Overview
Particular meal planning, calorie intake tracking, cooking healthy meals, and exercising are effective strategies to lose weight. However, these can also be awfully time-consuming.
Some people want to live a healthy life in the most effortless way possible. They want the right diet and nutrition so they can do the important things in life, but at the same time, they don’t want to spend the rest of the day thinking about what to eat or what to do next.
While some people exert extensive efforts only to lose weight, there are effortless ways to lose weight without even thinking about it.
5 Effortless ways of losing weight
1. Eat Less Without Thinking
Maybe you’re one of the many people who want to burn fat, build a lean body, and lose weight.
If so, then eating less can help. You can use smaller bowls and plates during your meal to make sure you are eating less than your normal eating.
Or you can switch to one of today’s most popular health and fitness trends worldwide—intermittent fasting!
Intermittent Fasting Meaning
Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern which specifies more on “when” you should eat rather than “which” food to eat.
Some have already been fasting without thinking about it. Or when you feel sick and don’t feel like eating, you usually fast instinctively. Sometimes, people fast out of necessity, especially when they have nothing to eat.
Fasting is also conducted for religious purposes because some religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, mandate some form of fasting.
Fasting is a natural thing. In fact, it is more natural to fast from time to time than always eating 3+ meals every day. Don’t worry as our bodies are well equipped to handle extended periods of hunger.
Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss
Intermittent fasting has been shown to have potential benefits for weight loss via several mechanisms.
Understanding the difference between the fasted state and the fed state first is essential to comprehend how intermittent fasting works for weight and fat loss.
Basically, the fed state begins as you eat. It is a state wherein the body is in the process of digesting and absorbing food. And it usually takes 3–5 hours for your body to digest and absorb the food you ate. During this state, your insulin levels are high, making it hard for your body to burn fat.
And when your body is not processing a meal anymore, it goes into the postabsorptive state. Then your body then enters the fasted state 8–12 hours after your last meal. Unlike the fed state, your insulin levels are low in the fasted state, making it much easier for your body to burn fat.
Therefore, fasting puts your body in a fat-burning state by reducing insulin levels, allowing you to lose fat without having to change what you eat, how much you eat, or how often you exercise.
Furthermore, with intermittent fasting comes a reduced calorie intake, which then results in weight loss.
Moreover, intermittent fasting can potentially boost your metabolism to increase calorie loss throughout the day by increasing the levels of the hormone and neurotransmitter called norepinephrine.
According to one review, intermittent fasting reduces body weight of up to 8% and decreases body fat up to 16% in just 3–12 weeks.
How to Intermittent Fast?
There are several ways of doing intermittent fasting. You can try experimenting either of the following to see what’s best for your lifestyle:
- The 16/8 method, wherein you fast for 14–16 hours and have an 8–10-hour eating window every day.
- The 5:2 diet, wherein you can eat normally during the 5 days of the week while practicing calorie restriction to 500–600 for 2 days of the week.
- The eat-stop-eat method which was popularized by fitness expert Brad Pilon, wherein you can fast for 24 hours once or twice a week.
- Alternate-day fasting, wherein you can either fast every other day or allow 500 calories during fasting days.
- The warrior diet, wherein you are allowed to eat small amounts of raw vegetables and fruits during the day while having one huge meal at night in a 4-hour eating window.
- Spontaneous meal skipping, wherein you simply skip meals from time to time. If you don’t feel hungry, then you can skip breakfast and just eat a filling and nutritious meal for your lunch or dinner. Basically, it’s not necessary to follow a structured intermittent fasting plan for you to enjoy its potential health benefits.
Best Intermittent Fasting For Weight Loss
All the different methods of intermittent fasting can be effective, and nothing is better than the other. Whatever works best for you, then that’s the best intermittent fasting for your lifestyle.
In order for you to determine which method works for you, you can simply experiment it.
Intermittent Fasting Benefits
Aside from weight loss, intermittent fasting has several other potential health benefits as well.
1. Fasting helps you get lean.
As earlier mentioned, fasting puts your body in a fat-burning state, which could hardly be achieved when following a normal eating schedule.
2. Intermittent fasting is easier compared with traditional diets.
Traditional diets are hard to follow over a long period of time; it can be quite difficult. Intermittent fasting, on the other hand, is an effective weight loss strategy that is remarkably easy to stick to even in the long term.
3. Intermittent fasting simplifies your lifestyle.
Intermittent fasting reduces the number of meals you have to plan, prepare, and eat, which gives you more extra time in a day. Remember that planning, preparing, and eating meals should not be the focus of your everyday life.
4. Intermittent fasting promotes longevity.
With intermittent fasting comes calorie restriction, and scientists have known for a long time that calorie restriction leads to longevity.
In fact, an animal study found that calorie restriction and intermittent fasting increase resistance to age-related diseases and extend lifespan in rodents and monkeys, as well as improve the health of overweight humans.
However, further human studies are needed to elucidate the potential benefits of calorie restriction in humans.
5. Intermittent fasting can reduce the risk of cancer.
A 2010 study found that calorie restriction in a mouse model has anti-cancer properties.
However, further human studies are necessary to clarify the effects of calorie restriction on humans with cancer.
2. Eat healthy foods
Surrounding yourself with healthy foods is a great strategy to lose weight as well. It’s best to cook unprocessed foods or those that are grown outdoors.
Just because intermittent fasting is more on “when” you eat doesn’t mean you can eat whatever you want. It is still very important to always consider which food to eat.
Make sure to add weight loss-friendly foods to your diet, including whole egg, leafy green, salmon, cruciferous vegetables, lean beef and chicken breast, boiled potatoes, tuna, beans and legumes, soups, cottage cheese, avocados, nut, whole grains, grapefruit, chia seeds, and full-fat yogurt.
3. Regularly drink water
Drinking water, especially before meals, helps you eat less and lose weight.
According to one study in adults, drinking 17 ounces (half a liter) of water 30 minutes before meals was found to reduce hunger and lessen calorie intake.
Replacing calorie-loaded drinks, including juice and soda, with water helps you experience an even greater effect.
4. Get enough sleep and avoid stress
Sleep and stress have powerful effects on your weight and appetite.
Not having enough sleep may disrupt the appetite-regulating hormones ghrelin and leptin, while when you’re stressed, cortisol—another hormone—becomes elevated. When these hormones fluctuate, it has the potential to increase your hunger and cravings for unhealthy foods (such as sweetened breakfast cereals; gluten-free junk foods; fried, grilled, or broiled food; pastries, cookies, and cakes; French fries and potato chips) and drinks (such as sugary drinks and fruit juices), which leads to higher calorie intake.
In addition, chronic stress and sleep deprivation increases your risk of several health conditions, such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
5. Make Simple Changes
You need not make huge changes to your lifestyle.
You need not count calories as your intermittent fasting can regulate your eating. If you happen to eat unhealthy foods, you can follow it with a healthy meal instead of judging yourself.
Conclusion
Our energy and time should be spent building things that matter, exploring the world and pursuing adventure, connecting with the people around you, and working toward goals that are important for you. Thus, spending much time and effort to lose weight is too much.
There are numerous effortless ways of losing weight without having to think about it, but intermittent fasting is the most popular way of doing it. Aside from weight loss, it has several other health benefits as well.
Although intermittent fasting indeed results in weight loss, it is not for everyone. People who have underlying health conditions, underweight, pregnant women, lactating women, and children are not advised to do intermittent fasting as it can be harmful to their health.
