Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is essential for various reasons. When someone is at a higher weight than they are comfortable with, it can drastically affect their mental wellness and overall self-esteem. Aside from improved mental health, losing fat is also a great way to ward off preventable chronic diseases brought on by obesity. Such conditions include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease.

The health risks alone are enough to encourage a change to eating habits. But where to start? Many suggest going on crash diets or working out incessantly, but those tactics don’t really work for sustainable fat loss. If you want to lose fat and keep it off, you’ll have to put most of your focus into food. So can the food you eat help you lose weight? And if so, what are some natural foods that promote fat loss? Let’s investigate. 

Food to promote weight loss 

Food and fat loss may not seem to go hand in hand, but no matter what you weigh, you still have to eat to fuel your body. That is why avoiding overeating isn’t the only factor, but also focusing heavily on what you do eat. All foods give you energy, even “junk food.” That said, the right foods will offer your body the nutrients and other substances it needs to burn fat on a cellular level. When losing fat, food can be your best friend. 

What are the best fat loss foods? 

Choosing the right foods for fat loss doesn’t have to be an arduous guessing game. A few will help your body do what it needs to do to get rid of excess fat while you limit weight-gain foods and move your body more.

1. Fatty fish 

Fatty fish such as salmon, herring, sardines, and mackerel are all great options if your goal is to lose fat. The primary nutrient in these types of fish is omega-3 fatty acids. These fatty acids can contribute to a reduction in inflammation as well as a reduced risk of heart disease.

When it comes to losing fat, studies have found that eating fatty fish helps fat loss because of its effect on cortisol. Cortisol is one of the body’s stress hormones. When you have high levels of cortisol, the body holds on to fat. However, eating foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids has been shown to lower cortisol levels, making it easier to lose fat.

These types of fish are also high in protein, a nutrient that increases metabolism and makes you feel fuller for longer. 

2. Coffee

Coffee is a day starter for many people because of its caffeine content – caffeine can help people become more alert in the morning. The substance can also improve mood and increase mental and physical performance.  

Studies find that when people consume caffeine before working out, they burn almost twice as much fat as those who do not. Because of this increase in physical stamina, fat loss during exercise is much easier. Caffeine also boosts the metabolism by as much as 13%, which gives the body more fat-burning power even at rest. 

3. Eggs

Eggs are often overlooked as a healthy food because they are high in cholesterol. However, they are actually nutritional powerhouses because of all the essential vitamins they contain. 

Research finds that people who eat eggs for breakfast are less hungry throughout the day and eat less. Because of this, it is easier to lose fat.

Eggs also contain high amounts of protein, which, as mentioned above, helps increase your metabolic rate and encourage fat burn during downtime. 

4. Green tea

Green tea is hailed as a health food because it has many benefits. Aside from the more commonly known effects, such as reducing the risk of heart disease and protecting against cancer, green tea also provides caffeine and an antioxidant known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). 

EGCG is crucial for fat loss because of the way it promotes fat burning, especially in the belly area.  

5. Chili peppers 

Chili peppers add spice to foods. Consuming chili peppers can be great for your health, too. Antioxidants in chili peppers have been shown to reduce inflammation while protecting your cells from damage that could lead to chronic disease because of the ingredient capsaicin.  

Capsaicin can also help promote fat loss for several reasons. The substance reduces overeating because of its ability to make you feel fuller for extended periods. People limiting their calorie intake to lose weight may slow their metabolism. However, adding chili peppers with capsaicin counteracts that slowing of metabolism, which can encourage more fat burn throughout the day. 

6. Olive oil 

Olive oil is a healthy fat, and while eating fat may seem counterintuitive to losing fat, it’s actually a vital piece of the fat loss puzzle. Olive oil can reduce triglyceride levels, raise good cholesterol levels, and encourage the body to produce more of a hormone that helps you feel fuller longer. 

Studies also found that people who consume extra virgin olive oil with their meals burn more fat for a few hours following the meal. That means that olive oil helps you eat fewer calories and encourages your body to burn more when you’re at rest. 

