Does weight loss start in your brain? Many experts believe that visualizing yourself eating healthier and being thinner can help you make it a reality. When you change the way you think, you may be able to reach your weight loss goals with a more positive mindset, which helps you avoid giving up or sabotaging yourself.
Thinking yourself thin may involve:
- Imagining how you would look, act, and feel when you’re thin and staying in that confident and happy mindset.
- Creating a vision board or hanging up an outfit that is the size of your goal weight, reminding yourself about the reality you would like to make for yourself.
- Repeating positive affirmations to yourself by telling yourself that you are getting slimmer so that you don’t get stuck in feeling negative or overwhelmed.
- Building healthy habits on a daily basis.
Thinking thin can help you achieve your goals faster and stick to your diet and exercise plans. But while a positive mindset can help you stay motivated during your weight loss journey, it’s just the first step.
7 exercises for weight loss
- High-intensity interval training (HIIT): HIIT is probably one of the fastest and most efficient ways to decrease overall body fat percentage. HIIT is high-intensity short periods of exercise that usually don’t exceed 30 minutes. This regimen includes short breaks or recovery periods of 30-60 seconds between exercises. Based on your fitness level, a typical HIIT session may vary between 15-30 minutes. It’s a difficult type of workout, so it requires high motivation to maintain a consistent program.
- Strength training: Lifting weights boosts your metabolic rate and ensures that your body maintains an efficient fat-burning rate. With strength training, fat continues to burn even after a workout. Weighted exercises burn fat, build muscles, and tone the body. Strength training should ideally be combined with HIIT and cardio exercises, such as running, swimming, or cycling.
- Running or brisk walking: There is no way to target just abdominal fat. However, exercises such as running can help you burn calories and reduce overall body fat percentage, which helps you reduce fat around the stomach in addition to other parts of your body.
- Elliptical trainer: Using an elliptical trainer is an effective low-impact cardio workout, and 30 minutes on an elliptical trainer can burn around 300 calories. Running burns more calories, but there is more wear and tear on your joints, so it may not be ideal if you’re older or suffer from arthritis.
- Bicycling: You can cycle outdoors or use a stationary bike. With high speed and intensity, you can lose 500 calories during a 30-minute workout.
- Russian twists: This involves sitting down on the floor and keeping your legs straight or bending your knees and leaning back slightly to form a V shape. This posture should be held while twisting your upper body from side to side without moving your legs, keeping your hands joined together at your chest. Russian twists can also be increased in intensity by holding a dumbbell and gradually increasing the weights. This increases resistance, strengthens muscles, and burns more calories. Around 5 sets of 30 repetitions is a good goal to work towards, although thi exercise is not recommended for those with lower back problems.
- Bicycle crunches: Bicycle crunches help burn fat and strengthen abdominal muscles. In this exercise, you lie on the back with your hands behind your head and then raise your knees to your chest while lifting your head and shoulders off the ground. As you crunch from side to side, your legs should be moving in a pedaling motion. It’s recommended to do 1-2 sets of 12-16 repetitions.
Eating a healthy diet
What you eat and how much you eat plays a huge role in losing weight. There are hundreds of diet plans out there, with options including:
- Mediterranean diet
- Intermittent fasting
- MyPlate diet plan
The best diet to follow is not one that gives you the quickest results, but one that you can sustain for a long period of time.
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See AnswerHealth Solutions From Our Sponsors
FCER. The 12 BEST Exercises to Lose Belly Fat for Men and Women. https://fcer.org/exercises-to-lose-belly-fat/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Losing Weight. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html
Harvard Health Publishing. Diet & Weight Loss. https://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/diet-and-weight-loss
National Institute of Health. Guide to Behavior Change. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/behavior.htm
U.S. Department of Agriculture. MyPlate. https://www.choosemyplate.gov
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