Most of us struggle with weight gain. Our sedentary jobs, erratic sleep, odd timings, travel, lack of availability of what we want to "ideally" eat, no time for exercise, all hinder us from being our ideal weight and healthy. Bringing in a discipline in losing weight usually carries lofty goals and a commitment, which most professionals put off saying, "I'll start from next week for sure." Being overweight increases your risk of diabetes, cancer, heart risk diseases like hypertension, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high uric acid, and leads to a lower quality of life in terms of higher fatigue and unexplained bone pains.
So what can you do? You want to lose weight, right? But you don't have the time, right? This column is meant for you, then. Following these simple tricks listed every single day can help you lose weight and reduce the risk of so many health issues. So get ready, and start with the below mentioned simple steps:
" Control portion sizes & content: One helping, medium sized, is all you need. It takes 20 min for the brain to get the message that your stomach is full. By then, you have overeaten and the damage is done. Resolve on not taking a second helping, and make the first one medium sized, not heaped up. Add raw fibre to this helping, like a salad of cucumber, onions, lettuce, carrots. This helps burn the fat in the food.
" Take out 10 minute every 2 hours: Wherever you are, get up, walk for 10 min, go get your own coffee/green tea, walk over to the person's desk rather than emailing, go to the washroom, go to the staircase and climb 2-3 flights up and down. Do any of these 3 times a day. It revs up the metabolic rate, hence helping burn calories even for sedentary people.
" Drink 300 ml water every 2 hours: It could be more if you body weight is above 100 kgs or less if it's below 70 kgs. In 10 hours of work, if you can manage 5 300 ml of glasses, you're sitting on 1.5 litres, the perfect amount to flush out toxins.
" Eat early and less dinner: This is a sure shot way of losing weight. Eating dinner by 7.30 pm means that you will have a 13-hour fasting between dinner and breakfast. Intermittent fasting is known to decrease weight, reduce inflammation and the risk of heart related diseases.
If you can manage to do the above, start the ritual of taking your weight every single morning without any excuses, for 30 days at a stretch. You will start noticing a pattern and will be able to correct the pattern and keep the weight off. So what are the trends to watch for?
1. The day you eat late dinner, your weight will be up the next morning.
2. If you drink less water, you will not lose weight.
3. If you don't get up 3 times a day, you will not lose weight.
4. If you exceed portion sizes, you will gain weight.
5. If you do all the above 4 things to lose weight, you will lose weight, every single day, consistently, even if it's 100-200 gm.
6. Some days you will lose 500 gm, or half a kilo. You will realise that you did everything consistently for 5 days in a row without deviation, and your weighing scale just rewarded you!
Hence, without going to the gym, hiring a personal trainer, abandoning your work, you can begin the weight loss journey and stick to the discipline by making your weighing scale your guide to correct you. So start today, go to a pharmacy and buy a standard weighing scale, make it your friend, mentor and guide, and see yourself lose up to 4-5 kilos in just 30 days! It's possible, if you can just be persistent and consistent. Easy, isn't it?
Columnist
Rachna Chhachhi is a certified holistic cancer nutrition and yoga expert, and author of four bestselling health books. She treats across 27 countries.