Eating to lose fat is an integral part of the weight loss puzzle. You just have to know what foods to eat to ensure that your body continuously burns more fat. 

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A well-functioning immune system is essential for your overall health and wellbeing. An optimally operational immune system will defend the body against foreign pathogens and disease. It will also not attack the body or cause unnecessary and harmful chronic inflammation (the way it does in the case of autoimmune disease).

Many factors affect how well your immune system operates, and it’s important to make lifestyle choices that are likely to lead to your immune system working well. Let’s talk about how body fat percentage can influence immune function.

What Is Body Fat Percentage?

A person’s body fat percentage is their total mass of fat divided by their total body mass and multiplied by 100. It is the percentage of their entire body that is made of fat. Body fat percentage is seen as a good indicator of a person’s overall health and fitness status. Studies suggest that body fat percentage can have an effect on immune function.

How Is Body Fat Percentage Measured?

The main methods of measuring body fat percentage are:

• Skinfold measurements
• Body fat scales
• Circumference measurements
• Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan
• Air displacement plethysmography
• 3D body scanner
• Hydrodensitometry (underwater weighing)

The Different Types Of Body Fat

Body fat comes in six types. These are:

• Essential fat: Essential fat helps to regulate body temperature, vitamin absorption, cell structure, and hormones, and is essential for optimal health.
• White fat: White fat cells store fat in the form of triglycerides and are the main form of fat cell in the body. White fat is the body’s largest energy reserve, and it provides cushioning for the organs and external body structure. When people are overweight, the majority of their excess weight will be in the form of white fat.
• Brown fat: Brown fat cells burn energy. Brown fat is packed with mitochondria, which burn fatty acids to generate heat and keep the body warm. Brown fat is especially prevalent in babies.
• Beige fat: Beige fat cells function somewhere between white and brown fat cells. They help burn fat rather than store it.
• Subcutaneous fat: Subcutaneous fat is the layer of fat directly underneath our skin. Subcutaneous fat is made up of a combination of white, brown, and beige fat, and makes up about 90% of fat in our body.
• Visceral fat: Visceral fat is white fat that is stored within the abdominal cavity around organs such as the heart, liver, and pancreas.

What Does Body Fat Percentage Indicate?

Body fat percentage can indicate whether you are a healthy weight, overweight, or underweight. However, body fat percentage is not a foolproof indicator of general health or of a healthy lifestyle.

Body fat percentage depends on multiple genetic factors that vary between individuals, such as metabolism, activity levels, and musculature. Also, where body fat is stored has a large impact on health outcomes. For example, if you have a healthy body fat percentage but an unhealthy amount of your fat is visceral fat around your waist, you may be at increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

What Is A Healthy Body Fat Percentage?

A healthy body fat percentage for males is generally between 8% and 18%. When men get to age 50 and over, a body fat percentage of between 8% and 22% is considered healthy.

A healthy body fat percentage for females is generally between 14% and 20%. From age 50 and over, a body fat percentage of between 8% and 27% is considered healthy.

Risks Of An Unhealthy Body Fat Percentage

If you have an unhealthy body fat percentage, you increase the risk of various negative health outcomes. These include:

• Heart disease
• Obesity
• Diabetes
• Cancer
• Fatigue
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• Autoimmune diseases

If your body fat percentage is too low, you risk:

• Hormone imbalances
• Loss of reproductive function
• Dehydration
• Loss of muscle tissue
• Dry, fragile bones

What Is The Immune System And What Does It Do?

The immune system is the network of organs, tissues, and cells that prevents invaders such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites from taking hold in the body and causing disease. When germs get into the body, the immune system triggers the release of special cells that attack them. So how does body fat affect the immune system?

How Body Fat Percentage Can Influence Immune Function

Studies suggest that excess visceral fat, particularly around the stomach, can trigger the immune system to release proinflammatory immune cells. By circulating in the blood and causing inflammation, these cells can damage the body rather than protect it.

Can Excessive Body Fat Lead To Immune Disorders?

