Weight Loss Tips
1. Start with soup. This tradition is one of the best weight-loss strategies. That’s because eating soup, particularly the broth-based vegetable kind, before your main meal fills you up so you eat less during the meal.
2. Make lunch your main meal. Although people do this throughout Europe, a good explanation for eating their big meal at midday comes from Ayurveda, our own 5000- year old approach to wellness. “According to Ayurveda, we’re actually designed to eat the larger meal at lunch because our digestive ‘fire’, or agni, is strongest between 10am and 2pm, so we digest more efficiently.” A study shows, people lose 2 to 5 kgs just by doing this.
3. Think quality, not quantity. Snub processed “Diet foods” are not found in nature, opting instead for high-quality non-vegetarian, vegetables, dairy products, even deserts. When food is fresh and flavourful, one can be satisfied with smaller portions. This is the opposite of the wrong approach that most of us seem to have adopted, which is to fill up on bland diet foods, then gorge on sweets later.
4. Mix up the flavours. In Ayurveda, including the six basic tastes – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent and astringent- is the key to a satisfying meal that won’t leave you craving junk food later.
5. Go for colour. Saying : “ Not dressing up the meal with colour is like going out without clothes.” Not only does colour make food more attractive, but consciously seeking out colourful foods is a great way to bulk up one’s meal without a lot of calories.
6. When you’re eating, just eat. We’re increasingly having “multi-task” meals. We watch TV during meals or talk on the phone, eat fast-food on the street, even gulp cold drinks while driving. In Japan, it’s considered rude to eat while walking. In France no drinking while driving. So there are no car cup holders because they don’t need. “Eating and drinking aren’t errands. It’s not what what you do on the way to something else.” Good advise. When you’re distracted by work, traffic or the TV, you’re apt to overeat without even realizing it. “ If you really pay attention to what you’re eating, you enjoy it more fully and don’t need as much food.”
7. Enjoy regular meals. Eat three meals a day to avoid to gain fat. One may think skipping meals cuts calories, but all it does is evoke a primal “fear of hunger response” that causes overeating later. Start with breakfast. Studies show that breakfast-eaters are slimmer than skippers.
8. Stop eating before you’re full. Eat till you’re 80 percent full. Of course, we’re not suggesting that you leave the table hungry. But eating until the buttons pop stretches the stomach by about 20 percent each time you do it, so you inevitably need more food to feel satisfied. Stop “when you feel that first twinge of fullness” gives your brain a chance to realize that you are full before you overdo it.
9. Eat only when you’re hungry. We tend to eat for all sorts of reasons besides hunger, especially from boredom, loneliness, stress or fear. “You can’t make food the solution to every issue in your life and expect to be thin.” “ If you eat from boredom, find a hobby. If you eat to relieve stress, learn meditation or yoga.”
10. Dine with others. Eating with family or friends as compared to eating alone in your car, at your desk or on the couch is part and parcel of traditional cultures. Not only does camaraderie make the meal more enjoyable, it’s slimming. “ Eating with others restrains your own behaviour. You eat more slowly, which increases the likelihood that you’ll register when you’re full before you’ve eaten more than you should.”
11. Get moving. People in Asian countries, France and the Mediterranean tend to be slim because they’re more active. Not that they spend hours at the gym; they simply walk a lot.