How to Lose Weight – Diet Plan, Exercises and Tips

The world wants an easy solution when it comes to weight loss. In order to achieve the same, one must understand how to lose weight. The most common answer would be to simply lose more calories than you consume.

This would create a calorie deficit, allowing no excess calories to be stored as fat, thereby resulting in weight loss. However, you need to plan out your routine carefully in order to reduce weight. Focus on improving your lifestyle, and the results will start to show.

14 Simple Tips to Lose Weight

It is a common misconception that you need to make major changes to your daily routine to reduce weight. Simple lifestyle changes, in day-to-day life, can also help you lose weight. Follow these 14 weight loss tips to get started on your own fitness journey.

#1 Pick home cooked meals over eating out

The benefits of eating home cooked meals cannot be stressed enough. Research shows that people who eat home-cooked meals for five or more days a week tend to have longer, healthier lives than those who do not.

While we are not suggesting completely eliminating your social life, saying NO to every second opportunity to eat out will bring about a 50% reduction in the consumption of processed foods, sugars, and oil.

#2 Maintain a Food Diary

Studies have shown that awareness of what one eats helps maintain their food portions. Keeping a food diary can play a key role in ensuring this.

It helps keep track of the calories you consume, and in the process, helps you understand what you should and should not eat. A food diary can also help you plan your meals ahead, in order to maintain your calorie budget.

#3 Start your day with a heavy breakfast

Data sourced from analyzing the eating patterns of people across the globe shows that people who have power breakfast tend to lose weight faster.

When you eat breakfast, you activate the thermogenesis process and thus, stimulate your metabolism. Besides, studies have shown that eating a meal in the morning boosts your metabolism more than eating the same meal in the evening.

#4 Fill your pantry with healthy food

Having healthy food around at all times can also play a major role in weight loss. With only healthy food in your pantry, you are likely to snack on them whenever you’re hungry. This way you don’t binge on unhealthy food, and this goes a long way in preventing unnecessary weight gain.

#5 Up your physical activity with daily chores

Work on as many daily chores as possible. It can be as simple as watering plants or as intense as building your own tree house. The idea here is to use your hands and feet to engage in a physical activity that has a well-defined goal.

Doing these chores will also release endorphins that boost your mood, apart from helping you burn calories.

#6 Load up on healthy snacks before a party

The food you eat at parties, along with the alcohol you drink, can be a major cause for weight gain. The combination of oily food and alcoholic or sugary beverages is known to be unhealthy.

Having a healthy salad before attending a party can help you feel full faster, preventing you from snacking on unhealthy food once you’re there. This reduces your calorie intake, and in turn, helps you lose weight.

#7 Smaller plates lead to smaller meals

Psychologically, you feel like the food consumed is less if you have eaten from a large plate. Trick your mind into feeling full by eating from a smaller plate, and reduce the possibility of overeating.

#8 Take the stairs instead of the elevator

While taking the elevator may seem a lot easier to do than the stairs, it is not healthier. Start with just one or two floors and then eventually move on to climbing the whole flight of stairs. This way you can burn calories on your way to work, or at home, on a daily basis.

#9 Say ‘No’ to late night TV

Watching TV late at night delays your sleep and activates brain cells, thus, causing hunger pangs in the middle of the night. Cutting down on late night TV can help prevent this. In addition to that, lack of sleep can indirectly lead to further weight gain.

#10 Drink more water

People tend to mistake their thirst for hunger, thus, making them eat a lot more than necessary. Staying hydrated throughout the day can help in this case. The next time you think you’re hungry, ask yourself if you are thirsty first, and then decide if you want to eat food or whether a glass of water will suffice.

#11 Eat your meals slowly

It takes your stomach about 20 minutes to signal to the brain that it is full. If you gobble up your food faster than that, you may end up eating twice as much as your stomach’s capacity. Chewing your food slowly will help reduce the amount of food you eat, and ultimately result in weight loss.