Studies suggest that excessive body fat can lead to immune disorders that cause inflammatory diseases, autoimmune diseases, and cancer.

Can Low Body Fat Affect The Immune System?

Studies suggest that lowering body fat can change immune system activity quickly and positively and reverse some of the adverse inflammatory changes seen in obese people with diabetes.

Lowered body fat percentage causes the immune system to reduce the amount of proinflammatory cells circulating in the blood. This reduces chronic inflammation throughout the body and can improve prediabetes and type-2 diabetes.

How To Reduce Body Fat Percentage

You can reduce body fat percentage through:

• Reducing alcohol intake
• Eating a healthy diet
• Getting more sleep
• Aerobic exercise
• Weight training

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The liver is a vital organ. As well as being the largest solid organ found within the body, it performs a lot of crucial tasks. It removes any toxins that happen to get into the blood, helps to regulate and maintain proper sugar levels, and ensures that the blood clots as it should. While these are among the most important functions of the liver, it also plays a role in hundreds of other functions that the body needs to perform to stay alive, such as producing bile.

When the liver isn’t working as it should, every other system can be compromised. Toxins can build up, causing illness; inadequate bile production can lead to digestive issues; and a lack of sugar regulation can cause lowered energy levels. To say the liver is important would be a vast understatement!

There are several things that can compromise liver health. One example is a high body fat percentage. But what does body fat percentage mean, and how does fat affect the liver? Read on to learn all you need to know about how body fat percentage can influence liver function.

What is body fat percentage?

Every person has to have some level of body fat to survive. Typically, men need less than women, but both require it because fat on the body is used for a variety of functions.

Body fat percentage is essentially the way levels of fat on the body are measured against everything else such as lean tissue, muscle mass, organs, and body water. Many people use body fat percentage as a way to gauge their overall health, and the measurement is often used to determine a person’s fitness level.

Body fat percentage is also more important than total weight. For example, if a person is overweight according to the Body Mass Index (BMI) but has a healthy body fat percentage, their overall level of health is better than someone who falls into the category of healthy on the BMI scale but has a significant amount of body fat.

As a general rule, calculating body fat percentage is a better indicator of overall health because it shows a better picture of fatty tissue. People with higher levels of fatty tissue are often at risk of having obesity-related disease, so even if a person fits into the normal weight category, they could be in trouble if they have a lot of body fat and little lean muscle mass.

How does fat affect liver function?

The liver is supposed to have a small amount of fat in it. However, when those levels increase because a person eats more sugar or fat than their body can process, it can lead to a buildup of fat within the organ. In turn, this can lead to various health issues – most notably, fatty liver.

Fatty liver is a broad term used to describe too much fat in the liver. There are various types of the condition, all of which can lead to the organ becoming damaged or scarred. Scarring, in more severe cases, can lead to liver failure, which is when the liver cannot perform its functions.

There are two types of common fatty liver disease: non-alcoholic and alcoholic fatty liver disease. The former is caused when fat builds up within the liver without the presence of excess alcohol use, while the latter is closely associated with excessive consumption of alcohol. The cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease isn’t as clear as its alcoholic counterpart; however, some factors that can play a role in its development can include other health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.

Body fat and liver function

There is a clear connection between body fat percentage and liver function because of how fat can affect the way the liver works. However, it’s worth mentioning here that not all types of body fat are the same.

The human body can hold two types of fat. The first is subcutaneous fat, which is stored in the layer located right beneath the skin. Typically, people hold most of their fat in that layer, and roughly 90% of body fat is thought to be subcutaneous. While subcutaneous fat is associated with a higher degree of fat in the liver and has been shown to contribute to fatty liver disease, it’s actually the second type of fat that people need to pay more attention to when thinking about liver health.

Visceral fat is often referred to as “hidden fat” because of the way it sits on, or in, the body. Unlike subcutaneous fat that sits on the outside of the body, visceral fat is stored inside the belly and ends up wrapping itself around vital organs, including the liver. Research shows that visceral fat is strongly associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and that those who have more visceral fat on their bodies are at a higher risk of experiencing liver dysfunction.

