If you don't know how lose weight, or would you like to lose some faster, you have definitely come to the right place. In this article we will explain to you, in fact, how to lose weight without going hungry.
The traditional concept of dieting – eat less and move more – usually requires a lot of willpower, between counting calories and trying to ignore hunger. Sometimes, however, it is unnecessary suffering, and probably a waste of your precious time and energy. For this reason people often give up. An excessive focus on calorie counting has certainly not done much to reverse our current obesity epidemic.
Fortunately, though, that's not the only way to lose weight.
Calories aren't the only things that matter in weight loss. Your weight is also hormone-regulated. By reducing hunger and reducing levels of the fat-storing hormone, insulin, it will probably be easier for you to lose excess weight.
In this article we want to offer you just that: 18 valuable tips to lose all the weight you need to lose, without excessive suffering. Ready? It begins!
1) Choose a low carbohydrate diet
If you want to lose weight, consider starting by avoiding sugar and starches (such as bread, pasta, and potatoes). This is an old trick: for 150 years or more there have been a large number of weight loss diets based on eating fewer carbohydrates. What's new is that modern scientific studies have repeatedly shown that low carb is just as healthy, if not better, than other approaches to dieting.
Of course, it's still possible to lose weight on any diet — just eat fewer calories than you burn, right? The problem with this simplistic advice is that it ignores the elephant in the room: hunger. Most people don't like to “just eat less” because it could mean going hungry forever. Sooner or later, many will probably give up and eat without restrictions, hence the problem of the "yo-yo effect".
While it should be possible to lose weight on any diet, some seem to make it easier and some seem to make it much harder. The main benefit of the low-carb diet is that it can make you want to eat less. Even without counting calories, overweight people tend to eat fewer calories on a low-carb diet.
So: Calories matter, but you don't have to count them.
A 2012 study also showed that people who lost weight experienced a much smaller reduction in total energy expenditure (the number of calories burned in a 24-hour period) when they followed a low-carb diet compared to one. low-fat diet during the weight maintenance diet – a difference of 300 calories, in fact.
According to one of the Harvard professors who conducted the study, this benefit "would be equivalent to the number of calories typically burned in one hour of moderate-intensity physical activity." Imagine: an extra full hour of exercise every day, without actually exercising.
Recently, an even larger study confirmed this metabolism-sparing effect, with different groups of people who had lost weight burning an average of 200 to nearly 500 more calories per day on a low-carb maintenance diet compared to to a high-carb or moderate-carb diet.
2) Eat when hungry
Eating when you're hungry sounds simple: If you're not hungry, you probably don't need to eat yet.
On a low-carb diet or keto you can trust your feelings of hunger and satiety again – something many people on a low-fat diet or a standard American diet cannot do.
Feel free to eat as many – or as few – times a day as you feel is right for you.
Some people eat three times a day and occasionally snack between meals (frequent snacking could mean you would benefit from adding protein, high-fiber vegetables, or extra fat calories to your meals, to boost the sense of satiety). However, there is some evidence that frequent snacking may not be wise when trying to lose weight.
Some people, on the other hand, only eat once or twice a day and never snack. Whatever works for you, just do it. Eat only when you are hungry and don't eat when you are hungry.
It also helps that lower-carb, higher-protein diets tend to reduce hunger. Studies show that people who follow a low-carb ketogenic diet reduce the feeling of hunger and the amount of food they eat.
Many other studies show that adding protein to the diet significantly reduces hunger and food intake. Our suggestion? Try a low-carb, high-protein approach and see what happens to your hunger levels.
3) Eat natural foods and avoid processed ones
Another common mistake when following a low-carb diet is being fooled by marketing of "low-carb" diet products. Remember: An effective low-carb diet for weight loss should be based primarily on whole foods.
Prioritize what humans have been eating for thousands or possibly millions of years, i.e. meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, butter, olives, nuts etc. If you want to lose weight, avoid special "low-carb" products that are actually full of carbohydrates. This should go without saying, but marketing creatives are doing everything they can to sell. They will tell you that you can eat cookies, pasta, ice cream, bread and lots of chocolate on a low carb diet, as long as you buy their brand. They are often full of carbohydrates. Don't be fooled!
What about low-carb bread? Warning: if it is cooked with cereals it is certainly not low carb. But some companies still try to sell it as a low-carb option. Even low-carb chocolate is usually filled with a type of sugar alcohol — maltitol — which can be partially absorbed by the body, but which the manufacturer doesn't count as carbohydrates. If maltitol is absorbed, it is likely to raise blood sugar and insulin levels. The remaining carbohydrates end up in the colon, potentially causing gas and diarrhea. While low-carb chocolate made with erythritol or stevia is likely to be fine, it should still be considered that any sweetener can keep sugar cravings down.
