Discover the 60 tips for healthy weight loss.

Excess weight can be considered not as an essentially aesthetic problem, but as a personal health problem.

In addition to the damage caused by excess body fat, the overweight individual is also frequently exposed to other health problems, since overweight and obesity are associated with an unhealthy diet and lifestyle sedentary.

As if that were not enough, some people, influenced by unrealistic beauty standards, end up looking for shortcuts to lose weight, resorting to fad diets, which are often harmful to health, or the use of chemical substances, often without the help of an experienced professional.

The point of this article is not to present miracle weight loss formulas or to teach secret tips that will make you lose weight quickly and effortlessly. That does not exist.

The objective of this text is to show that the implementation of small changes in eating habits and lifestyle can have a great impact in the medium and long term on the control of ideal body weight.

60 tricks to maintain a healthy weight

The weight loss process can be summed up as the simple difference between the number of calories you consume per day minus the number of calories your metabolism burns daily.

That is, if you eat more calories than you burn over several days, you will gain weight.

On the other hand, if your daily calorie intake is less than the number of calories your body burns, you will lose weight.

If the intake and burning of calories are the same, your weight will remain stable over the weeks.

Therefore, we can share our tips in 2 groups:

• Tips for consuming fewer calories throughout the day.

• Tips to increase your calorie burn throughout the day.

Tips to consume fewer calories

1- Avoid the consumption of sodas with sugar. A single can of Coca-Cola has 35 grams of sugar, which offers 139 kcal.

Just as a comparison, 35 grams of sugar is 8 to 10 tablespoons of sugar. Already 139 kcal is the average expenditure of a 40-minute walk.

If you consume more than one can of Coca-Cola a day, simply stopping this consumption will make you lose a good amount of kilos in a few weeks.

Diet sodas may not be a healthy drink, but they are much better than non-diet sodas in terms of sugar and calorie intake.

2- It is not only soft drinks that contain excess sugar. Before buying a drink, look at the amount of sugar and calories in it.

Energy drinks and products for hydration during physical activity, such as Gatorade and Powerade, also have excess sugar.

A bottle of Gatorade, for example, has 30 grams of sugar or about 8 teaspoons of sugar.

3- Do not be fooled by industrial products that are called natural. Many brands of boxed or bottled juices, which claim to be made with 100% fruit, actually add sugar to enhance the flavor.

Just because orange juice is made with real orange does not mean that the manufacturer did not add sugar to its formula.

See the nutritional references on the back. If sugar has been added, avoid, because the fruit itself is a food rich in carbohydrates.

4- At mealtimes, do not fill the plate. Put less food than you think is necessary. At the time of hunger, our ability to estimate the necessary amount of food is compromised, and, many times, we eat more than we need just to avoid leaving the leftovers on the plate.

5- Following the same logic as the previous topic, use smaller plates. A small full plate can pass the feeling that there is the ideal amount of food better than a large empty plate.

6– Do not feel obliged to always finish the plate. If you are satisfied, stop eating even if there is food on the plate.

7- Eat only in one place in the house, for example, in the living room or the kitchen. This can break the habit of eating in certain places in the house outside of mealtimes, such as at the office, in bed, in front of the TV, etc.

8- Create a reward system at the end of the day or week after following a diet with fewer calories.

Rewards can be anything that makes you feel good: go to the mall, get a haircut, manicure, rent a movie, get massages, have sex, etc.

Family collaboration is very important in this system. The reward should not be for weight loss, but better habits. Note: Never use food as a reward.

9- Find out which feelings or activities most frequently activate the trigger of the desire to eat. Try to have control over these situations. If possible it is good to eliminate them.

10- See which are the hypercaloric foods that you consume the most. Stop buying them. If you have it at home, it is almost impossible not to consume. The best way not to eat something with too many calories is not to have easy access to it.

11- Create a journal or blog about your diet. Write daily about successes and failures. Seeks to learn from the mistakes of the previous days.

