Solid tips to get a jump on your weight-loss resolution
It’s the season for drawing up your resolutions and I bet doing something about your weight is going to on that list once again. Here’s an article that has some great tips for sticking to those resolutions so go ahead and read it now:
We’re betting you’ve already “treated yourself” a little too much this holiday season — hey, who can resist that extra reindeer cookie?
Pretty much no one.
But here’s some good news. You can get a jump on your resolution to drop a few pounds in 2016 — and it won’t be hard at all. New research shows that easy lifestyle moves can reap significant weight-loss benefits.
Five tips to consider:
1. Eat more often. Researchers at Occidental College here in Los Angeles recently found that consuming six healthy, portion-controlled meals per day instead of three slightly larger meals helped slash hunger pangs and produced a leaner physique during weight loss. (Note the two important words: “portion-controlled.”) The study compared participants who ate twice a day, about six to seven hours apart, and subjects who ate smaller meals every two to three hours The conclusion? “Increased [meal frequency] may lead to reduced consumption at subsequent meals and/or overall daily caloric intake,” according to the study.
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2. Drink a glass of water (or two). Drinking a little more than two cups of water (or 500 milliliters) before each meal can help spur considerable weight loss. Researchers at the University of Birmingham in Britain, led by Dr. Helen M. Parretti asked overweight study subjects to drink up, then imagine themselves with a full stomach before starting to eat a normal-sized meal. The result of this creative visualization? On average, subjects lost 9 1/2 pounds each over a 12-week period.
3. Reach for the chile pepper. Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia found that capsaicin, a compound found in chile peppers, sends messages to the nerve network in your stomach, which then tells your brain you’re no longer hungry. “One of the reasons obese people eat more food is probably due to disruption of this hot chile receptor in nerves in the stomach,” says Amanda J. Page, assistant professor and senior research fellow at the university’s School of Medicine. “If we can discover how this channel is disrupted then we can develop a drug therapy for the treatment of obesity that will not only help you lose weight but also keep the weight off. It’s a ‘watch this space’ situation. Scientists are working on the problem, and eventually there will be a successful therapy.” In the meantime, if you enjoy spicy food, try a half teaspoon daily half-teaspoon of red pepper sprinkled over one meal each day: Previous research by Purdue University found that doing so increased study subjects’ core body temperature, caused them to burn more calories and curbed hunger…