Two simple rules to avoid being deceived into buying unhealthy "low carb" products:
Don't buy "low-carb" versions of high-carb products, such as cookies, bars, chocolate, bread, pasta, or ice cream -- unless you're sure of the ingredients (ideally, making your own).
– Avoid products with the words “net carbs” on them. It could be a way to deceive you.
Focus on eating good quality, minimally processed 'real' food. Ideally the food you buy shouldn't even have an ingredients list (or it should be very short).
Finally – you might want to forget the old diet adage “everything in moderation”. That's not necessarily helpful advice for people struggling with excess weight — in fact, it may be quite the opposite. Don't eat everything in moderation. Eat as much healthy food as you can whenever you feel hungry. Eat as little unhealthy food as possible, but if possible, don't eat any at all.
4) Eat only when hungry
On a low-carb diet you should aim to eat when you are hungry. What if you're not hungry? Do not eat. Frequently eating more food than you need to stay satisfied will slow down your weight loss.
For example, it would be good to limit unnecessary snacking. Unnecessary snacking can be a problem even on a low-carb diet. Some things are easy to eat just because they are tasty and readily available. Here are three common pitfalls to watch out for on a low-carb or keto diet:
1. Dairy products such as cream and cheeses. They work well in the kitchen, because they satisfy. But problems arise when you munch on a lot of cheese in front of the TV in the evening – without feeling hungry. Pay attention to this. Another problem could be having a lot of cream with dessert, when in reality you are already full and keep eating just because it tastes good. Another common culprit is lots of heavy cream in your coffee, many times a day.
2. Nuts. It's very easy to eat until the nuts are gone, no matter how full you are. Pro tip: According to science, salted nuts are harder to stop eating than unsalted nuts. Salted nuts make you want to eat more. Good to know. Another tip: avoid carrying the whole bag on the sofa – choose a small bowl instead. Personally, I often eat all the nuts in front of me whether I'm hungry or not.
3. Low carb recipes. Even if you're only using almond flour and sweeteners, snacking on baked goods and cookies usually represents additional consumption when you're not hungry. Yep, this will slow down your weight loss.
Feel free to skip meals: do you have to eat breakfast? Some research has confirmed that the answer is no. Don't eat if you're not hungry. And that goes for any meal. On a low-carb diet, hunger and the urge to eat tend to decrease significantly. If this happens, be happy! Don't fight it by eating food you don't want. Instead, wait for hunger to return before eating again. This will save you time and money and speed up your weight loss.
Some people fear losing control if they don't eat every three hours. Worry that this “junk” will blow their diet completely off leads them to obsessive snacking all the time. This constant snacking may be necessary to control the hunger and cravings that can arise on a diet high in sugar and starchy carbohydrates, but is usually not necessary on a low-carb diet. Hunger will only slowly return and you should have plenty of time to prepare food or grab a snack.
5) Measure progress, but wisely
Tracking your weight loss progress is sometimes more complicated than you think. Focusing primarily on weight and stepping on the scale every day could be misleading, cause unnecessary anxiety, and undermine your motivation for no good reason.
Libra is not necessarily your friend. You may want to lose fat – but the scale also measures your muscles, bones and internal organs. Gaining muscle is a good thing. So weight or BMI are imperfect ways to measure your progress. This is especially true if you're just coming off a long period of semi-fatigue (which can accompany calorie counting), as your body may want to put back lost muscle. Starting weight training and gaining muscle can also hide your fat loss.
Losing fat and gaining muscle means great progress, but this can elude you if you only measure your weight. So it is better to quantify your body composition while losing weight. You can do this with a DEXA scan, hydrostatic weights, plethysmographic scales, and others. But if these are not available, it is also good to follow the disappearance of fat from the abdominal area by measuring the waist circumference.
Here's how:
- Place the tape measure around your waist, slightly above your belly button (to be precise: midway between your lowest rib and the top of your hip bone, at your side);
- Exhale and relax (do not suck in your stomach);
- Make sure the tape measure fits snugly, without compressing the skin;
- Measure.
Measure progress
I suggest measuring your waist circumference and weight before starting your weight loss journey and then maybe once a week or once a month take a new measurement. Write down your results so you can track your progress. If you want, you can measure several areas: around the buttocks, chest, arms, legs, etc.
