Going after weight loss by going on a diet is like walking into a gunfight with a sharp stick.
You might make a little dent, but in the end, you'll do yourself more harm than good.
Want proof that you can lose substantial amounts of weight—and keep it off for good—without ever dieting?
1. MUSCLE UP YOUR METABOLISM
Quite simply, metabolism is the rate at which our bodies burn the energy from food calories. During your skinny teens, your body was a raging, hormonally fed inferno. But your burn rate falls by 2% every ten years from your twenties onward, and you know what happens to the energy that isn't used: It's stored as fat.
Muscle is several times more metabolically active than fat. The more muscle you have, the hotter your fire burns. And if you activate those muscles through physical activity, the potential fat burn can last for up to 24 hours. Any light exercise that maintains muscle mass will attack fat at the same time.
2. HELP YOUR LOVED ONES LOSE WEIGHT
One of the more fascinating pieces of obesity-related research I've read came out in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. Researchers looked at data on 12,000 people—many of them related to one another—who'd been tracked in the Framingham Heart Study.
Their conclusion: A person was at greater risk of being obese if others in his or her social network were obese. The stats: If a friend became obese, risk climbed by 57%; if a sibling became obese, risk went up by 40%; a spouse, plus 37%. The same study concluded that the benefits of weight loss might radiate through social networks as well.
3. MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR MORNING
A study from the University of Massachusetts Medical School determined that people who skip breakfast are four and a half times more likely to be obese than people who make time for it. An expert from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center estimated that going without breakfast can slow your metabolism by up to 10%. Pass the overnight oats.
Build breakfast out of protein and healthy fat. Eggs. Greek yogurt. Peanut butter. Milk. The more protein you eat, the more satisfied you'll be: A 2008 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition noted that the protein could lead to feelings of fullness that last all day long.
4. SIP YOUR WAY SLIM
You're made out of water—over 60%, by most reckonings. So you need to drink plenty of it.
But talk about Trojan horses: In the past 30 years, we've more than doubled the number of calories we drink, raising it to 450 on average today. Why? Because we stopped drinking water and started drinking sugar water.
If you take only one thing from this chapter, make it this: If a drink has added sugar, it's liquid fat. Bottled blubber. Fizzy flab. Drinkable derriere. Caboose in a can. Phase it out of your drinking diet, and you'll make huge strides toward shedding unwelcome, unnecessary weight.
5. STOP BEING HARASSED BY CLOWNS
A study from Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that 50% of kids said the food in a box with Shrek's green mug on it tasted better than the very same food in a Shrekless box. And what kinds of food most often have cartoon characters on them? Right: sugar-laden ones. Adults fall prey to similar marketing techniques on their foods' packaging as well. But guess what? An apple doesn't come with a label.
Beware packaged foods that present you with meaningless buzz-words like "natural," "fat-free," "diet," and "a smart choice"—and ingredient lists longer than Al Capone's rap sheet. When you buy whole foods as they grew in nature—a salmon fillet, green beans, an orange—each has only one ingredient: the food itself. All of your grocery store transactions should be so simple.
6. SHRINK YOUR POT, SHRINK YOUR BELLY
I kid you not. Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a food visionary who runs the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, has devoted extraordinary attention to the effects that the containers that carry our food and drink have on how much we consume. His rule of thumb: The larger the plate or bowl or glass, the more you will eat or slurp or drink from it. The bad news: We're on the wrong side of a century-long expansion in the sizes of our dinner plates and the volumes of our drinking glasses. As go your portion sizes, so goes your personal size.
Instead of 1 bowl of chocolate ice cream, enjoy half a bowl of chocolate ice cream and fill the other half with sliced strawberries. The fruit tastes great, adds tons of antioxidants, and saves you calories.
Success breeds success. Track progress accurately so you know where you are and stay motivated to keep working at losing your belly fat. Don't just read this post and go back to what you were doing. Take action. Lose your belly fat.
I wish you the best life possible!
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