Whether your goal is to ditch the unwanted love handles, avoid being body shamed, get a chiseled physique to impress your significant other, or just to enhance your overall well being, we’ve got you covered! There are many fad diets that claim to be your shortcut to weight loss but they more often than not make you eliminate an entire food group and end up being nutritionally unbalanced. There are many components that come into play during weight loss. It’s not effective to just stick to one meal plan and put the other components on the back burner. If you want to live a healthier life when shedding weights, read on for more tips.
Detox: Stay Hydrated
Staying hydrated is the best way to flush the toxins out of your body, make you appear more radiant, and boost metabolism. Juice cleansing has taken the world by storm and even the less health-conscious individuals are slowly jumping on the bandwagon. We highly recommend drinking cold-pressed juice regularly to remove the toxin from your body, purify your skin, and boost the immune system. Cold-pressed juice is made by using the hydraulic process to extract the juice from vegetables and fruits and since there’s no heat produced during the process, it keeps the nutrients intact and kills off the unwanted bacteria. It has been shown to combat chronic illnesses and aid weight loss.
Meal Breakdown
A balanced intake of macronutrients like protein, fat, and carbohydrates is essential. If you completely eliminate one macronutrient from your diet, you may wind up with nutrition deficiency. Some fad diets suggest you restrict your intake of carbohydrates whereas the Dietary Guideline for Americans recommends having a diet of 1,200 calories a day with at least 130 grams of carbohydrates to maintain your brain and central nervous system functions. There’s no one size fits all for weight loss and health so tailor your own meal plan instead of recklessly following the trend.
Use Mindfulness to Lay Off Unhealthy Habits
Psychiatrist and addiction expert Judson Brewer suggests that we can use mindfulness to harness our brain’s habit-forming process to build more nourishing habits and lay off unhealthy cravings. Our habits are more often than not formed and triggered by context-dependent memory. The best way to lay off unhealthy habits is through acknowledging and being mindful of the repercussions of our unhealthy habits. The learning process is called negative reinforcement. For instance, you can quit smoking by being mindful of how you hate the smell of it and then transform the wisdom into behavior. By being disenchanted with your behavior, the prefrontal cortex, the youngest part of our brain will understand on an intellectual level that the behavior is unhealthy and help us suppress the cravings.
Get Enough Sleep
It goes without saying that sleep is incredibly important. Studies have shown that short sleep duration can lead to heart disease, obesity, and weight fluctuation. Try to meditate before sleep using meditation apps to guide you through the experience, or think of five small things that you’re grateful for for the day. Showing gratitude is the gateway to mindfulness and the best way to release stress.