The association between fat and liver health is strong, and it’s thought that body fat percentage can be a good measurement to use when determining a person’s overall risk of developing fatty liver disease. Basically, the more fat a person has on their body, the more likely they are to have a buildup of fatty tissue within the liver, and to suffer the subsequent health problems.

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A good night’s sleep involves a lot more than just sleeping for a set number of hours. Typically, it’s advised that adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. While the time you spend asleep is a great jumping off-point when you’re looking to get quality sleep, it is nowhere near the entire picture of what is means to have high sleep quality. But what is sleep quality, exactly? And how is it connected to your bodyweight? Read on to learn all you need to know about how quality of sleep can influence weight.

What is sleep quality?

To understand sleep quality, it’s important to first understand what sleep is and everything that goes on within your body when you shut your eyes at night. The process of sleep may seem simple – close your eyes, sleep, wake up! – but it’s much more than that.

Sleep revolves around the body’s circadian rhythm, which is our internal clock. The clock itself follows a 24-hour period and affects the physical and mental changes that go on during that period. Importantly, the circadian rhythm controls your sleep–wake cycle, which determines how you sleep at night and how you awake each morning. It’s tied in with consistent, restorative patterns of sleep, so if your circadian rhythm is off, so is your sleep.

While you’re in the sleep state of the sleep–wake cycle, you go through various stages, each with its own important physiological purpose. The stages are:

• Stage 1: Light Sleep. This stage lasts only five to 10 minutes and primes you to get a good night’s rest by slowing down the body and mind.
• Stage 2: Secondary Light Sleep. This stage causes more changes in the body to prepare you for the next stage. Your eye movements, muscle and brain activity begin to slow. However, brain waves can spike sporadically during this stage, which experts believe helps retain long-term memory.
• Stages 3 and 4: Deep Sleep. These occur when the body is completely relaxed. Your breath rate, blood pressure, and body temperature are all decreased during this stage so that the body can release hormones designed to repair and produce tissue as well as moderate immune function.
• Stage 5: REM Sleep. This is probably one of the most well-known stages because of how often it is talked about. It’s the time in which the body processes and stores information through the act of dreaming.

These stages all have a specific role to play in our quality of sleep, but they are also symbiotic in the sense that a person must go through all the stages three or four times per night to get a good quality sleep.

How are sleep and weight related?

It may seem as though sleep and weight couldn’t possibly be related. After all, you’re not overeating in your sleep or slacking out on that exercise session! However, the two often go hand-in-hand because of the physiological processes that occur within the body during sleep.

The connection between sleep and weight has a lot to do with whether a person gets good quality sleep every night, or whether they continue to burn the midnight oil and avoid the shut-eye their body needs to be rested for the following day.

Recent research has found that sleep can play a role in obesity as well as during weight loss journeys. When looking at this from a sleep quality standpoint, the length of sleep as well as how “good” it is are both factors in weight. 

How does bad sleep affect your metabolism?

Your metabolism is the process that turns the food you eat into energy. It also provides cells with energy they need to complete their basic functions. During sleep, the body’s metabolic rate, or the rate at which it burns calories for energy, is reduced by roughly 15%.

Some may draw the conclusion that because you’re burning fewer calories during sleep, you may be able to mitigate this by sleeping less during the night. However, the opposite can be true.

Even though you burn fewer calories during the night, if you don’t spend enough time in good quality sleep, your metabolism can actually malfunction when you are awake, leading to issues that can either drive weight gain or slow weight loss. This is because of how sleep can affect glucose as well as insulin sensitivity. When people do not get proper sleep on a regular basis, their body’s ability to use glucose stores effectively is hindered, as is their insulin response.

Does quality of sleep affect weight?

When looking at sleep in relation to weight loss programs, research has found that people who get better sleep on a regular basis are more likely to have weight loss success over those who don’t. This is likely because of the aforementioned effects that sleep has on the function of the metabolism.

