5 Weight Loss Hacks

The first thing to know is that there are no easy tricks when it comes to weight loss. Everyone knows that when push comes to shove the only reliable way to lose weight is through finding the right combination of diet and exercise. Getting rid of your extra pounds is only half the battle, though. Most people who lose weight end up gaining it back. if you want to lose weight and keep that weight off, you need to make a lifestyle change. It won't be just one thing, it will be lots of little things.

You might be wondering: does drinking water help you lose weight? The short answer is yes. For a variety of reasons, staying well hydrated by drinking water has been shown to help you lose weight. It’s probably a combination of things: Staying hydrated helps you manage cravings and if you’re drinking lots of water you’re less likely to drink sodas or other sugar-heavy beverages. On some level, it's probably psychosomatic. If your stomach is full of water, you won't feel the need to fill it with food. Whatever the reason, it does seem to be true that drinking lots of water helps you lose weight.

Water might be the best option, but consuming some caffeine heavy drinks like tea and coffee can also help you lose weight. Once again, this is probably due to a combination of factors. Caffeine can boost your metabolism and suppress your appetite. That said, any benefits from the caffeine will be outweighed by an excess of sugar and fat if you go heavy on the sweetener and cream in your morning coffee. So if given a choice between drinking water and drinking coffee with three sugars and two creamers, go with the water, and maybe a cup of tea!

Weigh yourself every day. Make it a habit, and try to make sure that you do it at the same time every day. Weighing yourself at the same time every day will ensure that you have a consistent tracking of your weight over time. While the act of weighing yourself every day certainly won’t inherently cause you to lose weight, it has been shown that people who do weigh themselves every day are more likely to lose weight and keep it off. 

Getting a good night’s rest is part of good mental and physical health but it can also help you lose weight. A good night’s rest is key to keeping your metabolism ticking over. Additionally, if you're awake and well-rested in the morning, you're more likely to have the energy to cook for yourself, and more likely to make yourself the kind of protein-rich breakfast that will keep you going all day long.

You may be wondering what good eating slowly could possibly do for your body. Eating slowly gives your body time to realize that it's been fed, and release the hormones that tell you that you're full and that you don't need to eat any more. By itself, this likely won't do much to help you lose weight or keep weight off, but in conjunction with a lot of other "small" changes, you can achieve big results. 

That's true of all these hacks: no one life hack is going to help you lose weight and keep it off, but an accumulation of small habits can make a big difference. Similarly, making a huge change to your diet and exercise isn't going to make the difference you want unless you make a similarly seismic shift to your everyday habits. The trick to any change like this is that in order to see the big results you want, and see them stay with any kind of consistency, you need to make a lot of smaller changes all the way down. That way, if any one hack fails or is too difficult to maintain, you have other habits to fall back on.