Keep in mind that your weight can fluctuate up and down by several pounds from day to day, depending on fluid balance and the contents of your digestive system. Don't worry about short-term changes, go with the long-term trend instead.
If you can, check out other important health indicators when you're starting out, like these:
- Blood pressure
- Blood sugar (fasting blood glucose and/or HbA1c)
- Cholesterol profile (including HDL, triglycerides)
These markers often find benefit in a low-carb diet, even before major weight loss. Checking these health markers again after a few months can be great for your motivation, because they usually show that you're not only losing weight, but also gaining health.
What if you don't have a measuring tape at home?
– Use any piece of string. Wrap the string around your waist and cut it to fit your waist on day one. This string might magically seem to get longer and longer with each week that you wrap it around your waist.
– Use old pants.
6) Be persistent
It usually takes years or decades to gain much weight. Trying to starve yourself out of everything as fast as possible doesn't necessarily work well in the long run, but it can be a recipe for yo-yo dieting. Also, you need to set realistic expectations for your health and weight loss goals. You can read more in our detailed guide on realistic expectations.
What to aim for
It is common to lose 1-3 kg within the first week of a low-carb diet, and then average about 0.5 kg per week as long as there is still a lot of weight to lose. This translates to about 23 pounds per year. However, weight loss doesn't happen at this rate in everyone. Approximately every kilo is equivalent to one cm less waist circumference.
People who follow a very strict low-carb diet can lose weight faster, as can those who exercise a lot (a bonus). And if you have a huge amount of excess weight to lose, you may get started much faster — even though initially, some of the weight you lose will be from water loss. As you get closer to your ideal weight, the loss may slow until you stabilize at a weight your body feels right. Very few people become underweight on a low-carb diet, as long as they eat when they are hungry.
7) Avoid filling yourself with fruit
This advice is controversial, because today fruit has an almost magical aura of health. While fruit contains fiber, antioxidants and important vitamins, it also contains a fair amount of sugar – about 10% by weight (the rest is mostly water).
Just taste an orange or a grape. Sweet, right?
Eating whole fruits in moderation — especially those that are low in sugar, like blackberries or blueberries — can absolutely be part of a healthy diet. The soluble fiber found in fruit can help short-term satiety; it also reacts with water in the intestines to form a thick gel that helps delay and reduce the amount of sugar absorbed from that fruit. In fact, up to 30% in fruit sugar may not be absorbed.
Larger amounts of fruit, however, will provide a significant sugar load to your gut. Even if only the 70% of that sugar is absorbed, the 70% of a large number is still a large number. For example, five servings of fruit per day may be equivalent to the amount of sugar in 16 ounces (500 mL) of soda - 52 grams of sugar!
Isn't fruit natural?
Most people believe that fruit is natural, but today's fruit in the grocery store has very little in common with what fruit looked like before it was grown. Modern domesticated fruits are larger, less bitter, and have thinner skins and smaller seeds. This makes them tastier and easier to eat — and because of their larger size, they can deliver more sugar per piece of fruit than their older counterparts.
8) Avoid drinking beer
Beer contains quickly digestible carbohydrates that block fat burning. This may be why beer is sometimes referred to as "liquid bread." There's a good reason for the term "beer belly."
Here are smarter alcoholic (low-carb) options when trying to lose weight:
– Wine (red or dry white)
– Dry champagne
– Strong liquor like whisky, cognac, vodka (avoid sugary cocktails – try vodka, soda, lime instead)
These drinks hardly contain any sugar or digestible carbohydrates, so they're better than beer. However, large amounts of alcohol could slow weight loss, so moderation is always a good idea.
9) Avoid low-calorie sweeteners
Many people replace sugar with non-caloric sweeteners in the belief that this will reduce their calorie intake and cause weight loss. Seems plausible. Several studies, however, have failed to show any obvious positive effects on weight loss from consuming non-caloric sweeteners instead of plain sugar. According to scientific studies, non-caloric sweeteners can increase appetite and keep cravings for sweet foods. And a recent independent study showed that switching from drinks with noncaloric sweeteners to water helped women lose weight.
10) Be careful with medications
Of course, we're not advising you not to take meds, but keep in mind that many medications can block weight loss. Discuss any treatment changes with your doctor. An example are insulin injections which, especially in high doses, hinder weight loss. So if you find that the scale is not moving, don't worry too much.
