7 Ways To Drop The Pounds
For more detailed information refer to my articles What to eat & why and Plan to eat & why.
Get one hours extra sleep a night
A recent study from the University of Chicago showed that getting just one extra hour of sleep a night helped people to lose half a stone. Dr Esra Tasali of the University of Chicago found that when young, overweight adults who usually slept fewer than 6.5 hours a night increased this by an average of 1.2 hours a night they consumed 270 fewer calories a day, largely because they were sleeping when they usually snacked late at night. Tasali says the reduction in energy intake roughly translated to 26lbs of weight loss over three years — or about half a stone a year — if the effects were maintained long-term.
Create an Eating Window
Studies have shown that restricting your eating to within 8-10 hours a day and fasting for the other 16-14 hours is among the best ways to shed half a stone. A review published last year by Krista Varady, professor of kinesiology and nutrition at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago, found that so-called time-restricted eating — confining food intake to a specified number of hours a day — led to people losing an average of 3 per cent of their body weight (half a stone in some cases), regardless of what time of day they chose for the eating window. “You’re fooling your body into eating a little bit less and that’s why people are losing weight,” Varady said.
Lift weights three times a week
People who do some form of resistance training for muscle-strengthening are about 20-30 per cent less likely to become very overweight over time than people who avoid it, found a study in the journal Plos One. And last year researchers at the University of New South Wales revealed we can lose up to half a stone in five months through strength training alone. According to Dr Mandy Hagstrom, an exercise scientist at UNSW, you would need to do 45-60 minutes of resistance training three times a week to see fat loss. “Our findings show that even when strength training is done on its own, it still causes a favourable loss of body fat without having to consciously diet or go running,” Hagstrom says.
Eat a dollop of plain yogurt every day
Being protein-rich, yoghurt makes you feel more full than a high-carb breakfast, meaning it can help to ward off hunger pangs for a couple of hours afterwards, and eating it regularly could aid weight loss. Some researchers have suggested consuming calcium-rich foods such as yoghurt makes it harder for the body to absorb fat from food. And a review of 22 studies for a paper in the International Journal of Obesity found that yoghurt-eaters typically have smaller waists and lower body fat than those who don’t consume it very often or at all. “It needs to be plain milk yoghurt, with nothing else added to it, for the benefits,” says the nutrition therapist Ian Marber.
Eat more fermented foods
Foods such as kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut and kombucha help to improve the health of the microbiome, the trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi that inhabit our gut, and in turn can also help to control weight. Indeed, researchers at the University of Washington established that the presence of good gut microbes influenced how many pounds dieters were able to lose. Those who consistently shed at least a couple of pounds each month had greater microbial diversity from a varied diet. “Our microbiome helps to regulate the metabolism and influences whether we are lean or overweight,” says Dr Megan Rossi, a research fellow in the department of nutritional sciences at King’s College London. “And fermented foods are very beneficial for gut health.“
Eat dark berries every day
Consuming dark-coloured berries provides a dose of fibre, vitamin C and flavonoids, naturally occurring plant compounds such as anthocyanins, which boost health but also help you to shed weight, according to research by Aedin Cassidy, professor of biological sciences at Queen’s University Belfast. In one of her studies involving 124,086 people followed for up to 24 years, published in the British Medical Journal, Cassidy found that middle-aged people who ate regular portions of berries, cherries or apples put on no weight over two decades and got slimmer. Keep mixed frozen berries in the freezer — and make sure blackcurrants and blueberries are included. Recent studies suggest the high levels of anthocyanins in blackcurrants help the body to prioritise fat as fuel. Researchers at the University of Chichester said berry consumption was particularly effective at blasting thigh fat in women.
If you need to snack have nuts
Between meals, opt for a few plain, unroasted Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios or walnuts. Research has found that dieters who snacked on 40g of these tree nuts, rather than a plain pretzel snack, lost about half a stone in 12 weeks. After 24 weeks the nut-snackers were maintaining the weight loss, whereas the pretzel eaters were putting pounds back on, despite them containing the same number of calories. “Tree nuts are a great source of protein, healthy fats and fibre, which is what makes them so satiating,” explained Zhaoping Li, professor of medicine at UCLA and lead author of the paper.