So I've been reading articles and watching videos about weight loss and one thing stood out: the information they give is usually incomplete. Everytime they claim something, they often don't bother to explain the fact and only prefer to just plainly state it. Therefore, if you don't understand why having a big breakfast is more important than skipping it or having a small one, why then should you to stick with it just cause they say it is? Every day you might read about which food you should eat or which workout routine would work best but loosing weight is a slow and extremely hard process. So you might ask what does work? and why? This article is for all of you people whom are sick of your little bellies and big tummies. Join me as I explore the science behind all the facts and find out why some food are better than others, why others make you fuller for longer, and how you can burn calories while sleeping.
A lot of you might be trying to loose weight for obvious reasons, but for some, weight loss is a vital thing. I'm talking about people with visceral fat as their problem may not be as obvious since they may look as slim as they can but with problems laying deeper inside their body, around the organs, and inside they're blood vessels. If the latter is not swiftly solved by dieting and exercise, it could lead to potentially fatal damage coupled with heart problems and type 2 diabetes. Such a problem is mostly seen in men rather than women, with most men confident they don't have a weight problem with the inside of their bodies displaying a different image that can only be seen through an MRI. In general, any person who is over weight probably suffers from visceral fat. The good new is, when you diet and exercise visceral fat is the first thing you burn. So what should you do and why?

1- When thinking about dieting a lot of people assume that they should skip meals or have smaller meals, but such a strategy doesn't work. Here's why? Scientist monitored the brain activity of a person who skipped breakfast while showing him pictures of food. They wanted to see how the brain would react when he looked at low calorie meals as opposed to high calorie ones. They went on to find that the brain lit up whenever they showed him sugary food like donuts and chocolate but was far less interested in salads and vegetables. How is that possible? When you skip breakfast your brain tries to compensate by urging you to crave high calorie food. The latter is a response to a hormone called ghrelin that controls the fill me up filling you get when your stomach is empty hence causing you to crave high calorie food. The dangerous associated with this is that it all happens unconsciously making you unaware of its actions and seperating it from will power. And since you need your brain to back you up when you are dieting, it is instead doing everything it can to get you to break your diet.
Therefore, don't skip meals.

2- This next tip might seem a little too easy. Then again, if you are doing the right things and know the right facts dieting should be an easy task. So here it is: change your plate to a smaller size. Several researchers have shown that people in restaurants and at home are more likely to eat less when they're given a smaller plate (22% less in fact) even if they are in an all you can eat restaurant. On the other hand, when we are given larger plates we just can't stop even when we are full.
So if you want to stop eating when your full, simply use smaller plates.

3- Of course changing the plate size is not enough it's also about what you put in it. I did a little experiment myself on a few different items of food to see exactly the quantity of food that I would get with each item or group of items. I made a big bowl of fruit salad, one cup of smoothie, a muffin, a cheese sandwich, 6 very small pieces of chocolate, and a full beef dinner with potatoes and vegetables. Now before you continue reading try to estimate how many calories is in each or arrange them from highest to lowest calorie count.... They were all 300 calories! This is to show you that if you eat the right kind of food you can eat a lot more (a big bowl of salad rather than just one muffin) and fill up your stomach which only means that your stomach won't be bothering your brain with ghrelin anymore and you won't crave high calorie food for the rest of the day. So you really can eat much more and still loose weight. Be aware of the calories in your food! For instance your daily coffee, which is one cup of black coffee, is 10 calories but a cappuccino is 100 calories, a chicken salad with vinaigrette dressing is 250 calories but a chicken salad with croutons and ceasar dressing is 480 calories, and 3 apples a day are 180 calories rather than one bar of chocolate which has 400 calories. Small changes in your diet can dramatically cut you calorie intake by half.
So count your calories.

4- Now what if you eat all the right things (fruit salad, lean meat, and vegetables) and still can't loose weight? Does it mean that you just have a slow metabolism and no matter how careful you are with your diet you just won't loose weight? Most people who have been over weight for all their life tend to blame their weight on their metabolism tuning their body size into their identity thinking that they were born to be fat. Let's clear something up. It's called your metabolic rate and it's simply the rate at which you body burns calories just by being alive, breathing, heart pumping and organ functioning with 90 to 95% of people spot on the normal range of the metabolic rate, unless you a severely ill. Hence the metabolic rate is for only a measure for your inner body functions and so you can't really blame it on the metabolism. Moreover, a study has shown that people who count their calories at the end of each day forget up to 40% of what they ate and that's why they can't really keep track of how much they ate. People who write down their calories right after each meal and snack, count up to 95% of what they really ate. The daily recommended calories for men are around 1700 calories a day and 1500 for women.
So don't blame it on your metabolism. You have simply eaten more than you need.

5- If you are trying to eat less there are ways to fool you brain. Hunger is the result of the stomach shrinking as we discussed earlier, the solution is to eat proteins (lean meat, eggs, beans and fish). The reason is that protein keeps you fuller longer but until recently no one really understood why. Studies have shown that people who eat the same number of calories in their meal could get hungrier again some faster than others and they found that protein rich diets keep you fuller for longer. So how does protein control hunger pains? When any kind of food travels through your digestive system it triggers a hormone called PYY into your blood stream and once that hormone reaches your brain it suppresses any hunger signal there. Scientist have recently discovered that protein triggers far more PYY hormone therefore keeping you feeling satisfied for longer than any other food type. It is a very good idea to incorporate proteins in your breakfast since it's going to keep you full for the rest of the day.
So eat more proteins.

