7 Tricks to help you lose weight

Christmas is over and it’s time to lose all those extra pounds you put on during the festive period. It’s easy to forget about those extra calories that you put into your body during Christmas, but you will soon be able to tell the difference once you have tried to put your normal clothes back on in January and nothing fits quite the same way.

Thankfully there are 7 tricks to help you lose weight. Losing weight doesn’t have to be a complete struggle once you have the know-how, and you will soon realize this with these seven very easy tips!

• Drink water!

When you are sat in front of the TV watching the soaps in the evening and you feel that familiar pang of hunger, have a glass of ice cold water instead. Your tummy might be telling you that it wants food, but it could be a very simple case that it needs a beverage instead. By drinking water, you are filling your tummy up which means that you will eat less, and by making it ice cold, your body will be working hard to warm it up once it reaches your stomach. This means that your metabolism will increase and losing weight as a whole will be an easier affair.

• Take a supplement that helps to speed up your metabolism. There are many of these on the market, and although a little bit of research may be necessary to ensure you don’t buy something that will prove to be a total waste of time, there are more than a few supplements that have been proven to help with this. Green tea, for example, has been shown to speed up the metabolism and is a firm favorite of people like Victoria Beckham, known for being very slim. When you speed up your metabolism, your body works faster to digest food and this can help you to burn off the calories quicker.

• Try meal replacement shakes or bars throughout the day. If you don’t have time for a healthy and balanced lunchtime meal because you are busy working, opt for a shake or cereal-style bar instead. These shakes and bars contain all the things that are essential for your body to burn calories at the optimal rate, and contain the right ingredients to help you feel fuller for longer – thus reducing the amount of calories you need to burn in the first place.

• Do some housework.

To burn off one pound of fat, you need to work off 3,500 calories, which although sounds like a lot, isn’t when you think about it logically. To lose rate at a pound per week, which is recommended for healthy and safe weight loss, you need to lose 3,500 calories per week, or 500 calories per day. Do you know what burns off 500 calories? Fidgeting! Studies have shown that a “fidgety” person can burn up to 350 calories per day. Also, using smaller bowls can reduce your food intake by plenty of calories over a week. Even something as simple as washing the dishes, doing laundry or cleaning the windows can help in the fight against fat, so why not give it a go and actually do the housework today?

• By not eating in front of the TV, you can lose up to 300 calories per meal. Watching TV preoccupies your mind, so when you don’t think about the food, you eat more. Why not skip the TV dinner for a table one instead?

• Lose the topping on your salad. The salad itself might be healthy and low in calories, but by smothering it with a dressing; you are adding unnecessary calories to your meal. Lose them!

• Leave out the whipped cream on your hot chocolate. Try to swap to healthier varieties of food and drink too. By swapping mayonnaise to the low-fat varieties, you could be saving almost a hundred calories per meal alone!