Effortless Weight Loss: No Diets Required

“How do you manage to stay so slim at your age?” my Greek friend asked as she laid out bowls of chips, crackers, spiced corn sticks, and tiny exotic pastries on the table. This beautiful, curvaceous blonde couldn’t fathom how, with my sedentary job and sweet tooth, I managed to avoid packing on extra pounds and even lose weight. She spent hours in the gym and reasonably assumed that only exercise could keep one in shape. Meanwhile, I was horrified to see packages of processed food nearly tumbling out of her unlocked kitchen cabinet.

Weight Loss Starts in Your Mind

First and foremost, decide once and for all what kind of body you truly desire. Perhaps being skinny with sharp shoulders isn’t your ideal look. Maybe your husband loves you just the way you are—plump and rosy-cheeked—and the thought of you losing even a single precious pound sends shivers down his spine.

If you value a light gait and a flexible figure, the sooner you start thinking about how to maintain your shape, the better. After 30, experiments with weight can be costly for your appearance and health. Losing a dozen pounds might turn you into a gaunt, sickly-looking woman instead of the young, sexy woman you envision.

Say “No” to Diets

Rapid weight loss is a significant stressor for your skin. If you’re over 30, your skin may lose its elasticity and firmness, leaving you looking like a Shar-Pei. To avoid disrupting the function of connective tissue cells and the production of elastin and collagen—proteins that ensure skin strength, elasticity, and plasticity—you should lose weight gradually, no more than 2-5% of your body weight per month.

Prioritize Your Health

The beauty of your figure depends primarily on your overall health. Therefore, visit doctors regularly and follow their advice. Stress can cause people to lose too much weight or overeat. An unhealthy addiction to sugary carbonated drinks can lead to diabetes, and snacking on the go can result in gastritis and stomach ulcers. In such cases, maintaining a beautiful figure and losing weight will be the least of your concerns.

Avoid Processed Foods

Over the past two centuries, our grocery store shelves have been stocked with food that is not only unhealthy but can also harm our health—disrupting metabolism and affecting the functioning of internal organs. These are food products containing various artificial chemical substances: preservatives, stabilizers, dyes, flavor enhancers, and aromatic additives.

These substances are legally added to food and listed on the packaging. Therefore, another way to maintain a good figure and lose weight is to be critical of high-risk products: chips, crackers, soda, “diet” mayonnaise, ketchup, cream rolls with long shelf lives, and yogurts with additives.

Balance Your Plate

No amount of exercise will help you stay in shape and lose weight if you don’t eat right. Maintaining a balanced diet is the best way to become a sexy centenarian in the distant future. The lion’s share of your diet (about 40%) should consist of bread, pasta, rice, and cereals. A slightly smaller portion (up to 35%) should be reserved for vegetables and fruits, including nuts and legumes. About 20% should be allocated for fish, seafood, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. Add a small amount of oil and red meat. Try to minimize fat, salt, sugar, and sweets. The more varied your menu, the better.

Afraid of gaining weight? Pay attention to a hearty, carbohydrate-rich breakfast. Eat sweets in the first half of the day. Eat small amounts but frequently: five to six meals a day, each the size of a faceted glass, is sufficient. Don’t starve yourself to the point of overeating later. If you feel like snacking, eat some nuts or yogurt. Two to three hours before bed, you can enjoy a fruit salad.

Want to lose weight? Exclude fried, smoked, canned, and homemade pickled foods—such food disrupts metabolism and fills the body with toxins. Another way to lose weight is to train yourself to eat half of your usual portion. Or eat more slowly, arm yourself with a small spoon—this way, satiety will come faster. Stop eating as soon as the thought arises that it would be nice to eat something else—this is your body’s subtle way of telling you that it is already full.

For example, French women, known for their special elegance, love pastries but treat each meal as a ritual during which they savor each bite, enjoying small portions of their favorite dishes.

Stay Active and Beautiful

An active lifestyle will help initiate the right processes in the body: it activates metabolism, improves blood circulation, saturates cells with oxygen, tones muscles, burns fat, helps correct posture, and makes movements smoother. Choose what you enjoy most: swimming, dancing, Nordic walking, skiing in the park, or the age-defying Japanese gymnastics Makko-ho.

The main secret here is to enjoy the process and get pleasure from it. If you like hip-hop, you shouldn’t climb on exercise machines, and vice versa. And you definitely shouldn’t force yourself to exercise if it’s not your thing. Playing in the snow, having sex, and walking down the streets will work just as well as fitness.

Take Care of Your Skin

Take care of your skin; a lot depends on it. After all, it is the frame of your entire body, not a beautiful new dress. Don’t neglect moisturizing creams, oils, and massages. To keep your body young and beautiful for as long as possible, don’t forget about water.

A contrast shower tones the skin, making it young and firm. And a glass of pure, unboiled water in the morning on an empty stomach will start metabolic processes, cleanse the body of toxins and slag, and help normalize weight. It’s no secret that tea and coffee dry out the skin; replace a couple of cups of these drinks with pure water—it will eliminate dehydration.

Sleep and Lose Weight

A full night’s sleep for 6-8 hours a day is as important for slimness as nutrition and physical activity. With regular sleep disturbances (lack or excess), a person begins to gain extra pounds.

The fact is that in this case, the production and balance of such hormones as leptin (responsible for satiety), ghrelin (causes hunger), insulin (regulates the rate of absorption of high-carbon foods), serotonin (responsible for a good mood, the lack of which girls like to eat with chocolate), somatropin (growth hormone enhances fat burning, reduces subcutaneous fat deposition), melatonin (slows down aging processes) are disrupted.

Another important secret is to allow yourself to be young and beautiful, love yourself, and enjoy life!

Text: Alena Pankova