In recent years, food choices have become plenty and the comfort of ordering food online via an app makes it difficult to eat healthy much less aid fat loss. With so many choices, abundance and variety, natural and healthy foods have somewhat been left behind.
Even food brands, restaurants or eateries that sell “healthy foods” don’t help you cut back unwanted fat. So how exactly can your food choices help you reduce body fat? Here are a few tips that can help you reduce fat and get healthy!
1. Begin Your Day with a Fruit
Eat a fruit within 15-20 mins of waking up. This handy for both working and non-working folks who are rushing through their morning routine. Fruits being rich in fibre, fructose and micronutrients, replenish glycogen stores in the liver after a long fasting period at night and jumpstart metabolism which aids fat loss.
2. Avoid Processed/Packaged Food
Certain processed foods that come in plastic packets are calorie dense, don’t have natural dietary fiber, and usually lack essential nutrients & minerals required for fat loss. Whereas dietary fiber from whole grains has longer intestinal-transit time and hence has a higher satiety value as compared to processed/packaged foods. This prevents the creation of required calorie deficit for fat loss. Thus, avoid products containing refined flour, white sugar, salt and fats such as biscuits, breads, chocolates, sugar cadies, packaged fruit juices, pastries, white pasta, white noodles, pizza, samosa, Kachori, vada pav, etc.
3. Begin Your Meal with a Salad Twice a Day
For instance sprouts + vegetables. Since raw, non-starchy vegetables contain high amount of water and fiber, they can be consumed in a relatively larger amount contributing to increased satiety with fewer calories. Thus, aiding fat loss by creating an energy-deficit. Vegetables are important sources of many nutrients which boost the speed of various biochemical reactions that burn stored fat. Dietary fiber from vegetables also have a prebiotic effect and promotes growth of health beneficial bacteria which even aids lipid metabolism.
4. Add Protein in Meals
Proteins take longer time to digest. Hence, it keeps us fuller for a long time which in turn prevents us from eating more often. Secondly, proteins are building blocks for muscles which again help in increasing the basal metabolic rate. Thus, help in burning extra fat stored in Adipocytes.
5. Small & Frequent Low Calorie Meals
Try to eat smaller meals every 2.5 to 3 hours rather than eating a huge meal after a long gap or eating too frequently. Spacing out the meals adequately and breaking it down into smaller meals gives our body enough time to metabolize the food. This leaves little or no chance for food to get converted to fat and get stored in your body. Don’t forget to eat up to 70-80% of your stomach’s capacity.
6. Drink a Glass of Water Every Hour
Now, you might be thinking, how water can help in fat loss? Well, water fills you up in zero calories and being a medium of all cell fluids, it facilitates all physio-chemical reactions in the body including the ones which causes fat oxidation.
7. Go for Home-Cooked Meals
Yes, at least 4-5 days in a week, eat home cooked food. This prevents intake of outside food which may have an unhealthy quality and quantity of fats. You’d rather eat a satiable and nutrient dense meal which aid fat loss.
8. Use Cooking Oil Sparingly
Go for steamed, grilled, roasted, sautéed cooking methods using non-stick cookware to reduce the amount of oil used for cooking.
9. Get Active!
An active lifestyle helps in burning the stored fat by increasing the basal metabolic rate and blood circulation. Exercise should be a combination of aerobic/cardio and resistance training.
10. Sleep Your Way to Fat Loss!
Are you getting adequate sleep? Yes! If you don’t sleep well, it will create stress in your body and facilitate the release of cortisol which leads to fat accumulation in the body over a period of time. So get a good night’s rest. Try these tips to sleep better!
Remember, Food is for nourishment of body not for over indulgence. Eat to Live, not Live to Eat.
We hope this article helps you in your fat loss journey! Do share your thoughts in the comments below!
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