Tropical Weight Loss
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What is honestly the fastest way to lose weight?

Burn more calories than you ingest! As you burn more calories than you take in, you create a calorie deficit which can result in weight loss. You can reduce your calorie intake by eating healthier or by increasing your weekly exercise routine. Consistently maintaining a caloric deficit allows you to shed excess pounds.

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How to lose weight fast? The question that many ask but very few know the answer to. Want to know how to lose 12 pounds in a week? Let's be honest: there's is no healthy way to lose that kind of weight fast and maintain your weight after doing so. The good news is that by following a steady healthy diet and making changes to your lifestyle, you can not only reach a healthier weight, but also increase the chances of keeping your weight down afterwards! As always, your Co-op pharmacy team is here to help you in the quest to achieving your new body goals. Here are your five key areas to focus on in your battle to lose weight, and more importantly keep your weight off!

Burn more calories than you ingest!

As you burn more calories than you take in, you create a calorie deficit which can result in weight loss. You can reduce your calorie intake by eating healthier or by increasing your weekly exercise routine. Consistently maintaining a caloric deficit allows you to shed excess pounds. In layman’s terms if you burn 3,000 calories per day, eating 2,500 calories creates a deficit of 500 calories per day. A 3,500-calorie-a-week deficit results in 1 pound of weight lost. If you bump up your exercise routine as well as eating healthy, you could see some serious weight loss goals achieved. For example, each day walking for 30-minutes could help you lose up to 150 calories per day. Combine that with your 500 calorie food deficit, that’s a 650 calorie a day deficit! To put that into context, that’s 4,550 calorie deficit a week. Over a month that’s the equivalent of just over 2 bags of sugar!

What are the best fat-burning foods?

Fat-burning foods help in accelerating your metabolism and your ability to burn fat and can also help you feel full for longer. These foods have been proven to show an increased rate of fat loss. Include these healthy foods in your daily calorie allowance to help whittle your waist and bring your midriff in line. Here are our top-10 favourite fat-burners. 1. Onions contain chromium, an element that helps your body regulate blood-sugar level, so you don’t suffer energy slumps and reach for fattening sugary treats to fill the void. 2. Spinach contains plenty of the essential mineral manganese for an effective metabolism that helps mobilise fat for energy. It also boasts lots of iron for healthy blood and calcium to repair and strengthen bone tissue. 3. Apples contain antioxidant polyphenols, which help to prevent your body from storing fat, according to a German study. There's also evidence that sharper varieties – like the Granny Smith – aid the production of “good” gut bacteria, helping to keep hunger in check.

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4. Grapefruit can keep your belly at bay. It is thought that compounds in grapefruit prevent insulin levels from rising too high, and stable levels allow better fat burning. 5. Green tea compounds in the tea-house favourite called catechins help speed up your metabolism. They do this by reducing your levels of the enzyme catechol-O-methyltransferase, which degrades the fat-burning hormone norepinephrine. 6. Yoghurt is another great food to add to your shopping list. One study published in the journal Obesity Research found that people who consume around 1,200mg of calcium per day from dairy lost 64% more body fat than those who ate half that amount. 7. Chilli peppers contain capsaicin, which helps protein structures in your body break down fat. Chop and chuck them into your morning eggs. 8. Oily fish influences a hormone in your body called leptin, which directly affects your metabolism’s choice to store calories as fat or burn them off. Tinned tuna, mackerel, salmon and sardines aren’t just convenient, they also have one of the best protein-to-weight ratios of any food. 9. Avocados encourage fat-burning thanks to their rich supply of monounsaturated fats. They also contain mannoheptulose, a near-unpronounceable compound that inhibits the breakdown of glucose, aiding fat loss in the process. 10. Blueberries are super-efficient fat-fighters. A study in the US discovered that they can disrupt the development of fat cells by up to 73%.

Foods to avoid during weight loss

The foods you eat can have a major effect on reaching your personal weight goals. Here’s our top five foods to avoid in your quest to lose weight.

1. White bread

Bread is generally made from wheat, which contains the protein gluten. However, most commercial breads are unhealthy, even for people who do tolerate gluten. This is because the great majority of them are made from refined wheat, which is low in essential nutrients (empty calories) and leads to rapid spikes in blood sugar

2. Most fruit juices

Fruit juice is often assumed to be healthy, but that’s not totally true. Many fruit juices are actually little more than fruit-flavoured sugar water. It is true that the juice contains some antioxidants and vitamin C, but this must be weighed against the large amount of liquid sugar they often contain. For your fruit juice fix, try purchasing ‘never from concentrated’ juice. Always drink in moderation.

3. Processed meat

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While unprocessed meat can be healthy and nutritious, the same is NOT true for processed meats. Studies show that people who eat processed meats have a higher risk of many serious diseases, including colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

4. Processed cheese

Regular cheese is healthy. It is loaded with nutrients, and a single slice of cheese contains all the same nutrients as an entire glass of milk. However, processed cheese products are nothing like regular cheese. They are mostly made with filler ingredients that are combined and engineered to have a similar look and texture as cheese. Read labels, and make sure that the cheese you're eating is actually cheese.

5. Margarine

Margarine used to be considered a healthy alternative to butter. Fortunately, most people have now realized that this is far from being true. Margarine is a highly processed pseudo-food that has been engineered to look and taste like butter. It is loaded with artificial ingredients and is usually made with industrial vegetable oils that have been hydrogenated to make them more solid.

Exercise

This may be glaringly obvious, but after changing the way you eat, exercise is fundamental to seeing the drastic changes in your body you’re looking for. Walking the dog, jogging, playing sports, or even doing lunges and burpees in the comfort of your own living all count… so what are you waiting for?

As a general goal, set yourself a target 30 minutes of physical activity a day. Any more is always a bonus!

How do I lose belly fat?

Losing belly fat can be one of the hardest things to do during your diet, but don’t worry: by following the tips above as well as consistently cutting back on your carbohydrate intake to under 50 grams a day*, you’ll start to notice changes as soon as two weeks into your new routine! *50 grams a day is an average. Your carbohydrate intake is dependent on your level of cardio activity. More physical activity, the more carbs you can enjoy! Always remember, when losing weight you should be thinking long term, not short term. This isn’t a fad diet, or a get-slim-quick scheme. It should be a healthy, positive, and permanent lifestyle change.

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