11) Stress less, sleep more
Have you ever wished you had more sleep and a less stressful life in general? Most people did – the stress and the lack of sleep may be contraindicated for weight. Chronic stress and inadequate sleep can increase the levels of stress hormones like cortisol in your body. This can cause increased hunger, resulting in overeating of highly palatable foods and thus weight gain.
Strive to wake up on your own initiative, regardless of the alarm clock. If you are the type of person who is always brutally awakened by the sound of the alarm clock, it is possible that you are not giving your body fully adequate rest. One way to combat this is to go to bed early enough for your body to wake up on its own before the alarm goes off. Getting a good night's sleep is another way to reduce stress hormone levels.
Sleep deprivation, on the other hand, goes hand in hand with sugar cravings. It also has a negative effect on self-discipline and makes it painfully easy to give in to temptation (it's no coincidence that induced sleep deprivation is a common interrogation technique). Similarly, sleep deprivation weakens your resolve to exercise.
Do you have trouble sleeping even though there is plenty of time to do it? Here are five expert tips:
1. Stick to the same bedtime every night. In the long run, this will help your body prepare for sleep at that time.
2. No coffee after 2pm. Just don't – and remember that it takes time for caffeine to leave your body.
3. Limit your alcohol intake to three hours before bed. While alcohol might make you craving, it does worsen your sleep quality.
4. Limit exercise to the four hours before bed. Physical activity can cause you to wake up and make it difficult to go to sleep for several hours afterward.
5. Get 15 minutes of sunlight every day. This is good for your circadian rhythm (your "body clock").
Finally, make sure your bedroom is dark enough and has a pleasant temperature.
12) Limit the consumption of dairy products and dried fruit
Can you eat as much as you want and still lose weight? This often works well with a low-carb diet, as appetite regulation often improves. However, despite the fact that a low-carb diet generally makes it easier to eat just enough, there are foods classified as low-carb that become a problem in large quantities. If you find yourself having trouble losing weight on a low-carb diet, you may want to try being more careful with:
– Dairy products (yogurt, cream, cheese)
– Dried fruit
Dairy products contain varying amounts of lactose (milk sugar), which could slow weight loss if consumed in excess. As a result, cutting out dairy may help speed up weight loss. This is especially true for typically fat-free dairy products, such as regular milk and various yogurts.
However, if you're struggling to lose weight, you should avoid large amounts of full-fat dairy products, such as cream and cheese. Remember that, gram for gram, fat has twice the calories of carbohydrates or protein; thus, high-fat, highly palatable foods can provide a huge calorie load before you know it. When it comes to butter, there's no need to worry about extra carbs, because butter is almost pure fat. But, like any other source of fat, if butter is consumed in excess, your dietary fat will be burned for fuel rather than body fat.
Dried fruit is the second food to keep an eye on. It contains a fair amount of carbohydrates as well as a significant amount of fat, and it's very easy to unknowingly gulp down large amounts. Obviously, the high calorie load provided by handfuls of nuts can hinder weight loss. If you're trying to follow a strict ketogenic diet, limiting 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, you should also note that cashews are among the worst when it comes to carbohydrates: They contain about 20% of carbohydrates by weight.
This means that by consuming 100 grams of cashews (which happens in a flash!) you will fill your daily quota. Peanuts tend to be around 10-15% in carbohydrates – even that doesn't make them safe. So, for those having trouble losing weight: Use nuts sparingly. And for those on a strict keto diet, know that the most harmless from a carbohydrate standpoint are macadamia nuts (usually around 5% of carbohydrates), or Brazil nuts (4%).
13) Take supplements of vitamins and mineral salts
The body needs a certain amount of essential vitamins and minerals to function properly. What happens when you don't get enough? What happens when you eat too little or when the food you eat is not nutritious enough? It is possible that our body understands and responds by increasing hunger levels. After all, if we eat more, we increase our chances of consuming enough of whatever nutrient we're deficient in. On the other hand, reliable access to vitamins and minerals could perhaps mean a decrease in hunger levels and cravings, thus promoting weight loss.
Vitamin D
A lack of vitamin D may be the most common deficiency in northern countries like Canada and some of the United States. Overall, research on the relationship between vitamin D and weight is conflicting, and it cannot be concluded that taking vitamin D causes weight loss.
Multivitamins
There is a 2010 clinical study involving a hundred women with weight problems, dividing them into three groups. One group received a daily multivitamin supplement, the other a daily calcium supplement, and the last group a placebo only. The study went on for six months. Not surprisingly, the results showed that nothing happened to the weight of the women receiving the calcium or the placebo. However, the group that took the multivitamin lost more weight – an average of 3.6 kg (8 lbs) more – and improved several health markers. Among other things, their basal metabolic rate (the rate at which the body burns calories when at rest) increased.
