12 Tips To Lose 20 Pounds in 3 Months
12 EZ Tips To Lose 20 Pounds By Christmas
No Dieting Required, Just Wokeness
By D. S. Mitchell
Out of the File
I’m always cutting out articles or writing down tips I hear about weight loss, with the hope that I will eventually put one or two of the tips to some valuable use. LOL. Anyway, as I was cleaning out a storage box I found a file labeled “Weight Loss Tricks”. I took a few minutes and sorted through the notes, clippings, and articles in the file. After sifting through at least 10 years of information I came away with a dozen super suggestions to help us drop 20 pounds by Christmas. I am writing this tips list on September 10, 2023. That’s 106 days, give or take, approximately 3 and 1/2 months, or 14 weeks. No matter how you look at it, the following suggestions should help you to lose an easy 1.5 pounds a week with just about zero effort. Several of the tips you’ve heard before, but the trick here is to wake up, pay attention to what you are putting in your mouth. I call it “woked” eating. Easy Peasy. Let’s get started.
Sit Down When You Eat
This information has been confirmed in study after study, for at least the last two decades. People eat an incredible 5 times more when they are standing or on the go, such as eating in the car. Your brain does not register food you eat while moving. So, folks take a few minutes to sit down and engage with your food. Sitting down will allow you to be more conscious of flavor and aroma and the slow down will allow you time to experience the sensation of fullness.
Cut Out the Booze
I suggest you stop drinking anything but unsweetened coffee or tea, or water (flavored is fine). Quite seriously, alcohol can add a whole lot of sneaky calories. I call it the 5:00 o’clock sabotage. Stay clear of the sugary girlie cocktails. Here’s where size does matter, stick to the standard serving sizes: 12 oz for beer, 5 oz for wine and 1.5 oz for hard liquor. No more than two drinks two times a week! Otherwise you are going to undermine your other valiant efforts.
Take a Walk, Take a Breath
The last thing you need when you are working on yourself (your weight loss in this case), is a whole lot of stress. Take it easy. Take those long slow breaths, drop that load you are carrying and “just breathe”. One of the things that let’s me drop the stress and take those deep relaxing breaths is to take a walk. Wow. Walking is your best friend, whether trying to lose weight or relieve the stress, take a hike; or at least a stroll around the neighborhood. Smile and greet other walkers. There is a real community out there, get off the couch and join the sneakers crowd. Smiling makes you feel good. The calorie burn is dependent on you; speed and distance the basic determinant. The average person burns somewhere between 200 and 350 calories per hour at a moderate pace. At an easy pace that’s about 3 miles an hour. To lose one pound, you need to cut 3,500 calories. If you want to lose one pound a week divide 3,500 calories by seven to get 500; that means you need to cut 500 calories a day overall. If you walk for an hour, 5 days a week, you will burn 1,000 to 1,800 calories. If you are like me, you knew all that, but had forgotten it.
Crunch, Crunch
There’s something about making your jaw work that ups the satisfaction level, and as a consequence reduces your desire to overeat. Sprinkle nuts, seeds, or roasted chickpeas on salad, roasted veggies, yogurt and even soup. Yum, yum, I can taste it now.
Bring on the Green
Plan to include a salad at least once a day. It will add needed vitamins and minerals to your diet and give you that celebrated crunch, plus salads are filling. Whether its your entire lunch or an inviting dinner side eat away without concern. HOWEVER, do not load up on salad dressing. Salad dressings even the low cal, low fat, variety are loaded with salt, fat, and sugars. If you must have salad dressing, I recommend you dip your fork tines in a separate dish of salad dressing and then stab some lettuce and carrots. You will enjoy the flavor of the dressing with far fewer calories.
Substitutions That Work
Don’t think you have to give up spaghetti or other pasta dishes, there’s spiraling. I understand beets, carrots, and rutabagas are often used to replace noodles, but here again, I have only spiraled zucchini and I love it. Once all that sauce is loaded on the faux “pasta” who cares. I have this cool little gadget that I bought at the Kitchen Kaboodle for a buck that does a sensational job spiraling my zucchini pasta.
Check the Calorie Count
A decade or more ago now, I pulled in the local McDonald’s drive thru ready to order my favorite coffee drink and was shocked into buying a bottle of water. Holy moly, that “favorite” coffee drink had 850 calories! This was the first day my local McDonald’s began posting calorie content on their menu boards. What an eye opener. When eating out be sure to watch the calories/carbs printed on your menu and make adjustments based on how much you have already eaten and how much you have exercised. Think before you order. Be woke!
Don’t Skip Meals Rule
Experts have long held that human beings should eat three meals a day. Skipping meals they have suggested could work against weight loss. The idea being that if you skip a meal you are more likely to overeat later in the day. Experts project that your body needs steady fuel to keep blood glucose levels balanced-this is important to regulate metabolism, and having blood sugar levels too high or too low can lead to weight gain by affecting how your body burns and stores fat. New studies suggest differently.
Intermittent Fasting, A New Approach
While the don’t skip a meal rule is cemented into our heads, Intermittent Fasting is a new approach to weight loss. Intermittent Fasting works by prolonging the period when your body has burned through the calories consumed during your last meal and begins burning fat. This process is called metabolic switching. This is the life of prehistoric man. You got to eat when you caught or trapped something. There are several different ways to do intermittent fasting, but they are all based on choosing regular time periods to eat and fast. For instance, you might try eating only during an eight-hour period each day, say 8 am to 4 pm or 9 am to 5 pm , and fast for the remainder. Or you might choose to eat only one meal a day two days a week. There are many different intermittent fasting schedules. Whatever schedule I’m using, I never, I said I never, eat after 6 pm.
Conscious Chewing
I have heard the 100 macerations rule but I’m far too impatient to do the 100 chews per bite. I do however, consciously eat small bites and I count at least 2o chews before swallowing. You saw again my reference to “conscious” eating. Sit down, slow down, pay attention. Be aware, be woke, to what you are putting in your body, and before you put that cookie in your mouth, consciously decide if there isn’t a better choice available. Conscious choice. Put it to work. Conscious choice in how and what you eat is essential to every wellness program.
Smaller Portions on a Smaller Plate
Fool the eye, fool the stomach.
Brush Your Teeth After Eating
Brushing your teeth sends your brain the message that the meal is over and it is time to stop eating.
