1. Fidget: People who tap their feet, prefer standing to sitting, and generally move around a lot burn up to 350 more calories a day than those who sit still. That adds up to nearly 37 pounds a year!
In short, during your off-hours, don't just lay around. In the future I would like to see a swimming pool, ping pong table and foozeball table to keep people active when they aren't training. In the meanwhile, walk around, talk to people, take short bikes rides to the market.
2. Keep most meals under 400 calories
Study after study recommends spacing out your meals at regular intervals and keeping them all about the same size. Eating meals at regular intervals has been linked to greater calorie burning after eating, better response to insulin, and lower fasting blood cholesterol levels. When you eat regular meals throughout the day, you're less likely to become ravenous and overeat.
This is a biggy. Since I eat at the buffet twice a day, I eat way too much at each meal. In addition, my sugar levels drop too low from training so I'm inclined to grab a soda. Keep the meals small and frequent and you won't have this problem.
3. Take yourself off cruise control
Increase the intensity of your everyday tasks, from vacuuming to walking the dog, recommends Douglas Brooks, an exercise physiologist and personal trainer in Northern California. "Turn on some music, add in some vigorous bursts, and enjoy the movement," he says.
Focus less on the number on the scale and more on the numbers of minutes you are running or doing other forms of cardio. Can you run the same distance faster than you did last week? Can you go more rounds? Can you do more sprints while running? Those are the numbers you should be looking at. Again, easier said than done.
4. Drink 8 glasses of water per day
Water is not just a thirst quencher--it may speed the body's metabolism. Researchers in Germany found that drinking two 8-ounce glasses of cold water increased their subjects' metabolic rate by 30%, and the effect persisted for 90 minutes. One-third of the boost came from the body's efforts to warm the water, but the rest was due to the work the body did to absorb it. "When drinking water, no calories are ingested but calories are used, unlike when drinking sodas, where additional calories are ingested and possibly stored," Increasing water consumption to eight glasses per day may help you lose about 8 pounds in a year, he says, so try drinking a glass before meals and snacks and before consuming sweetened drinks or juices.
If its yellow, let it mellow. If its brown, flush it down. GROSS! Let me return to the first one. If its yellow, DRINK MORE WATER!
5. Step it up--and down
Climbing stairs is a great leg strengthener, because you're lifting your body weight against gravity.
For people who have weight issues, I recommend the following for cardio. 20 minutes of power walking on the tread mill, 20 minutes of cyclying or on the ellipitical, 20 more minutes on the tread mill...but with every passing minute or two, increase the spead and incline. By the time you get to the last five minutes, you should be SPEED walking up hill pretty quickly.
7. Eat 4 g of fiber at every meal
A high-fiber diet can lower your caloric intake without making you feel deprived. In a Tufts University study, women who ate 13 g of fiber or less per day were five times as likely to be overweight as those who ate more fiber. Experts see a number of mechanisms through which fiber promotes weight loss: It may slow down eating because it requires more chewing, speed the passage of food through the digestive tract, and boost satiety hormones. To get 25 g of fiber a day, make sure you eat six meals or snacks, each of which contains about 4 g of fiber. For to-go snacks, buy fruit; it's handier than vegetables, so it's an easy way to up your fiber intake. One large apple has just as much fiber (5 g) as a cup of raw broccoli.
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