14) Try intermittent fasting
There are many things to consider before moving on to the #14 advice, but don't let this put you off. The intermittent fasting can be a powerful tool when trying to lose weight. It can be perfect if you're stuck at a weight loss plateau despite "doing everything right" – or to speed up weight loss.
Intermittent fasting means exactly what it sounds like: not eating during a certain amount of time.
First recommended option – 16:8
Probably the most popular option is fasting for 16 hours (including sleep), which is usually easy to do on a low-carb or keto diet. It requires swapping breakfast for a cup of coffee (or some other noncaloric fluid) and having lunch as the first meal of the day. Fasting from 8 pm to 12 – for example – is equivalent to 16 hours of fasting. Another option is to skip dinner: Eat breakfast and lunch within 8 hours — say, 8am to 2pm — and then don't eat again until 8am the next morning.
There are many other versions of intermittent fasting, but this 16:8 method (16 hours of not eating with an 8 hour window to eat) is the one we recommend as the first option. It's often effective, generally easy to do, and doesn't require calorie counting.
You can do a 16:8 fast as often as you like. For example twice a week, only on weekdays, or every single day. In fact, on a low-carb or keto diet, some people fall into this habit spontaneously, as their appetite is reduced (see weight loss tip #4, eat only when you're hungry).
Other types of intermittent fasting.
There are many other options. Basically, longer bouts can be harder to do, but they can certainly be effective. Here are two more common options:
– I fast for 24 hours (often dinner to dinner) once or twice a week. This can be effective and easy for some people to do, especially on a keto diet, which usually reduces appetite.
– The 5:2 diet. Eat as much as you need to feel satisfied 5 days of the week and then eat low-calorie on two days (500 calories a day for women, 600 calories for men). This requires calorie counting and more planning, but some people still find pleasure in doing it.
15) Exercise the 'smart' way
Exercise is greatly overrated as a single weight loss intervention. However, it has its advantages.
Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or getting off the bus one stop early, probably won't change the numbers on your bathroom scale. He is a myth. Studies show that if you start exercising, you probably need at least 30-60 minutes of exercise a day to significantly lose weight. Part of the reason is that exercise makes people hungrier, and eating more reduces its beneficial effect on weight.
Even though the effect of exercise on our weight is overstated, exercise can still make significant improvements in health, even without weight loss. You can find out more in our exercise guide. But it's not a good idea to eat unhealthy processed food and drink sugar water (so-called "sports drinks"), and then exercise for hours a day just to compensate. Metaphorically this is like digging a hole, putting the ladder you're standing on and painting the basement level windows of your home.
Exercise cannot compensate for other behaviors or problems in your life. Those need to be addressed first.
16) Raise your ketone level (unless you have type 1 diabetes)
We've come to tip number 16. If you're still having trouble losing weight despite the 15 tips listed above, it might be a good idea to come up with a controversial option: ketones taller. Why is it controversial? For most people, "low" or "higher" ketone levels don't make a difference to health and weight loss, and we generally don't recommend shooting for a specific level of ketones. However, for some people who find themselves in a weight stall while following a low-carb diet, trying to raise their ketone levels may be beneficial.
How does it work? A quick review: the first tip was to eat low carb. That's because a low-carb diet lowers your levels of insulin, the fat-storing hormone, allowing your fat stores to release stored energy and shrink.
This tends to make you want to consume fewer calories than you consume -- without starving -- and lose weight. Many of the tips mentioned above involve fine-tuning your diet to enhance this effect.
Ketosis is a state in which the body efficiently burns fat. The brain also runs on fat, in the form of ketone bodies. These are energy molecules in the blood (like blood sugar) that become fuel for our brains after being converted from fat by the liver.
To promote the production of ketones, the amount of insulin in the blood must be low. The lower the insulin, the higher the production of ketones. And when you have a well-controlled and large enough amount of ketones in your blood, it's basically evidence that your insulin is very low – and therefore, that you're enjoying the maximum effect of your low-carb diet.
17) Check hormone levels
So you've followed the previous advice, implemented major lifestyle changes, and determined that neither medications nor vitamin deficiencies are a problem. You've also tried increasing your ketone levels for a while (ensuring low insulin levels). And you still can't reach normal weight?
