Finding a successful path to weight loss is a difficult process. Not everyone can afford to hire their own trainer and nutritionist, but figuring out how to continually shed pounds on your own can seem all but impossible at times.
The simple fact is that there is a lot of misinformation out there about what does and what does not work when trying to lose weight. Sure, drinking less soda and more water is sure to help you shed pounds, but are no-carb diets really all they’re cracked up to be?
Today, we’re introducing 10 of the best home remedies for weight loss. Following these science-backed techniques, you can regain control of your body and your life!
1. Drink More Water
If you are trying to lose weight and do not currently drink at least two liters of water per day, you are doing it wrong.
Why is it that drinking more water is important for losing weight?
There are three main reasons that water matters when it comes to weight loss.
The Big Three Benefits of Water
#1. Water helps your body burn more calories and speeds up your metabolism. (1)
When you drink two liters of water per day, your body has to spend more energy to warm it up and use it. This helps to burn calories. Additionally, your body increases your metabolism by using up either carbohydrates or fats to fuel this heating.
#2. Water helps you lose weight – no matter what.
Regardless of whether dieting or not, water can help you lose more weight. (2)
#3. Water can replace sugary beverages.
While it does not have to, many people try to replace sugary beverages such as fruit juices and soda with water. Doing this does two things for your body. First, it hydrates you. Second, it reduces the amount of added sugar that you take in every day.
Here’s how to remember what to drink: Follow the 8×8 rule! This rule states that you should drink 8 ounces of water 8 times a day. While you may want to drink more or less than this amount depending on your weight and activity levels, this is a good starting point.
2. Reduce Your Sugar Intake
Sugar occurs both naturally and artificially in many foods that we eat. While sugar in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, consuming too much sugar can cause many different problems for your health:
- Increased risk of diabetes (3)
- Harder to lose or maintain weight
- Body tends to hold onto fat more
- Sugar can be addictive
- Increases risk of cardiovascular diseases (4)
Added sugars are in many foods that you eat every day. Even foods that claim to be low-calorie or healthy are packed full of added sugars, and you might not even realize how much sugar you are eating.
Here’s what to do: Begin checking the amount and source of sugar in foods that you eat every day. Choose the two foods that have the most sugar, and stop eating them.
By reducing the amount of added sugar that you consume, you’ll make it easier for your body to lose weight while also improving your overall health.
3. Try Intermittent Fasting
It’s true that many diet fads exist, and a lot of popular diets are less effective than they claim to be.
One diet that you might want to overlook as a fad diet is the idea of intermittent fasting, but this type of eating pattern has actually been proven to be effective at boosting your metabolism and causing additional weight loss.
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting is when you do not eat for a longer period of time than usual. Similar to how most people fast overnight while sleeping, you extend this period by a few hours or even a full day. Some people fast for 10-12 hours of the day; others alternate fasting days with normal days.
When you control the times when your body can eat and when it can rest more strictly, you can actually alter the way that your metabolism works. Intermittent fasting causing your body to burn calories more efficiently, and this, in turn, causes improved weight loss results. (5)
It can still be difficult to know which type of intermittent fasting is most effective, and you may need to experiment to see what is most successful for your body. (6)
Regardless, these facts about intermittent fasting can help you lose weight:
- Fasting should not affect your mood if done properly (6)
- Fasting helps to control insulin levels, which helps control how your body processes sugar
- Fasting increases weight loss results by up to 8%
4. Eat The Right Breakfast
Some people that are hoping to lose weight make the mistake of skipping breakfast in order to reduce the number of calories that they eat during the day. Unless you are fasting, this is not the right technique.
In fact, it’s been shown that eating the right breakfast can actually help you to lose more weight! (7)
Here’s what you should do: Try to eat eggs for breakfast!
Why Eggs?
Eggs are one of the best diet foods that there are. While some people limit themselves to only egg whites or egg yolks to fit specific diet requirements, eating the whole egg is the best way to get all of the nutritional benefits that can boost your weight loss results.
When you eat foods like eggs that are high in protein and low in carbohydrates for breakfast, you are setting yourself up for weight loss success.
Eating this balance in the morning satisfies your hunger more effectively than foods that are high in sugars or carbohydrates. It even makes you less likely to eat as much at lunch and dinner!
By starting your day with eggs or a similar food that is high in protein and low in carbohydrates, you’ll eat better all day long. (8)
5. Drink More Tea (Green tea is best!)
It may seem like an old wives tale that drinking tea can help you to lose weight, but it’s been proven that drinking green tea can cause your body’s metabolism to increase.
