Weight Loss Tips


It February, this is the time when many people are starting to go downhill with their New Year's resolutions. If being more healthy and achieving a healthier body weight is one of your new years resolutions, make this the last “new year's resolution” by actually making it happen!
The following are some tips to help you stay on track in your journey to a healthier weight.

1. Never skip breakfast!!

Upon waking, your metabolism jump starts, as your body goes from sleeping (lying down) to standing. If you do not eat a breakfast that provides energy boost and necessary nutrients to sustain you until the next meal, your metabolism will fall. The human body is designed to be “energy efficient”, if it is made to think that it is “famine time” (by you not eating breakfast), it will slow down your metabolism to conserve energy until the next time that food is available (lunch), at which time, it will store as much energy (fat) as possible to compensate for the earlier lack of food.


2. Eat better, not eat less

For the purpose of losing weight, often people cut down on the amount of food that is eaten by focusing on counting calories (and nothing else). If this is something you've done in the past or are thinking of doing again (but more strictly this time around), you are doing your weight-loss plan a dis-service. What you would neglected by only counting calories, is that you are putting yourself at more risk of cravings; which you will end up satisfying with a tiny slice of cake (to save on calories) that still doesn't satisfy your body it's real need, that is the need for quality nutrients, leaving you crashing after a brief sugar high. Instead, if you ate adequate calories but in food items that are packed with necessary nutrients, you won't have the cravings, and as a result be more successful with your weight-loss goals.



3. Manage your stress

Stress leads to increased hormones in the body such as adrenaline, which increases blood sugar. When you are stressed (be it mental or physical), your body is unable to “rest and digest” optimally, causing the body's cells to utilize sugar less resulting in more sugar to be stored away, exessive amount of stored sugar also leads to fat storage.



4. Go to the bathroom

Having regular bowel movments (once a day) helps to eliminate toxins including by-products of cholesterol metabolism and exessive fat. Stool remaining inside your colon are not simply staying there waiting to be excreted. The colon walls are actively reabsorbing back toxins and water back into your body, which can contribute to gas, bloating and water weight.



5. Sleep tight

Sleeping is seemingly an activity that burns little energy, indeed it does. Study shows that inadequate sleep is correlated with weight gain. In fact, a study done at the University of Chicago shows that chronic partial sleep may increases obesity. The mechanism is yet to be clearly understood, however, it is known that inadequate sleep negatively impacts the body's ability to metabolize glucose, leading to fat-storage. It also cause the body to crave more carbohydrates and blinding the brain's ability to realize that enough food has been eaten even after adequate meals. Sleep also decreases growth hormone, as a result negatively affects body composition (less muscle tissue, more fat tissue).


If you are overly stressed, have chronic constipation or suffer from insomnia, a consultation with our naturopath would be greatly beneficial to you. She is also able to design a nutritional plan specifically for you to help achieve a healthy body weight!