What’s more is that when people are losing weight, they are often subject to muscle mass loss as well. However, if you incorporate good-quality sleep into your weight loss plan, studies have shown that you are more likely to lose more fat while preserving your muscle mass. 

To sum up: while not getting enough good-quality sleep can be harmful to various areas of your health, it can also be harmful to your waistline.

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Many factors are at play when it comes to our weight. Food (the types eaten and how much), exercise (how often we move our body), and genetics can all play a role in whether a person gains or loses weight easily, or how well they are able to maintain a healthy weight. Metabolism – the rate at which we burn or store calories – can also influence weight.

There are other lesser-known factors that contribute to weight loss or gain just as strongly as those mentioned above. One such factor that many people either don’t know about, or pay little attention to, is stress levels. Read on to learn how stress can influence weight in terms of both loss and gain.

What is chronic stress?

Everyone experiences stress at some point in their lives. Whether those stresses are small, such as being stuck in traffic while late for work, or large, such as losing a loved one, feeling stressed from time to time is unavoidable. Typically, passing stressors don’t do much in the way of weight gain or loss, because the body can cope well with the type of stress that doesn’t stick around. However, when chronic stress strikes, it’s a whole different story.

Chronic stress is characterized as consistent and unrelenting periods of high stress that tend to last for three months or more. People who experience chronic stress often find themselves dealing with other physical symptoms such as aches and pains or the inability to get a good night’s rest. When a person deals with this level of stress for a long time, several physiological changes can occur.

One such change is the level of cortisol in the blood. Cortisol is referred to as the primary stress hormone. In the natural stress response, cortisol raises and encourages the release of more glucose into the blood stream. That glucose is then used by the brain and bodily tissues as a way to repair injury. It also stops the functioning of certain processes that could hinder a person’s ability to fight or flee in a dangerous situation.  

During a chronic stress situation, levels of cortisol stay high and the processes that are hindered as a form of protection remain that way, even when there’s no threat or danger. This leads to various malfunctions within the body, one of which can affect your weight.

How does chronic stress affect your weight?

Chronic stress can affect your weight in different ways because of the high levels of cortisol you’re experiencing. High levels of cortisol change the way many processes in the body function and can make it difficult to maintain a healthy weight by either encouraging weight loss or weight gain. But how does stress cause weight gain or loss, exactly?

Can stress cause weight gain?

Cortisol and weight gain often go hand in hand because of the way the hormone affects the body. When a person is constantly under stress, they may experience sugar cravings because the body is using up all the glucose it has stored in order to be ready for the perceived threat.

However, when there is no threat and that glucose storage is getting used up, the body will crave more and more sugar because it won’t have any left to power up the areas needed for the fight or flight response. This increase in sugar cravings can lead to a person eating more sugary foods that cause weight gain. The body also stores sugar after stressful situations so that it’s well prepared, and if these stores don’t get used as energy, they can end up on your waistline. 

If you’re trying to lose weight but are constantly stressed, cortisol will make that difficult, too. This is because cortisol slows down your metabolism. When the metabolism slows, less calories are burned on a day-to-day basis and you will find it increasingly difficult to lose weight.

How to stop cortisol weight gain

If you want to stop the cortisol weight gain, you will first have to lower your levels of cortisol – that is, by reducing your stress levels. This can be easier said than done, but one proven way you can do this is by practicing mindful meditation. Studies have shown that the practice of meditation can effectively lower cortisol levels in people who perform it regularly. Regular moderate exercise may also help to lower cortisol levels over time, leaving you less stressed in the long run and more able to either lose weight or maintain your weight over time.

Research has shown that other activities and stress reduction techniques can also help to lower cortisol levels within the body. These activities include:

• Music or art therapy
• Yoga
• Being out in nature
• Focusing on positives

Does stress cause you to lose weight?

On the opposite side of the spectrum, stress can also cause a person to lose weight. While most of the clinical research surrounding chronic stress and weight focuses heavily on weight gain, there are some reasons why stress could also cause a person to lose weight, including a loss of appetite or an inability to sit still (causing more calories to be burned throughout the day).