There are a few different reasons why tea can help you to lose weight:
- Slows down how quickly your body makes fat cells (9)
- Encourages body to burn more fat (10)
- Improves body’s response to glucose and other sugars (11)
- Reduces stomach fat (12)
Green tea, which contains both caffeine and tea catechins, is known for being one of the best diet supplement teas. By drinking up to two servings of strong green tea every day, you can improve your weight loss results naturally.
6. Reduce Addictive Cravings
Do you ever feel like you cannot resist the urge to eat more sweets or snacks even after you’ve already had dinner or snacks?
You’re not alone in this feeling (13)
In fact, it’s been proven that certain foods can be just as addictive as substances that are commonly abused such as alcohol, drugs, or nicotine. Highly-processed foods, in particular, have shown that they can be addictive. (14)
To overcome the effect that food addiction can have on your weight loss journey, you should begin to condition yourself to resist food cravings.
Here are a few ways that you can start resisting your cravings for addictive foods:
- Exercise more frequently (15)
- Drink more water
- Gradually eat less of those items
- Learn more about what true hunger feels like (16)
- Pay attention to when you tend to overeat these foods
7. Balance Endurance and Resistance Exercise
Many people who are attempting to lose weight struggle to determine what type of exercises they can do at home to improve their body.
The key is to do a variety of activities, as every type of exercise has a different positive benefit on your health and body weight!
Aerobic Activity
Aerobic activity improves how well your heart works and helps your body get rid of fat more efficiently. Add brisk walking or light jogging to your workouts at least twice a week. (17, 18)
Resistance Training
Resistance-training, such as basic dumbbell weight exercises, increase the amount of fat-free muscle mass in your body. This type of exercise also promotes stronger muscles which can burn more calories while resting than weak muscles. (19, 20)
Long-Term Benefits
There’s another benefit to working both aerobic and resistance exercises into your daily routine. Many people who succeed in losing weight then struggle to maintain their new weight. Keeping physical activity in your daily activity helps to prevent weight regain. (21)
8. Add Probiotics
The speed at which your body processes food and burns fat – also known as your metabolism – is affected by hundreds, if not thousands, of different factors.
One of the most important factors that determine how your body processes food are the microbes that live in your gut. Simply put, these little organisms break down your food so that your body can process them more efficiently.
Why Do Gut Microbes Matter?
Every person has a different set of microbes in their body. The makeup of your gut is known as your gut flora.
It’s been shown that those with lean bodies have different microbes in their gut than those that are obese. For that reason, the link between weight and these microbes has been made! (22)
Your weight can be affected by what is in your stomach, and you can improve your gut flora! (23)
How Do Probiotics Help?
Foods and supplements that are rich in probiotics such as yogurt can help to improve what type of microbes live in your gut.
By eating more probiotics, you can prevent weight gain, improve weight loss, and even lower your risk of developing serious diseases such as diabetes. (24)
Some of the most common, probiotic-rich foods include:
- Yogurt
- Kimchi
- Tempeh
- Kefir
- Sauerkraut
- Miso
- Pickles
- Cheese (cheddar, gouda, mozzarella)
By eating more of any of all of these foods, you will improve the way that your stomach processes. In turn, you can lose more weight!
9. Increase Protein & Replace Fats
There are a lot of diets out there. From keto to no-carb diets, there isn’t any single diet that is going to work for everyone. As annoying as that may be, every body is simply too different for a generalized diet to work.
Instead, here are two things that you can focus on to improve your weight loss results.
Increase Protein
Adding more protein to your diet has been proven to increase how much weight you lose while dieting and exercising. High protein meals are more likely to make you feel full which can help you to eat less. (25)
A diet high in protein also helps your body to create more healthy muscle mass which increases the number of calories that you will burn at all times.
Adding too much protein, however, can cause some adverse effects. If you eat too much protein, you can actually slow down your metabolism! (26)
Replace Okay Fats With Better Fats
If you commonly cook with vegetable oils or other oils that are full of less-than-great fatty acids, you can make a huge change in your diet results by replacing those oils with healthier cooking oils.
One of the most common (and healthiest) oils to incorporate into your diet is coconut oil!
Coconut oil has been shown to reduce stomach fat. Because coconut oil is a simpler fat than other types of cooking oils, your body can break it down more rapidly. This means that replacing other oils with coconut oil can limit or prevent weight gain. (27, 28)
10. Measure What Matters
When you have your mind set on losing weight and losing it quickly, it can become easy to become more obsessed with tracking your progress than actually seeing real results.
It’s important to keep tabs on your progress, but you should be sure that you are tracking the things that truly matter when you are trying to lose weight. But what are those things?
The most important things to track when you are trying to lose weight are:
- Regular food logging (29)
- Daily steps
- Tracking at least one session of high-intensity activity per day
- Weekly self-weigh-in
If you do all four of these things regularly, there is a better chance that you will show significant weight loss during a 6-month period. (30)