Tag: meals

Diet tips for weight loss

You may find yourself setting weight goals and in the process making unrealistic diet plans that you cannot stick to. There is no point sticking to this diet for a brief period and then going back to normal. What you need is a reasonable diet that can balance out your cravings and include discipline as well. Here are a few tips for long term weight loss:

Stay away from monotonous diets:

Including diet plans which absolutely cut out food that you love indulging in will cause extreme cravings in the long run. If you stick to a monotonous diet for a brief period and give up on it, you may end up eating more of that ‘prohibited’ food.

Gradually decrease portion size

Do not suddenly deprive yourself of food to achieve your weight goals. Your body will not be able to adjust to the sudden change in amount. Gradually decrease it to a level healthy enough to achieve your weight goals.

Plan your meals

As tough as this sounds, once you get into the habit of scheduling your meals it will be easy. A habit is a bit uncomfortable in the beginning, but gets easier later on. Train yourself to incorporate good habits like planning your meals and it will help you in the long run.

Incorporate seasonal indulgences

The season of mangoes is here! Have you planned on indulging? Some may stay away from it because it is heaty. But if you love it, then some of it can do no harm. Just understand that too much of anything is bad for you. This applies to other food as well; like, in the Christmas season!

Incorporate things you do not prefer

Obviously, we all have certain food that we abhor. Slowly incorporating foods like these into tastier foods that we enjoy is the answer. Try adding leafy vegetables to your chicken sandwich. Slowly but surely you will develop a liking to it as food preferences have a lot to do with classical conditioning.

Try your best to be reasonable about your diet. Do not fly too high with your weight loss chase but at the same time do not graze the ground. Keep it simple and stick to it.

How to burn fat without losing muscle

People usually want to lose the fat but are concerned about losing the pretty lean muscle tissue along with it while dieting. Here we give you tips on how to keep the lean muscle tissue and burn away fat.

Eat 5-6 smaller meals per day

To burn fat and keep muscle, you must not reduce your calories too much. Divide the number of daily calories your body needs into small meals spread throughout the day, rather than eating two or three large meals. This way your body receives a steady amount of the fuel it needs to maintain lean muscle mass.

Stack on protein

Stack on protein to maintain muscle

Your muscles need fuel to sustain itself. By having a protein rich diet, you are fuelling your muscles and telling your brain to stay away from muscle instead of stealing muscle for the energy deficit during a diet. If this happens, then your body is only going to use stored up fat to fuel your bodily functions and stay away from muscle. Good sources of protein include nuts, chicken, pulses and egg whites.

Maintain strength

Weight training must be adjusted appropriately

During a calorie deficit diet, you must not reduce the weight you carry. Your muscles need to be worked to sustain itself during this period of draught. By working your muscles, you are telling your body, once again, to use only fat to make up for the calorie deficit and stay away from muscle.

Reduce weight training volume

You need to maintain strength, but a caloric deficit is really an energy deficit, and while this is fantastic for losing any amount of body fat, it is not good for anything that is workout related like recovery and performance. Hence, even though you are maintaining strength, it is important to reduce volume/frequency of your workouts to facilitate proper recovery.

If you manage to do this, then you can reduce fat and maintain muscle. However, if you are lost on how to begin with this module straight away, check out how you can kickstart your weight loss plan.