For most of us, losing body-fat can be a real challenge and seem overly complicated. But weight-loss doesn’t need to be an arduous chore, with just a few small tweaks you could be dropping body-fat faster than ever.
Here are 5 of my favourite tips for effortless fat-loss:
- Switch cooking in oils to 1 calorie sprays
This is probably one of my favourite tricks to help with weight-loss because it’s not a trick. It is just a simple way to reduce hidden empty calories. I know cooking in coconut oil has become all the rage lately, but coconut oil like all oils is still 100% fat and per tablespoon about 115 calories, the same as olive oil, butter, and lard.
Switching to a 1 calorie spray could literally reduce your calorie intake by 700-1500 calories a week. That is about half a pound of body-fat you could suddenly be losing every week. 1500 calories sounds extreme, but here is a simple scenario, you’re trying to be super healthy, so dinner is a chicken breast, sweet potato fries, and boiled spinach.
To cook the chicken you add one tablespoon of coconut oil and to cook the sweet potato fries you pour over 1 tablespoon of olive oil and suddenly your 600 calorie meal of chicken, sweet potato fries and spinach is now 830 calories. Simply using a 1 calorie spray would make it making 620 calories at best.
- Switch to low-fat dairy such as zero% natural yogurt, low-fat cheese, skimmed or semi-skimmed milk.
Low-fat foods have gone out of fashion recently. This is probably because once food manufacturers realised low-fat foods were popular they used it as a marketing tool to sell high sugar-laden products branded as healthy. This is unfortunate as some low-fat foods really are a good option if you want to effortlessly reduce your calories. I love using low-fat cheese, as it can often have zero grams of sugar, minimal fat and lots of protein, allowing me to eat tasty cheesy foods and still lose weight.
- Frozen vegetables.
This trick is almost too simple that most of us forget about it. We all want the best diet, latest exercise program, and fancy supplements. However although looking for new ways of doing things can be a good idea, we should never forget the basics.
One basic healthy habit is eating vegetables, full of fibre, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and brilliant for reducing overall calorie intake.
However not only can preparing vegetables be a faff, some such as spinach go off pretty quickly. Instead of letting this stop you eating vegetables, buy them frozen. 2 minutes in a microwave and you’ve got a portion of vegetables ready to, instantly making whatever you eat healthier and more filling.
- Get more sleep
I’ve written extensively about sleep here and here, so I probably sound like a broken record by now, but the benefits of sleep are so immense its really worth prioritising. One of the main benefits of good sleep is on our waistline.
A lack of sleep is strongly correlated with obesity. This is because poor sleep increases our hunger hormones and makes us more hungry for sugary and salty junk food. During sleep restriction studies, people often eat 50% more food when they are sleep deprived.
So if you want effortless fat-loss, get more sleep. To do this, I recommend checking out this article on sleep. To get you started though:
- avoid caffeine after 12-4pm
- sleep in a dark room, cool room
- avoid blue light 1-2 hours before bed
- Increase your NEAT
Neat stands for none exercise activity thermogenesis, otherwise known as the calories you burn from things other than exercise. Surprisingly NEAT might be more important for weight-loss and health than traditional exercise.
It turns out a high level of NEAT can double daily calorie expenditure. Albeit doubling your energy expenditure would require a lot of extra activity. However, burning 200-500 calories extra a day through NEAT is surprisingly easy and could have you melting off fat faster than Usain Bolt eating chicken nuggets.
So if you want to increase our NEAT, here are 3 awesome ways.
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- Use a standing desk – Standing instead of sitting can burn up to 500 extra calories a day
- Walk more – Seems obvious, but just walk more, park further away from work. Go for a walk on your lunch break.
- Play more – We often get so caught up working and being adults, we forget to play, but if you watch kids. It’s clear they burn a lot of energy playing and so can we. If you have kids, play with them, if not try learning a skill, like juggling, gymnastics, surfing, mountain biking or a team sport, basically something fun. Although its exercise, you’ll be doing it for the fun of it.
What do you think, are these tricks helpful to you?