You can’t get around diet and exercise when it comes to losing weight, but that doesn’t mean those are the only two ways to shed a few pounds.
There are plenty of different tricks to help you reach your weight-loss goals that have absolutely nothing to do with diet and exercise.
In fact, some of these weight-loss hacks can help you maintain your weight in the long-run better than any fitness plan.
Aside from healthy eating and regular trips to the gym, try adding these 5 easy tricks to your routine to help you lose weight faster:
- Stop Watching Commercials: Who knew that springing for a DVR could actually help you lose weight? Recent research published in Health Psychology shows that people tend to feel hungry when they see food commercials on TV. While you won’t necessarily want the food in the commercial, you will feel hungry enough to raid the pantry until your show comes back on. So, if you can, always skip the commercials.
- Meet More Positive People: It’s not hard to believe that negative people makes us feel worse about ourselves. Whether you’re constantly wasting energy trying to make them feel better or—worse—they spend a lot of time criticizing you, negative friends aren’t really friends at all. A study published in the social psychology journal Personal Relationships found that women have an easier time losing weight if they surround themselves with friends who encourage body acceptance.
- Surround Yourself With People Who Have Self-Control: When you’re trying to stick to a healthy diet, there’s nothing worse than that one friend calling to ask if you want to grab midnight fries at McDonald’s. Self-control over food is a contagious habit that catches on quickly. Nobody likes being the only person in the group who orders a third beer. That said, you shouldn’t just drop your friends who love to eat. Instead, invite them out for non-eating activities, like a morning walk or a writing workshop.
- Eat Produce Before Shopping: If you often find yourself coming home from the grocery store with twice as many bags as you went there for, then you’ve probably fallen victim to a few impulse purchases. Going grocery shopping on an empty stomach is the easiest way to break the bank and stretch your waistline. Before your next shopping trip, make sure to eat a healthy snack first. That way, you won’t end up overspending on unhealthy junk food. ##MN_RESP##
- Use Blue Plates: Several different studies have found that people tend to eat less when the color of their food dramatically contrasts the plate they’re using. So, if you don’t actually own any blue plates, you can still find a good contrast. According to the researchers in one particular experiment, the contrasting colors makes the food portions appear much larger than when all the colors are blended. They suggest using a blue plate simply because not many foods are blue.
Do you have any other weight-loss tricks to add? If so, let us know in the comments!
Photo Copyright © 2008 Steven Depolo/Flickr