Chronic stress is bad for the body in many ways, and weight fluctuation is one of them. In addition to eating well and exercising, the best thing you can do to maintain a healthy weight is undertake stress management/reduction techniques that can help you curb chronic stress.

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There is an entire facet of the health industry focused on fat loss. There are many reasons why people would want to shed fat, from overall health to cosmetic reasons and even to improve mental health.

While many people understand the ins and outs of weight loss when it comes to burning more calories and eating less food, there is less understanding about where exactly fat goes when we lose weight, and how the body gets rid of it. The term “fat release” is sometimes used to define the body’s way of releasing fat – but what does “fat release” mean, exactly, and what bodily processes are involved in losing weight?

What is fat?

Body fat is made up of a grouping of cells known as adipocytes. These create connective tissue that is an important part of the endocrine system. In fact, adipose tissue is now hailed an organ of its own. Fat is stored in adipocytes and can be used to supply energy to the body if needed.

Fat, while often characterized as “bad,” actually has several valuable purposes when it comes to human health. For example, it helps to cushion the body as well as insulate it. There are two main types of body fat, otherwise known as adipose tissue: white and brown. Both types help to create certain hormones and encourage immune system response by helping in the production of cytokines – immune cells that aid in the growth and function of other types of immune cells within the body.

An adequate amount of fat on the body can be helpful. Too much, however, can negatively affect other organs and lead to chronic disease.

The physiology behind fat loss

When fat becomes deposited in the body, it is referred to as lipogenesis. This process occurs when there is more fat than needed for energy, leading to the fat being stored within the adipocytes and accumulating in excess.

When a person decides to lose weight, they change their lifestyle habits, usually to decrease an excess of foods that may be transformed into unused fats within the body. During this time, the body begins to use its fat stores instead of other energy sources, with the fat in the adipocytes being expelled into the bloodstream.

This fat-burning process is actually quite complicated. Fat that is stored in the cell cannot be burned from within the cell. It first has to be expelled as an energy source, as mentioned above.

Where do fat cells go when losing weight?

Fat cells hold excess fat, but when that fat exits the cell, it is transformed into a free fatty acid within the bloodstream and sent to the body’s tissues. This fat can then be used as an energy source for muscles and tissues. The cell that contained the fat, however, doesn’t move from its original spot – it remains exactly where it is.

Instead of the cell itself being removed from the body entirely, it shrinks. So essentially, when losing fat, you aren’t getting rid of fat cells, but rather the buildup of fat within the cells. As they’re emptied of fat, they become smaller, and thus less fat appears on the body externally.

Each fat cell can continuously grow or shrink. It’s all a matter of how much fat is either deposited into or expelled from the cell.

How does fat release from your body?

The process in which fat is expelled from fat cells involves several different reactions. As mentioned above, these reactions cause the fat to be removed from the cell and sent out into the bloodstream to reach muscles or other tissues that need to use it for energy so they can perform their basic functions.

That energy, however, it still within the body until it can be released. When used, it gets broken down into water and carbon dioxide, which in turn become waste products that need to be excreted from the body. Carbon dioxide is expelled through the respiratory system, meaning that it is eventually breathed out of the body. Water can be expelled through urine, sweat, and exhaling breath. Because of this process, the respiratory system is widely considered an integral part of fat metabolism. In fact, research has found that the majority (84%) of fat release from the body occurs through exhaling carbon dioxide, and only 16% is expelled from the body as water.

This might be hard to wrap your mind around – fat doesn’t seem to have much to do with water or breath! But the above chemical processes are how fat loss occurs. Losing weight can be a challenging process for many people, but when you do go about getting rid of excess pounds, it can be helpful to appreciate exactly what your body is doing to help you achieve this. 

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There is no shortage of weight loss tips, pills, concoctions, and programs out there. There is an entire multi-billion-dollar industry dedicated to helping people shed unwanted pounds. But while some of these products or tips work wonders, many others make bold miracle promises – and may not be healthy or even safe at all.

