Get the Body You Want: 10 Foolproof Weight Loss Tips

Are you tired of taking a bunch of pills for high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol ? Or maybe you want to prevent diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure? Kudos to you. Not only will you look good you will feel good too.

The time is now to get on track with your fitness and be on your way to good health. First you must set a goal then follow a plan that you can stick to.

Depending on where you start it might take a few months h before you start seeing results. Long and steady wins the race and you have to stay in it to win it.

Check out these 10 fact-based weight loss tips that are guaranteed to make you see a difference in your waistline and your numbers.

Tip #1: Eliminate Sugar

Sugar causes obesity, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, diabetes and tooth decay, says the World Health Organization (who.int). Sugar that occurs naturally in foods like apples and oranges is fine because it comes with nutrients your body craves. But the sugars in processed desserts, salad dressings, ketchup, barbecue sauce, yogurts, candy bars and bread overload your body.

Drop your sugar intake to 10 percent or less of your daily energy intake, suggests the World Health Organization. If you’re a sugar junkie you may feel lethargic, irritable and full of cravings for a few days but take heart: A 2014 study conducted by Kaiser Permenente (kff.org) found that people who stopped consuming sugar no longer felt cravings by the sixth day.

Besides the ones withe the word “sugar” did you recognize any of these as sugar?

Brown Sugar
Cane Sugar
Corn Syrup
Corn Sugar
Dextrose
Fruit juice concentrate
High Fructose corn syrup
Honey
Maltodextrin
Molasses
Sucrose
Raw sugar
Turbinado sugar

Tip #2: Don’t Use Aspartame

It might be tempting to use artificial sweeteners, so you don’t have to give up your sugar fix entirely, but unfortunately it won’t work. According to Business Insider (businessinsider.com), not only do artificial sweeteners not help you to lose weight, they can cause you to gain it.

While our bodies process artificial sweeteners differently than they do real sugar, the outcome is nearly identical. In addition, the fact that artificial sweeteners don’t provide any genuine energy can cause the body to turn on its own muscles for fuel.

Tip #3: Drink H2O

You can easily add hundreds (even thousands) of calories to your daily diet just through liquids. If you’re a regular drinker of soda, juice or even energy drinks, you’re piling on liquid calories that your body simply doesn’t need. Switch to pure, calorie-free water. If water doesn’t really do it for you, try carbonated, flavored waters that don’t have sweeteners. Add cucumber, strawberries, blueberries or lemon to infuse the water with interesting flavor. If you simply must have coffee, train yourself to drink it black. A cup of black coffee has only five calories.

Tip #4: Eat at Home

Hitting up fast food joints and indulging in eating out in the evening can make life more streamlined, but you don’t know what’s going into your food. Much of what restaurants are putting on your plate was made in a warehouse, frozen and shipped to them from other states. They’re loaded with sodium, salt, oil, fat and preservatives, none of which are going to help you in your weight loss goals. In addition, the kitchen is adding fats and salts to your food to enrich the taste, which can easily turn a meal you think is healthy into one packed with unhealthy calories.

Tip #5: Keep Healthy Foods on Standby

Nothing will derail your weight loss efforts like being hungry with nothing healthy readily available. Avoid this pitfall by having something in your fridge at all times. Roast a chicken to use for salads and lettuce wraps. Frozen shrimp steams up in minutes, making for a great peel-and-eat feast at home.

Nuts like pistachios, cashews, almonds, Brazil nuts and pecans make great and easy snacks (just make sure they’re unsalted). Fresh fruits can stave off hunger while you’re cooking supper. Cut up fresh pineapple, mango, tangerines, pears and peaches and put them in air-tight containers in the refrigerator for quick snacking. Freeze grapes for a cold treat.

Tip #6: Stick to Whole Foods

Steer away from foods that have already been made for you, like canned soups, pasta meals, frozen entrees, hamburgers, granola bars and such. Go for fresh, whole foods in their natural state: fresh produce, fish and poultry. Go for whole grains like farro, buckwheat, quinoa and, yes, corn, which is widely regarded as a vegetable but is actually a grain.

Tip #7: Keep a Food Diary

Counting calories may seem counter-intuitive to some and that’s okay. But keeping a journal of what you eat when you’re first starting out is a good way to get a realistic picture of how much you genuinely eat in a day compared to what you should be eating.

You may be surprised to see how much you’ve been consuming. Once you begin replacing bad habits with good habits, you’ll become familiar with the amount of calories foods contain and you’ll learn how to navigate your eating throughout the day based on those learned numbers.

Tip #8: Exercise

Exercise is crucial to effective weight loss. Men’s Health (menshealth.com) recommends combining strength training with cardio to see the best results from your workouts.

There are many different styles of exercise to choose from. Cardio training gets your hear rate up, works your respiratory system and burns calories in the moment. Strength training grows your muscles, which in turn will burn more calories for you throughout the day. Dynamic forms of exercise like high intensity interval training (HIIT) and Crossfit combine aerobic energy with muscle challenges that result in achieving both cardio and strength training within the same workout.

Tip #9: Cut Back on Alcohol

Alcohol, by its very nature, is full of sugar, and as already mentioned, sugar isn’t good for you. In addition, according to CNN (cnn.com), when you drink alcohol, the body stops burning calories from the food you ate and concentrates on eliminating the alcohol from your system. This results in excess fat getting stored primarily in your abdomen, hence the infamous beer belly. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, which can easily result in you throwing caution to the winds and noshing on those chili cheese fries that have been calling your name.

Tip #10: Move Past Mistakes

Did you binge out on pizza last night? Did you give in at the office party and eat more than your fair share of cake? Did you skip your workout in favor of meeting your friends at the bar, where you indulged a bit too much? Don’t compound one bad choice with a flood of more. Pick yourself back up and get right back on track. Your health and fitness depend on what you do over the course of time, not what you do in one isolated incident.

Getting that summer body isn’t as hard as you think. If you follow these 10 medically-proven tips for weight loss, you’ll meet your long-term weight goals a lot sooner than you think.