Natural Health9 Rules for Weight Loss
Weight Loss Rule #1 - Eat More Wholesome, Natural Food
We all know that natural plant-based foods are extremely nutritious and beneficial to our health, yet many overweight people still mindlessly follow those toxin-laden meat diets or any diet that asks you to include meat as part of your dieting regimen.
True, those diets do help you lose weight, but they do nothing to improve your health. Worse, quite a number of them give you side effects like bad breath, headache, constipation, nausea, muscle loss or even hair loss due to malnutrition.
Hence, start picking up the habit of eating more wholesome, natural food from plants. Your body will thank you.
Weight Loss Rule #2 - Eat 5 Meals A Day
Taking 3 meals daily and stuffing your stomach heavily so as to sustain your daily energy expenditure usually backfires by making you become fat.
Instead, break up your 3 normal meals into 3 smaller meal sizes + 2 snacks will greatly improve your productivity and increase your metabolism even further.
Here's a sample schedule to show you what time you should eat to obtain best fat-burning response.
- Breakfast at 6:30 - 7:30 A.M.
- Morning snack at 10 - 10:30 A.M.
- Lunch at 12 - 1 P.M.
- Afternoon snack at 3 - 4 P.M.
- Dinner at 6 - 7 P.M.
This is just a rough guide for you. You can manipulate the timing to fit into your busy schedule. Just remember to maintain a 2 - 3 hours interval between meals.
But bear in mind, don't take supper. If you've been used to that, it's time to kick that habit.
Slim people generally do not eat supper. But it's alright to add a very light healthy snack (no chocolate bar, please) if you do feel hungry right before bedtime.
Weight Loss Rule #3 - Fill Your Stomach to 70%
Most overweight, if not obese tend to fill their stomach to the brim. Food does help stimulate your metabolism. But too much food can generate reverse effect - slow down your entire metabolism and make you sluggish and clumsy.
Always remind yourself to eat just 70% full. Don't waste food. Request for only the portion size you need when you eat out, or share the excess with your friend.
Your stomach needs about 20 minutes to inform your brain about your satiety level, so eat slowly.
Weight Loss Rule #4 - Change Your Food Pattern
If you keep to specific types of food to your liking, you're likely to get stuck at a plateau. That explains why so many dieters experience the so-called weight loss plateau.
Change your food varieties every day and your body will get something "new" to work with.
For example, if you only take fruits, grains, nuts and seeds in your meal plans, no doubt you'll shed 20 - 50 pounds (depending on your body type), you'll eventually face a plateau. What you can do to break free from this plateau is bring more vegetables into your meal plans.
I guarantee you'll break the plateau as easily as turning on your computer.
Note: You can add anything new to your meal plans but not meat as meat carries toxin, bacteria and other harmful micro-organisms, whether raw or processed. Intoxicating your body with meat will only slow down metabolism since your body will need to focus its effort partially on removing those toxins out of your body. Free your body of those harmful stuff and your body will repay with a full-blast metabolic rate.
Weight Loss Rule #5 - Prepare Your Meals at Home
Nothing beats preparing your own meals because you know exactly what you're feeding your body with.
Eating out may likely expose you to poor hygiene of the food preparers, unknown processed ingredients they added to the food to make it tasty, and so forth.
Whenever possible, make your own food. Here are some free raw vegan recipes to help you get started. They're simply delicious (yum yum!)
Weight Loss Rule #6 - Drink Water According to Your Body Needs
There's no hard and fast rules as to how many liters or glasses of water you must consume every day.
Together, your body should hold enough amount of fluid (including water, soup, juice, etc you consume) to sustain your bodily functions properly.
Maintaining a good amount of water in your body triggers your fat-burning engine to stay operative throughout the day.
Some days, particularly cool weather you might only need 5 glasses of water while in hot days you might drink as much as 10 glasses. So long as you don't overdrink as excessive water can cause hyponatremia - a condition that dilutes your body's sodium level which can result in seizures, brain damage and even death.
Check the color of your urine - clear or pale yellowish urine means you're getting enough water. The more yellowish your urine gets, the more water you need to drink.
But don't gulp down too much water in one go. Even out your water consumption over a day to ensure your body gets sufficient hydration without suffering adverse effects.
Weight Loss Rule #7 - Take Up Interval Training
Low- or moderate intensity exercises like walking and jogging only burn fat during its exercise bout. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) will continue to burn fat hours post training. That's what numerous researches and studies have proven, and that's why more and more overweight people are turning to strength training which belongs to HIIT.
But do take note, as you can get easily injured with interval strength training, you should always only learn from certified expert trainer. Check out these free fat-burning workouts for free training videos.
Weight Loss Rule #8 - Make Time for Toilet
Even though you take lots of fruits and vegetables that carry huge amount of fiber, when you undergo stressful situations, your body may go slightly haywire and suffer temporary constipation (you condition will get worse if you take more meat).
Allow yourself a break of 30 - 45 minutes to calm your emotion down, and then make it a habit to visit the toilet everyday at a specific time. Your body will soon get used to that timing and you'll have no problem removing waste out of your body.
If you need stress relief treatment, Cure Stress Naturally will help nip your stress and anxiety in the bud.
But if it's panic attack you need to deal with than just stress alone, then Panic Away will be more effective and suitable for you.
Weight Loss Rule #9 - Get Enough Sleep
Not necessarily you must go for 7 - 8 hours of sleep. Each individual requires different amount of sleep due to their different body constitutions. Some may need only 4 - 5 hours to feel revitalized.
Listen to your body. If you really need to super charge with 9 hours of sleep, so be it. But make sure you organize your sleep routine well so it won't affect your sleep quality.
For example, if you need to wake up at 5 A.M. in the morning and you need 9 hours of sleep, then you should turn in by 8 P.M. the night before.
By the way, studies prove that our bodies repair damaged cells and tissues optimally between 11 P.M. and 2 A.M. So, if you make it a habit to turn in before 11 P.M. and sleep well throughout the night, you'll have more cells repaired, thus will help improve your metabolism since it is primarily the healthy cells that metabolize and manage your calories intake and expenditure effectively.
If you want to get a good night's sleep, check out Natural Insomnia Cure.
All in all, it's not worth sacrificing your health for weight loss. You can achieve both good shape and good health when you take up this vegetarian weight loss meal plan.