In some cases, people want to lose weight for their health, whereas other scenarios revolve around conforming to traditional “beauty standards.” Whatever a person’s motivation, losing weight can be a convoluted process simply because of the sheer number of possible ways out there. So, considering the dangerous side of weight loss, what’s the best way to shed extra pounds in a healthy manner? Read on to learn how to lose weight safely.

Can losing weight be dangerous?

While losing weight in and of itself isn’t typically dangerous and can be beneficial to one’s health, the way you go about it can be dangerous. For example, if a person decides that they want to lose weight fast and begins eating too little or not eating the right things, they may end up hindering their health rather than improving it.

Rapid weight loss is possibly the most detrimental and dangerous kind, as it can lead to health issues such as:

• Nutrient deficiencies
• A slowed metabolism
• Muscle loss
• Hormone changes
• Gallstones  
• Headaches
• Irritability

Because rapid weight loss is typically everyone’s goal, people who aim to lose weight the fastest are the most at risk.

What is the safest and healthiest way to lose weight?

The timeline for losing weight should always be slow and steady. Studies have found that losing weight at a pace of one to two pounds per week is the best way to not only maintain your health, but also be sure that the weight is kept off long-term. This is for a couple of reasons: people who lose weight slowly are less likely to gain it back, and during slow weight loss, many people adopt new, healthier lifestyle habits that they can take with them throughout the rest of their lives.

What you eat also matters. While being in a calorie deficit is vital to ensure that you’re burning more than you’re taking in, thus causing your body to lose weight, it’s not the entire picture. The foods you eat while losing weight are important, too.

Eating nutrient-dense wholefoods such as vegetables, fruits, lean meats, and wholegrain products will give your body what you need while keeping you in a calorie deficit. If you continue to eat poorly while in a calorie deficit, not only will your body become deprived of nutrients, you will also be forced to eat much less throughout the day.

Safe weight loss tips

There are many aspects involved in safe weight loss. The best way to lose weight safely and effectively is by following these tips:

1. Talk to your doctor first

Prior to beginning any diet plan, you should speak to your doctor about your current health situation and what your body can handle when it comes to losing weight. Your doctor knows you and your medical history, and will be able to supervise your weight loss so that it works effectively and doesn’t cause negative health repercussions.

2. Avoid overly processed foods

Processed foods are always high in things that can hinder weight loss, such as added sugar, fat, sodium, and calories. They have little to no nutritional value, too. Studies have also found that in some cases, processed foods can lead to addictive behaviors that cause a person to binge-eat, which can obviously hinder your weight loss efforts. Instead of processed foods, eat wholefoods that are as nutrient-dense as possible.

3. Practice mindful and slow eating

When you sit down for a meal, your body is hungry. As you eat, the body receives the food and will eventually send you a signal that it has had enough. The problem with this signal is that in some cases, people do not receive it fast enough, because they are eating too fast or eating mindlessly while doing something else.

When you focus on your food and eat more slowly, you will be better equipped to receive that signal when you’re actually full, as opposed to when you’ve already eaten too much. 

4. Be kind to yourself

Since losing weight slowly is the healthiest way to go about it, it’s possible to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate results. But it’s important to be patient with your body and kind to yourself, regardless of the results you see. As long as you maintain your efforts, the results you want will come.

5. Chill out

High levels of stress can actually cause a person to stop losing weight because the stress hormone, cortisol, gets released in high amounts, leading to cravings and the slowing of your metabolism. Stress can also invoke unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as binging on food or eating foods that will not aid in weight loss. 

6. Prioritize exercise

Movement is an important aspect for weight loss because it can lead to more calories burned throughout the day. Cardio is great for burning a lot of calories, and weightlifting or bodyweight exercises are great for building muscle, which will lead to a higher calorie burn while you’re at rest.

Weight loss isn’t easy (no matter what any weight loss company or product says!). The good news is that safe weight loss, while it takes time and hard work, is one of the best things you can do for your health, now and into the future.

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