#12 Eat more fruits

While they are low in calories, fruits are rich in vitamins, fiber and several other nutrients, making them the perfect foods for weight loss. The higher fiber content makes you feel full faster, and keeps you from overeating. Thus, fruits are generally associated with natural weight loss. Snack on fruit in between meals, and see the wonders they can do.

#13 Increase your protein intake

Look to include a good quality protein source in every meal. This will help in building stamina, strengthening your body, and boosting metabolism. The right amount of protein in your meals is known to aid in weight loss as well.

#14 Cut Back on Added Sugar

According to several studies, added sugar increases the risk of obesity along with other lifestyle disorders like type 2 diabetes, and heart diseases. One easy hack to lose weight is to consume less added sugar. Reading labels of the foods you purchase is one way of doing this, since some of the so-called healthy foods also contain a good amount of sugar.

Weight Loss at Home

Although it was popularly believed that it is difficult to lose weight at home, this need not be true. The right kind of diet plan and workout routine is key here. It is said that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. The right focus on a proper meal plan can also help you lose weight at home without exercise.

1200 Calorie Diet Plan

A proper diet is key to one’s weight loss journey with or without exercise. However, following the right diet chart becomes all the more important in case one chooses to lose weight without a workout routine.

To give you a better idea of how you need to go about planning your diet, we have put together a 1200 calorie diet plan. That said, dietary needs vary from person to person. Consult a nutritionist in order to understand what kind of plan works best for you, based on your needs and health conditions.  

• Start your day early with two lukewarm glasses of lemon water at 6:00 AM. Have a tablespoon of ground flax seeds to go with the lemon water.
• Wait a couple of hours before eating breakfast. Eat a katori of vegetable poha to along with a katori of skimmed curd.
• Have a late morning snack in the form of 2 cups of diced watermelon. Fresh fruits are an essential part of any healthy diet, and can aid weight loss.
• Consume a bowl of mixed vegetable salad a few minutes before you settle for lunch.
• Have a katori of skim curd and a katori of paneer onion tomato bhurji at 2:00 PM. You can have a whole wheat roti or chapati to go with this.
• Drink a cup of tea without any sugar at around 3:30 in the evening.
• In the evening, snack on a katori of sprouted mung and chana chaat.
• Like the salad right before lunch, consume a bowl of boiled mixed vegetable salad a few minutes before dinner as well.
• For the last major meal of the day, have a whole wheat roti or chapati accompanied by two katoris of palak moong dal.
• End your day with one teacup of skimmed milk.

The key to a good weight loss diet is to ensure that your meals are balanced. While it is important to make sure you’re burning more calories than you consume, you also need to include all the nutrients you need to live a healthy life.

While this 1200 calories a day diet plan will serve you well, you can also find a diet plan that you can follow in a week here.

Easy Home Exercises for Weight Loss

A common problem among a large chunk of the working classes seems to be the inability to workout on a daily basis. The lack of time to visit a gym is the main culprit for the same.

However, one can always pick out a workout routine that does not require any gym equipment. This full-body workout is one that can be completed entirely at home without the need of any gym based equipment.

Weight Loss While Traveling

It is common for individuals to let their hair down while on vacation. In the process, they also tend to leave their healthy lifestyles behind.

While it may seem alright to take a few days off from your usual healthy routine, it could have a negative impact on your weight loss journey. Let Sr. Nutritionist, Dr. Priyanka Marakini, give you a few tips that you can follow to maintain your routine while on vacation.

Make Healthy Foods Interesting

A common problem among people that find it difficult to lose weight is the inability to follow a healthy diet. It is often looked at as monotonous or boring, especially compared to some of the unhealthy foods.

One easy way to fix this problem is by making small changes to the healthy foods you consumed, in order to make them more ‘fun’. HealthifyMe Sr. Nutritionist, Alpa Momaya, has 5 tips to make your healthy meals interesting.

A weight loss journey may not be as straightforward as it seems in theory. Lifestyle changes contribute greatly to achieving the results one desires. That said, it is ideal to aim to lose weight naturally without using supplements.

Following the 14 simple tips that we have put together would make a major difference in getting you started. Put your best foot forward, and begin your fitness journey today.