If this applies to you, it may be time to consider the possibility that hormonal imbalances are to blame for your problems. There are three common problem areas:
1. Thyroid hormone
2. Sex hormones
3. Stress hormones
Thyroid hormone
Some people, most often women, may suffer from a reduced metabolism due to a lack of thyroid hormones. The common symptoms of hypothyroidism are
– Fatigue
– Cold intolerance
– Constipation
- Dry skin
– Weight gain
In these cases, the weight gain resulting from the decrease in metabolism usually does not exceed 15 pounds.
Your doctor can easily arrange a blood test to measure thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) concentration. If the test result is positive, your thyroid is probably fine. However, it is possible to have mild hypothyroidism, even if the TSH is normal.
If your TSH is in the upper part of the normal range, but you suspect you have hypothyroidism, it's worth measuring your free T4 (thyroid hormone level) and thyroperoxidase (TPO) antibodies. If your free T4 is frankly low or your TPO antibody test comes back high, it's possible - but not certain - that you'll benefit from a thyroid hormone treatment.
Is it possible to avoid becoming deficient in thyroid hormone? Maybe. While there are no known interventions to stop an autoimmune attack on the thyroid, normal thyroid function requires adequate vitamins and minerals, including iodine, selenium and iron.
What if you've optimized your vitamin and mineral intake, but are still suffering from low thyroid hormone levels? The most common cause of hypothyroidism is an autoimmune reaction against the thyroid gland. This is typically treated with T4 supplement in the form of levothyroxine, which the body converts into the active form of thyroid hormone, called T3. Some people with hypothyroidism will also benefit from adding T3 (liothyronine) to their T4 therapy.
Still other people prefer dried pork thyroid (contains T4 and T3), although this treatment remains controversial and is not accepted by all health professionals.
Whichever form of thyroid hormone replacement you choose, the key is to make sure you're monitoring your levels and symptoms to make sure you're not replacing too much or too little of your thyroid hormones.
Sex hormones
Sex hormones also affect weight.
Women can suffer from the endocrine disorder PCOS – polycystic ovarian syndrome – which elevates testosterone and insulin levels. This can mean weight gain and menstrual disturbances (very common), infertility, acne and male hair growth (such as facial hair). A low-carb diet can help treat this condition.
During menopause, estrogen levels can fluctuate widely, eventually dropping to low levels when the ovaries lose their ability to produce them. This period of life is often associated with a drop in metabolic rate and some weight gain, especially around the intestines (so-called central obesity). Current evidence suggests that estrogen replacement therapy may help achieve a more favorable body composition, although its effect on weight is minimal at best.
Men: From middle age onwards, testosterone levels gradually decrease which is considered normal. Sometimes, the decline is greater than what would be considered normal. This can be associated with some weight gain, typically around the intestines, as well as a decrease in muscle mass. A mild testosterone deficiency can be partially addressed by engaging in smart exercise routines and supplementing with vitamin D.
A more significant deficiency, confirmed by blood tests, is usually treated with testosterone replacement therapy.
Both men and women need to take into account, however, that supplementing with testosterone or estrogen for years on end comes with numerous risks, some greater and more serious than others. It might be wise to accept that you don't (and shouldn't!) have a 20-year-old body when you're at least twice as old. A better option might instead be to focus on a healthy lifestyle, and be as happy and grateful as possible for the body you have.
Stress hormones
The last possible problem behind stubborn weight problems can be the main stress hormone, cortisol. Too much cortisol can increase hunger, resulting in weight gain, especially around the midsection. The most common causes of elevated cortisol are chronic stress and lack of sleep (see tip #11), or cortisone medications (tip #10). It is very important to realize that it is the underlying stress and sleep that need to be addressed;
18) Consider using weight loss supplements
The internet is full of advertisements for magical supplements that can help you lose weight. Unfortunately, the one thing they're going to slim down is your wallet. This is true even if they were once mentioned on a health show – you know it's an entertainment show anyway, right? Any over-the-counter supplements that aren't dangerous or illegal are likely to have a small or negligible effect on your weight. This is also true for the vitamin supplements mentioned in the #13 advice – the effect is certainly small, but in this case it is also safe – perhaps even healthy – and also very cheap, making it a potentially smart bonus (note that we do not sell any supplement and we do not make money on this advice).
There are also over-the-counter "carb blockers" out there, which are supposed to stop the body from absorbing the carbohydrates we eat. However, the effects tend to be relatively small, even in studies funded by the companies that sell the products.
Always consult your doctor, and if he thinks he can or should suggest hunger blockers, take them without problems.
And now, good luck!
