thing you eat, even the little tasting you do while cooking. Make sure that the portion sizes you write down are accurate.
• Be specific about how the food was made. Was it boiled, grilled, steamed, stir fried or fried? If so, how much oil did you use?
• Last but not the least, stick to the food journal and make sure you take it everywhere you go. You need to jot down what you are eating even when you eat out with friends!

5. Change The Way You Eat:

• Change the way you eat!
• Drink lots of water to keep you full.
• Stock up on vegetables and fruits and fiber and nutrient rich food to keep your cravings in check.
• The time when you eat is just as important as what you eat.
• It is better to eat smaller meals at an interval of 2 hours. This will help your sugar levels remain stable, thus keeping unnecessary cravings at bay.
• Try to log your food every two to three hours and stay away from having large meals.
• Cut your normal bigger meals into smaller portions and have it at the allowed frequency.
• A very sneaky trick is to serve foods on smaller plates. If you place smaller portions on larger plates you will feel like you are consuming less than what you need. But if you serve the same amount in a smaller plate, you will feel that what is placed in front of you is filling and satisfactory.
• When eating, try to make assorted vegetables the main dish, with lesser amount of meat, fish or dairy.
• Try a stir fry or salad without unnecessary sauces or dressings.
• This will help you to reduce adding any unhealthy food to your body.
• You could even have vegetables like cucumber, carrot and celery sticks as snacks.
• If you have a sweet tooth and crave desserts after dinner, substitute with cut fruits and a light drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

6. What to eat?

When you are trying to lose weight, what you eat is equally important as how much you eat.

a. Foods that Boost Your Metabolism:

Include those foods in your diet that are rich in proteins and will increase metabolic rate. This will help your body to actually burn a larger amount of fat than what you have consumed. If your metabolism gets slow, the fat burning capacity becomes weak. This leads to the fat being piled up in your body, leading to weight gain.

1. Soybeans:

Soybeans are rich in proteins that increase metabolism and help burn more calories.

2. Hot peppers:

All types of hot peppers like chillies (green and red), and jalapenos have a special ingredient called capsaicin. These increase your heart rate and thereby improve metabolism by a good 30%. You calories burn much faster and help to reduce the chances of weight gain.

3. Spices:

Add some spices to your food so that it increases your metabolic rate, as in the case of cinnamon. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon powder to any curry of your choice.

4. Special Smoothie:

This special and yummy smoothie will increase your metabolism and burn down fat.

• Peel some orange slices
• Now blend them along with half a cup of yogurt and half a cup of skimmed milk.
• Blend it and pour it out in a glass and enjoy.
• It burns down the fat, preventing the fat storing hormone called calcitrol

This helps you to avoid putting on weight.

5. Fish:

Salmon, tuna, mackerel are some types of fish that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. These also help to burn those excess calories. Alternatively, you may also take a fish oil capsule every day.

b. Foods Rich in Fiber:

Foods rich in fiber are a good weight loss diet. It keeps your stomach full for a longer time, improves you digestive system and regulates blood sugar.

• Incorporate some foods that are good sources of fiber for lunch.
• Have a medium bowl of pulses with lean meat or fish and some chapattis or brown rice
• Make sure the chapattis are made with a mixture of a few grains like wheat, bajra, jowar or gram flour.
• Eat a good breakfast with rich sources of fiber as it kick starts your metabolism for the rest of the day.
• Cereals or oats with some diced fruits and skimmed milk make a nutrition-rich and fat-free breakfast.
• Optional ingredients come in the form of strawberries, raspberries or bananas as these are all rich in fiber.
• For your snacks, have a bowl of fruits or maybe sprouts.
• You can also opt for two slices of brown bread.
• Have something light for dinner like chapattis, fiber foods and a bowl of green veggie soup with spinach, broccoli or peas in your soup.

c. Anti-oxidants:

Anti-oxidants should also be an important part of your daily diet. These improve metabolism and prevent you from the urge of having unhealthy high-calorie foods. All types of berries, raisins, broccoli, spinach, cherries, eggplant, oranges, onions and red bell peppers are rich in anti-oxidants.

7. Don’t Skip Meals:

• Make sure that you are not skipping meals, as this is a common mistake we tend to make.
• You need to give food to your body to make it lose weight.
• When you skip meals, your body goes into starvation mode. This is when it tries to look for alternative solutions.
• In such a case, it will utilize precious muscle instead of fat to perform our bodily functions, and that is not what we want.

8. Don’t Overdo:

• Taking care of what you eat is important, but you need to be realistic in your approach. Make sure that you keep some space for an occasional cheat food in your dieting rule.
• An occasional cake or cookie can be a perfect temptation when you are watching what you eat.
• Always be prepared for such encounters as these are not things you can give up for life.
• Make sure you do have your guilt food at least once a month, if not more.
• Too much restriction initially can cause you to succumb to temptation, and you will end up overdoing it.

9. Eat At Home As Much As Possible:

• Eating at home for the most part is crucial when you are trying to lose weight.

10. Fluids:

• Just as solid food intake is important for a healthy you, so is your fluid intake.
• You need to drink as much water as you can
• Avoiding calories by reducing your intake of packaged fruit juices, cold drinks or alcohol.
• Pure water or water with some natural flavoring is the best bet.
• You could also make yourself the occasional treat by making some smoothies, but do not add excess sugar, or heavy dairy products to it.

