I’ve posted this as a question before, but this is one of the major things we need in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Between school, sports, jobs, assignments and trying to have a social life, the first thing we sacrifice is SLEEP. The truth is, our bodies need sleep like a fish needs water.

• Sleep helps consolidate your memories so that you have a bank of information and experience when you need it. So, no matter how hard you study, how much you try retain all that information, you still need to sleep to let your brain process all that information you’ve gathered. 

• Sleep also helps maintain your metabolism, essential for weightloss. Have you noticed that when you don’t get enough sleep, you tend to crave carbs and sugar more? If you’re trying to loose weight, healthy sleep is ESENTIAL to helping curb those sugar cravings, preventing you from loosing that weight. 

• If that isn’t enough, during sleep, skin makes new cells twice as fast as when youre awake, repairing the environmental damage and healing acne blemishes.

When people think about weight loss and dieting, they mistakenly think about entire categories of food they are not allowed to eat, such as dessert. It’s simply absurd! You can’t go through life depriving yourself from chocolate or apple tarts. The only thing you should be depriving yourself of is quantity. As long you keep your portion sizes of not so healthy foods to a minimum, by allowing yourself to eat what you enjoy, you are still able to enjoy your favourite treats, (what diet?) when you make portion control a habit, you’d be able to make your weight loss a long term, sustainable lifestyle.

 Similarly, crash diets or trying to eat far too little (under your BMR) will not only slow down your metabolism and increase your fat stored with everything you take in, it will cause you to binge when you can’t take it anymore. Weight loss is a gradual thing, how long can you upkeep this behaviour? The effects of these diets are short lived, and in the long run cause your metabolic rate to drop. 

At the end of the day, what’s the point of temporary weight loss? Don’t you want to look good for the rest of your life, not just this month? Getting into a good habit of portion control will help you shed the weight gradually but also keep it off. 

Permanent weight loss can seem impossible at times, when you hear about people who loose the weight only to regain it. What you don’t hear about, is people who have lost the weight and kept the weight off. These people don’t just alter the way they eat and exercise, they modify their mindset. They believe in themselves.

Via book- ‘The 10 commandments of loosing weight’

Keep a food diary.

Write down everything you eat, this prevents you from eating mindlessly, which can add hundreds of unnecessary calories, preventing you from loosing the weight. Carry it with you everywhere, and get in the habit of recording what you’ve eaten within 15 mins of doing so. Also, note when, how much you ate, as for your main reason for eating. (Such as hunger, boredom, loneliness.)

After a week or so reflect on what you’ve eaten and see if there are any patterns, and note what you can do to prevent eating the unnecessary bit’s.

Chucks don’t count as sports shoes if you’re doing running for half an hour, trust me. Seriously hurt my calf muscle on the treadmill doing my c25k yesterday. :(

Don’t forget to stretch and hold a stretch for 20-30 seconds too!!

According to the book ‘The Low GI Diet’, 19 out of 20 people regain the weight they’d lost through dieting!! There’s never been a better time to stop dieting and start making sustainable lifestyle choices.