12- After each bite, take a sip of water. This will make the stomach fill more quickly, reducing the amount of food needed to meet your needs. When the stomach is full, the body releases neurotransmitters responsible for feeling full.

13- Eat slowly, chew your food well and take breaks during your meal. It allows time for the body’s satiety mechanisms to kick in.

14- Vegetables and legumes are not only healthy, as they have few calories. If you eat a good salad during your meal, you will be taking up space in your stomach with food that provides few calories.

Eat the salad before preparing the main dish or reserve at least 50% of the main dish space for vegetables and legumes.

15- It is useless to eat salad if you are going to fill it with sauces, especially those based on mayonnaise and cheese, which are calories.

16- Make a longer interval between food and dessert. See if you really need it or if the candy is simply a habit or a form of reward

17- Brush your teeth as soon as you finish eating; that will make you think twice about choosing dessert.

18- Fight boredom with activities, not with food. Try drinking a glass of water before pinching a treat to see if the urge to eat passes.

19- Olive oil is a healthy type of fat, but it has a lot of calories. If the goal is to lose weight, filling your food with oil is not going to help. Use it in moderation.

20- Avoid frying foods that can be cooked. This drastically reduces the number of calories in food.

21- Avoid breaded foods, parmesan, gratin, sauces rich in mayonnaise, four-cheese sauces, fried foods, or other foods rich in fat, since they tend to be hypercaloric.

22- Roast chicken is a good option, but it should be eaten without the skin.

23- Fish is the best meat option.

24- Eliminate fast foods from your diet. They are nutritionally poor and calorie-dense foods.

25- Sleep at least 7 to 8 hours a day. Our body expends more calories when we are sleeping in deep sleep than when we are just lying down, reading, or watching TV. Those who sleep little have a greater risk of gaining weight.

26- Ask a nutritionist for help to prepare a diet with the ideal amount of calories for you.

27- When shopping, if there is more than one similar product on the supermarket shelf, check the nutritional information for the option with the least calories.

28- Never buy a product without first consulting the nutritional information, especially the number of calories in the food.

Over time, you will learn to identify the best foods for losing weight or keeping it healthy.

29- Understand that food re-education is far superior to any diet. It may take longer to reach your desired weight, but you will surely have an easier time maintaining your desired weight in the long term.

30- When buying dairy products, always try the skim, light, or lean versions. This works for yogurts, milk, cheeses, etc.

31- If you want to eat ice cream, the popsicle is a better option than box ice cream.

32- Whole foods are healthier, have more fiber and fewer calories. The fibers help induce a feeling of fullness.

33- Alcoholic beverages are hypercaloric. The higher the alcohol content, the more calories the drink contains.

34- Avoid buying prepared meals in supermarkets. In addition to being hypercaloric, they tend to have a large amount of salt.

35- You do not have to eliminate any type of food. If you can’t live without pizza on the weekend, calculate how many calories you can consume throughout the day.

You can have a pizza for dinner on Saturday, as long as you have lighter meals throughout the day.

It is important to avoid flavors that are high in fat and calories, such as four kinds of cheese or bacon.

Remember that each slice of pizza can contain between 200 and 300 kcal. The less greasy the pizza is, the more slices you can consume.

36- Losing weight is much easier than maintaining the lost weight. To maintain a healthy weight you need to change your lifestyle and eating habits, otherwise, you will continue to suffer the rebound effect, alternating periods in which you gain weight and lose weight. There is no use dieting if this diet does not teach you to eat better for the rest of your life.

Tips to burn more calories

37- Do not skip breakfast. When we are fasting our metabolism slows down and the body starts to consume not only fat but also muscle mass.

The reduced metabolism ends up making the calories not consumed at breakfast have little effect on weight loss.

It is better to eat a healthy breakfast, with fresh fruit, whole grain bread or cereals, and lean cheese, than to stay on a fast waiting for lunch.

