10 bizarre weight loss tricks that work

In a study in the journal Obesity, one group of obese women consumed 2900 kilojoules at breakfast, 2000 at lunch, and 800 at dinner. Another group ate the same foods but had 800 kilojoules in the morning and 2900 at night (lunch stayed the same). After 13 months, the big breakfast eaters shed 8 kilograms, while the big-dinner eaters lost only about seven.

Check out these healthy breakfast ideas to start each day right.

Turn clutter into a challenge: for every piece of junk mail you pull from the mailbox each day, do one lap around your house or building, or up and down a flight of stairs. You’ll burn between 145 and 585 kilojoules per session.

Read on to find out how to organise your digital clutter.

One study in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research found that eating in front of mirrors slashed the amount people ate by nearly one-third. Seems having to look yourself in the eye reflects back some of your own inner standards and goals and reminds you of why you’re trying to lose weight in the first place.

A study published in the journal Cell Metabolism found that, at least in mice, the sense of smell may play a significant role in how the body controls hunger and metabolism. Mice that no longer had a sense of smell burned more kilojoules, lost weight, and showed improved sensitivity to insulin compared to mice who still had an intact sense of smell and ate the exact same amount of food. To further prove that smell impacts obesity, the researchers created ‘super-smeller’ mice that had a stronger sense of smell. These mice gained weight and became obese. More research is needed to understand how humans can use their sense of smell to control weight.

Check out these weight loss tricks nutritionists want you to know.

Instead of writing down every morsel, take a picture of it; a visual account may help curb your intake. “Snapping photos and then looking back at them can make people stop and think before indulging,” says nutritionist Joan Salge Blake. Even your virtuous salad may “show your extra helping of cheese or deep-fried croutons,” Blake cautions.

Yes, this is one of the weird weight loss tricks that involve sweets. People ate 30 per cent less lollies when they had to unwrap them first, a Swiss study found. Peeling off the wrapper requires effort, which can make noshers eat less.

Here’s how to kick a sugar addiction without missing the sweet stuff.

Researchers have found that people may eat less food when served on some plates compared with others. For example, one study found that people who were given a white plate at a buffet ate less food than when given a black or red plate the same size.

You might be accustomed to a pre-dinner salad as a kilojoule-cutting measure, but if leafy greens aren’t your thing, research suggests you can eat soup before dinner and cut down on how much you’ll eat when the main course is served. Research in the journal Appetite found that people who had a low-kilojoule, thick soup before lunch ate 20 per cent less food during the meal compared to people who ate no soup at all. Plus, people who ate soup didn’t report being hungry or feeling less full at the end of the meal.

Here’s a delicious Thai sour seafood soup to enjoy at any time.

Smoothies are considered one of the most efficient ways to eat a lot of fruit, even vegetables, at once, but one element of your smoothie may have more impact on your waistline than you realise: the drink’s density. Research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found the thicker the drink is, the more full a person feels, no matter the smoothie’s kilojoule amount. This ‘phantom fullness’ – or feeling full because a food is thick, not high-kilojoule – may help people from reaching for even more kilojoules later, when the feeling of fullness is gone.

Getting a full night’s sleep is one of the best ways to control appetite and reduce your risk for weight gain, but the brightness in the room where you sleep may have an impact on your size, too. According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, mice who slept in environments with either bright lights or dim illumination (think: a television flickering across the room) eat more compared to mice that snoozed in total darkness. What’s more, the study found that mice that slept with lights on ate at odd times and had interrupted metabolic signals that influenced how often they were hungry. Cut out all light in your bedroom, or slip on a light-blocking sleep mask to help boost your weight-loss goals.

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Source: RD.com