1. You have to eat fat to beat fat!
While too much of the wrong fat (saturated fats in highly processed meats, trans-fat found in some cookies and crackers, and the hydrogenated processed fats) is bad for your health and waistline, a diet with the right fat can help both.
Good fats found in olive oil, nuts, and avocados have proven to be powerful reducers of belly fat.
What’s more, fats help you feel full—they have 9 calories per gram compared to 4 for protein or carbs!
2. Exercise alone is not a great weight loss tool!
Thinking you can eat whatever you want as long as you work it off later is actually a pretty dangerous mind-set, particularly if you look at the current research. Exercise alone leads to a very modest decrease in total body weight: less than 3 percent! Eek! This means that the majority of your weight loss is going to happen with what you are bringing home from the grocery store.
You have to combine eating well with exercise. There’s no getting around it – using “detox” teas or things to “erase the evidence” won’t work either. They can be a bit harsh on the system and you will still have inflammatory responses to some of these highly-processed foods which will show as weight gain or the inability to loose weight.
3. Long cardio sessions are not the key to weight loss!
Do you do the same workout over and over, you know, the treadmill, elliptical or any other available cardio machine? Unfortunately, this exercise strategy can actually backfire when it comes to weight loss and fat burning. Aerobic exercise demands that you increase your energy output. Because our body is always trying to stay in balance, this type of movement may actually act as a biological cue to make you eat more, which can sabotage weight-loss efforts.
Research shows that continuous aerobic exercise isn’t nearly as effective a weight-control strategy as surprising your body with aerobic interval training (short bursts of heart-pounding work, also known as HIIT, or high intensity interval training) or strength training (push-ups, squats, anything that builds muscle and power).
4. Not getting enough sleep can backfire on your efforts!
How long you sleep directly affects your body mass
One study found that dieters who got 8.5 hours of sleep nightly lost 56 percent more body fat than they did when eating the same diet but got just 5.5 hours of sleep a night.
Another study showed (Columbia University research) that people may eat 300 extra calories a day when they get a few hours less sleep than usual.
Sleep deprivation interferes with the hormones leptin and ghrelin that regulate appetite. That means you’ll feel hungrier and are more likely to indulge in poorer eating behaviors.
Also, when you are tired you tend to look for more energy in the form of unhealthy snacks.