38- Do not do long periods of fasting during the day. Avoid being hungry. It is better to eat 5 or 6 small meals during the day, with a few hours apart, than 2 or 3 large meals spaced apart.

Long intervals between hours slow down the metabolism and increase the release of insulin when eating, two factors that prevent the patient from losing weight.

You cannot consume hypercaloric foods in these meals during the day. Eat a small meal every 4 hours. Leave low-calorie cereal bars or crackers in your pocket or purse.

39- A great mistake of people trying to lose weight is to believe that it is easy to do it only by reducing calorie intake.

Increasing your daily caloric expenditure through exercise greatly facilitates weight loss. In the same way that a correct diet is a matter of habit, practicing exercises is also a matter of habit.

40- Physical exercises burn calories not only at the time of exercise but also for several hours later.

41- A person who exercises regularly burns more calories at rest than a sedentary person. Even sleeping, the metabolism of those who exercise is faster than that of sedentary people.

42- Both aerobic exercises and bodybuilding help you lose weight.

43- A kilo of muscle burns 2.5 times more calories than 1 kg of fat when at rest. When we gain muscle mass, we are increasing our basal calorie intake.

Up to 75% of the calories consumed in a day is done at rest through the basal metabolism of our body, therefore, the more muscle mass we have, the better we can burn calories, even when sleeping or watching TV while lying on the couch.

44- If you do not have cardiovascular or osteoarticular problems, give preference to more intense aerobic exercises to lose many extra calories a day.

A spin class, for example, can make you lose 500 to 800 calories in a single day. This without counting the cardiovascular benefits of having good aerobic endurance.

45- If you have time, try to do 30 minutes of aerobic exercises and then 30 minutes of bodybuilding. The ideal frequency is 4 to 5 times a week.

46- Any degree of exercise is better than none, however, aerobic exercise with less than 20 minutes of duration is not as efficient to burn fat.

In the first minutes, we burn only the sugar reserves. To reach fat stores, it takes at least 20 to 25 minutes of continuous exercise.

47- If you can’t or can’t run, walk. Walking 30 minutes a day is enough.

48- The ideal during physical activity is to keep your heart rate constantly high. Walking and stopping, walking and stopping, as some people do in their day-to-day work, doesn’t work as well as a half-hour uninterrupted walk.

49- If possible, go to work by bicycle. Leave the car at home. Most of the cities in the world have bike lanes built to make the population healthier.

50- If leaving the car at home is impractical, try to park it further away then. Walk a bit to get to work.

51- Replace the elevator with the stairs. This helps you lose weight and still strengthens your lower limbs.

52- Bodybuilding can be done at any age as long as it is accompanied by a qualified professional. The elderly can not only how they should exercise their muscles

53- The older a person, the more important bodybuilding becomes to avoid the reduction in basal caloric expenditure with the natural fall in metabolism.

54- Doing dozens of repetitions of abdominal exercises will not make your belly disappear if you do not lose weight.

You can even create abdominal muscles, but since the fat is more superficial, they will be hidden.

The belly disappears doing aerobic exercises and bodybuilding in general.

55- During bodybuilding, work large muscle groups, such as the chest, back, and thighs, since they are bigger muscles and easier to develop; they will make you lose weight faster.

56- If you cannot stand running or doing bodybuilding, there are several alternatives, such as group sports (soccer, basketball, volleyball), dance, aerobics classes, canoeing, mountaineering, climbing, hiking, yoga, Pilates, etc. An hour of yoga, for example, can help you burn up to 350 kcal.

57- Swimming is a great exercise to lose weight because it is aerobic and stimulates the development of muscles.

58- Exercises in the morning give better results than at the end of the day when you are already tired.

59- Cycling is another excellent option and can be done as a family. It strengthens the muscles and is an aerobic activity.

60- Any physical activity is better than no activity. If you are not used to exercising, start slowly.

Find activities that are not painful. Losing weight should be a goal in the medium and long term.

If you don’t like exercising and are still looking for immediate results, this is the first step to giving up early.