6- An experiment has been conducted on 2 groups of people, both were given the same quantity of items for lunch with on cup of water. The only difference was that one group drank the water in a cup while the other had their cup of water blended with their food into for a thick soup. The first group felt hungry a lot faster and ultra sound pictures showed that their stomachs where far more empty. What happened is that the cup of water drank separately traveled quickly to the intestines leaving small pieces of hard food behind that failed to hold the stomach stretched any more, however, the cup of water blended into the food stayed in the stomach longer because the blended mass is not capable of draining out of the stomach quickly.
So thick soup makes you fuller longer.

7- Here's another fun fact: evolution has affected our appetite. Now here's why? Researchers placed 2 bowls of sweets in a mall and marked them as free sweets. One of those bowls contained colorful sweets while the other offered only one color of sweets yet both tasted the same. The researchers realized that the colorful sweets tended to be eaten first. How come? Our bodies are structured or evolved into seeking out variety where ever we can ultimately affecting how much and what we eat. Variety is good, but unfortunately encourages up to eat more. When we go to buffets our brain says "yes I want this, this and this" rather than saying "oh, this one piece should be good enough." when just given a limited choice.
So variety triggers our instinct to try everything and eventually lead us o over eat.

8- Milk, cheese and yogurt are the first things that people give up when they're trying to diet because of their fat content. To the contrary, dairy products can help you get ride of the fat in your food. According to recent research, the calcium in dairy product can be very beneficiary. Apparently when the dairy reaches your small intestines, the place where food begins to be absorbed, it actually binds to the fat molecules found in there and forms a soap like substance which cannot be absorbed. Therefore, fat and calcium pass right through your body instead of being absorbed and stored in your hips. Of course, the true hero here is the calcium in the dairy not the fat that it can contain. So choose the right kind of dairy.
So low fat dairy helps excrete more fat.

9- Now this category is more my field of expertise, exercise! Before I tell you how exercise affects your weight loss there's a crucial piece of information that you need to understand very well before we can delve into the wonderful world of exercise. When we consume any kind of high caloric food or sugar it usually passes first through our liver. There, the body derives the energy it needs to stay alive and satisfy its bodily functions. Once that is done it then moves to store the excess energy. The ingested sugar is scientifically called glucose and get around by travelling in the blood stream, and so when we have an excess amount of glucose the storing process starts in the liver. Glucose is first broken down by insulin and stored in the liver in its glycogen form. Once the liver is saturated it moves onto storing the glucose as fat in the muscles which is then used for energy (i.e. carbohydrate). When both the liver and muscles have reached their maximum storage capacity of glucose and carbohydrate, we begin to start putting on weight since the excess glucose is stored in our fatty tissues found around our waists and bellies. Moreover, when we work out or exercise the first thing we burn is always the glycogen, then the reserve we have in the muscles and then, and finally once the latter two are burnt we start to burn our bellies. Now everyday our bodies usually takes care of the first two on it's own since the fat stored in the liver is used up the basic functions of the organs, while the one stored in the muscles is burned through every day activities such as walking and shores, nevertheless, the excess fat makes it impossible for our bodies to burn off everything. That's when exercise is needed. A workout as mild as a moderate to vigorous 90 min walk burns about 170 to 200 calories or the equivalent to 19g of fat. Although this may seem like nothing that not where it stops. After this mild exercise, you then go on to burn calories as you live your life and even while sleeping at night, burning as much up to another 49grams of fat, this is called the after burn. Therefore, when we exercise our bodies keep on burning fat through out the rest of the day and don't stop one the latter is halted. In turn meaning that if you exercise constantly your body will be burning fat 24/7. But why? This is why I think this article stands out more that the others, since i'm going in depth behind every fact. When we workout our muscles use carbohydrates since it's the quickest form of glucose to burn, and also takes about 22 hours to be replenished forcing your body to burn other sources of energy in order to keep you going, more notably the fat in your belly. And therefore, as you can see, it's not really about what you burn during the exercise but the after burn. From now on when you read that 30min of exercise a day is enough for you to lose weight, you finally know why.
So exercise keeps on burning fat even when we're asleep.

10- Other than stating the obvious : you should have a more active life style (i.e. walking, taking the stairs rather than elevators, going out for a walk rather than for coffee, moving when you are supposed to be lying down or sitting) keep in mind that a more active life style burns off 300 to 400 more calories a day which could add up to loosing 12 kilograms a year. Moreover, a more vigorous exercise can actually make you loose these 12 kilos in a lot less time almost in half the time.
So keep moving and lead an active life style and you might loose it all.

In conclusion, weight loss could become much easier if you follow these tips! Soup and proteins will keep you full, low fat dairy might help you absorb less fat and exercise along with an active life style is the most important of them all. I have tried these 10 clauses for 2 month and lost 8 kilos very easily coupled with a light but vigorous exercise routing.
If you like what you read stay tuned for my next upcoming articles. "which is the best workout in the gym?" and "why is swimming the best way to loose weight and build the perfect body?".