HomeNutrition10 Weight Loss Tips to Get Swimsuit Ready 10 Weight Loss Tips to Get Swimsuit Ready Summer is right around the corner. If you're struggling to get bathing suit ready, make sure you're following each and every one of these tips. They may seem simple, but they work.
1. Listen to Your Favorite Music While Working Out
Music affects your mood. Listening to your favorite beats while you work out gets you energized and will likely help increase the length of your work outs and/or the calories you burn.
2. Eat More Vegetables
Vegetables, especially those containing very little starch such as salad greens, tomatoes, and asparagus, are very low calorie but very high volume due to high fiber content. Most fiber is not digested and goes through your system, binding to excess cholesterol and other un-needed materials in the intestine.
3. Get Adequate Protein
Protein foods stay in your stomach longer than other foods. Protein foods help you feel satisfied longer, helping you eat less at your next meal or snack.
4. Eat Fruit for Dessert
It's possible to eat too much fruit. Fruit has many benefits but also is a natural sugar that if not burned off can cause weight gain. Think of fruit as a dessert food rather than other dessert foods which tend to be high in bad fat and have little nutritional value.
5. Avoid Starches and Sweets
These are foods that are quickly metabolized into blood glucose, your body's main source of fuel. If you don't use that fuel by exercising, the body stores it which can cause fat gain.
6. Weigh Yourself Often
Studies have shown that weighing yourself often, at least once a day, can help you understand your body and improve weight loss efforts. Foods affect individuals differently so weighing often can help you understand effective weight loss methods for your body.
7. Eat 5 to 6 Small Meals or Snacks Daily
An empty stomach can signal your liver to make and release glucose (sugar) into the blood for energy. Skipping meals or only eating once or twice a day can put your body in starvation mode, slowing your metabolism down, and causing your body to hold onto food when you do eat.
8. Sleep 8 Hours Every Night
Studies show sleep deprivation changes appetite hormones, increasing hunger and caloric intake. Sleep deprivation has also been associated with increased fat tissue and decreased muscle tissue.
9. Add Resistance Training to Your Workouts
Muscle burns more calories at rest than does other body tissues. This means, if you build more muscle, your will be burning more fat while just sitting!
10. Drink Less Alcohol - or NO Alcohol
Alcohol calories are prioritized; you must burn off all alcohol calories before you burn food you ate. Alcohol increases your appetite so you eat more if you drink, and is metabolized like a fat in the body. You wouldn't drink fat if you are trying to lose weight would you?!
HOW YOU CAN BE BEACH READY IN ONLY 4 WEEKS!
Jamie Yacoub, M.P.H., R.D. is a clinical dietitian with a Master's of Public Health in Nutrition, and expected Certified Diabetes Educator (C.D.E.) fall 2013. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in clinical nutrition from UC Davis after four years, during which time she participated in internships in several different nutrition environments including Kaiser Permanente and Women, Infants, & Children (W.I.C.). After graduating from UC Davis, she went on to study public health nutrition at Loma Linda University where she obtained her Master's of Public Health in Nutrition. Jamie completed the community nutrition portion of her dietetic internship as an intern for a Certified Specialist in Sports Nutrition. She completed both the food service and clinical portions of her dietetic internship at a top 100 hospital in the nation, where she was hired as the only clinical dietitian shortly after. Jamie now works as an outpatient clinical dietitian and is an expert in Medical Nutrition Therapy (M.N.T.) using the Nutrition Care Process (N.C.P.) including past medical history and current laboratory values as a basis of nutrition assessment.