11. Exercise:

• The next aspect is exercise. People often think that it is a chore, but if you find an activity that you truly enjoy, exercise can be just as good a stress buster as a good book, or a cup of tea.
• Look for interesting options like cycling, walking, dancing, hoola hooping and the like.

12. Try To Start Off Small:

Just like with food, assess your activities and switch to things that you can do better.

• If you have a treadmill, try to power walk on it while watching a serial marathon.
• Try to park a few blocks away from work and walk to your work or class.
• Take the steps instead of the elevator
• Walk around the room while on a long phone call.
• Little things like this can increase your metabolic rate, thus helping you lose weight faster.
• You can even add a few small exercises to your routine to do at home if you don’t have the time for a gym.

Here are 3 simple options or home tips for weight loss for those who spend most of their time at home.

a. Jumping jacks:

Before starting off with the rest of the exercise, do jumping jacks to warm up. It increases your heart beat and also gives you the stamina to do the rest of the workouts.

• Stand with your feet at ease and hands by your side.
• Now jump to set your feet apart and simultaneously flinging your arms in the air.
• Jump gain to get back to position 1.

b. Jumping ropes:

Relive your childhood days with jumping ropes. It tones your legs and works on flab and other parts of the body too.

c. Squats:

Doing squats is the best form of freehand exercise. It works on your thighs, abs, the lower back and also the cuffs of your legs.

• Stand with your legs apart at a distance of 1 foot.
• Bend your knees and lower yourself as if you will be sitting on a chair. Lift your hands up straight.
• Bend your knees and stoop down as much as you can.
• Hold this for a few seconds and stand up straight.
• Repeat as many times as possible.

Other than these, you can do crunches and sit-ups.

13. Cardio:

Introduce light cardio into your daily routine, start by walking for shorter periods of time and then switch to jogging, you could also start running on the treadmill or use the elliptical.

14. Workout Videos:

The latest workout trend is workout videos specifically focused on people at home trying to lose weight. You can choose from a variety of things that might possibly interest you, like salsa dancing, ball room dancing, hip hop, kickboxing, martial arts, hula hooping, working the pole, strength training, yoga, Pilates. The list is endless! All you have to do is check online about things that catch your interest.

15. Gym At Home:

Get some gym equipment at home. Things like weight training equipment, push up bars, pull up bars, etc. can be easily purchased online at the local sports store.

16. Try A New Sport:

You could also start a new sport. There are a lot of sports you might have wanted to play, but couldn’t for whatever reasons. This is the right time to start playing them. Focus on the end result and make time.

17. Make Your Own Workout Routine:

Another thing you can do is to make your own workout routine by incorporating various exercises that can be easily and inexpensively done at home. A good routine can be something like follows:

• Warm up for 5 minutes by jogging in one place.
• Now stretch out your body but make sure you do not overdo it.
• Start by jump roping for 5 minutes vigorously.
• Then take a break and climb the stair for five minutes.
• Now get on the ground and do 20 push-ups, 20 supermans, and 20 crunches.
• Next, get up and do 30 squats, 30 skaters and 30 lunges. If you are at a higher level, you could hold some dumb-bells of a comfortable weight while doing the squatting and lunging.
• Then go back to running up and down the stairs for 10 minutes and finally finish off with jump roping for 10 minutes.

This is a very effective routine that combines strength and heavy duty cardio. This routine is enough for anyone trying to lose weight at home fast as it works all the muscle groups and gets your heart rate up.

18. Stay Motivated:

One of the most important aspects is MOTIVATION.

• A person becomes overweight as much as due to accumulating bad habits and bad dietary choices as much as with lack of motivation.
• Most people become overweight and remain so, because they give up easily.
• You need to know how to keep yourself motivated to keep coming back for more.

19.Make Your Diet Public:

Tell the important people in your life what you are doing. Tell them how excited you are at the prospect of having a whole new avatar. Ask them to help you stay motivated and to help you back on track if you seem to falter.

20.Rope In Your Friends:

If you have a close friend who is in the same boat as you, pull them in for the healthier lifestyle choice too. Once you get going, when you are feeling down, your friend maybe motivated and would be able to make you feel better too and vice versa, so you both will be benefiting from trying together.

21. Milestones:

Change the way you look at milestones. Instead of thinking how much more you have to lose, focus on how much you have lost. Focusing on what you have to do will bring you down, but if you focus on what you have achieved, you will be willing to try to do even more.

22. Reward Yourself:

Give yourself non-food related rewards when reaching a milestone. Make your mini milestones as 2.5kg/5lbs and give yourself small non-food related rewards like a pair of shoes or a manicure.

23. Indulge Occasionally:

Allow yourself the occasional indulgence. When you are at a wedding or at a party, give in and have a piece of cake or something that strikes up your fancy. But do not make the indulgences a daily thing.

24. Forgive Yourself:

Learn to forgive yourself. If you slip up, do not torture yourself over it. Do not agonize over the slip up and promise yourself that you will try to do better for the next meal.

25. Do It For Yourself:

Last and the most important tip is to do this for yourself and not for others.

When you stop trying, you are giving up on yourself. You are the most important person in your life and you need to be good to yourself. You only get one body and you need to treat it like you would treat something materialistically precious like a rare art piece or a beloved dress. Think of all those great dresses you will be able to wear and stay motivated!

Keeping all these things in mind and following these home tips for losing weight can in fact be somewhat of an adventure that you end up looking back at as a life altering experience.

Stay motivated and stay healthy!