Junk food is food containing high levels of calories from sugar or fat and has little “nutritional value”. It primarily contains excessive fat, sugar, salt, and calories. Frequent consumption of junk increases the intake of excess fat, simple carbohydrates, and processed sugar.
Junk food cravings are very common. These cravings can become your worst enemy when you are on a Healthy Life/ weight loss journey. Junk food cravings can turn into binges and may increase the risk of weight gain/ Lifestyle Problem.
Here are some helpful tips to help curb your cravings for junk food.
Have small meals in short intervals
Eat regularly and avoid long periods of hunger. Cravings do not arise when the stomach is full. So, avoid skipping meals. The best is to start your day with a healthy breakfast and follow up with a nutritious lunch and dinner. Keep healthy snacks close at hand.
Consume more proteins
High protein diets aids in weight loss. Protein can make to feel full for longer and allow your body to consume lesser calories. Protein-rich foods will leave less space for junk and avoid experiencing cravings. Have a protein-rich meal the first thing in the day for healthy life.
Eat healthy fats
Fats do not make you fat. There are many different types of fats. Out of which, trans fats and saturated fats are considered unhealthy fats. On the contrary, heart-healthy fats help you feel full and reduce cravings.
Stay hydrated
Thirst can also lead to cravings. Drinking a glass of water when you feel like eating junk may suffice the craving, and at the same time, provide other health benefits. If plain water sounds boring, enjoy it by adding a slice of lime, lemon or cucumber.
Related read: Importance of water in our diet
Sleep well
Sleep deprivation tends to increase calories intake. Not getting enough sleep can lead to increased cravings for junk food and weight gain. Lack of sound sleep can lead to poor appetite regulation and cravings. When you have slept adequately, it becomes easier to fight cravings.
Stay away from stress
Stress influences your eating behaviour and can induce junk cravings. People, who are stressed, tend to eat significantly more calories and experience more cravings than non-stressed women/ people.
There are plenty of healthy, whole foods that can satisfy a craving for something sweet or salty. Besides, being aware of your craving and their triggers makes them much easier to avoid. It also makes it a lot easier to eat healthily and lose weight.
Losing weight is one of the most common health goals. However, without the right guidance it can also become the most difficult to achieve goal.
The ever-changing diet trends which people tend to follow without understanding the technicalities behind them, tend to do more harm than any good to your body.
However, whichever method of weight loss program you follow, there are some basic does and don’ts which you need to understand in order to make your weight loss program to be effective.
Quick fixes never works
Quick weight loss may sound tempting, but it can be unhealthy in the long-term. The goal should be healthier, safer, and longer-lasting weight loss which takes its own time. Take a proper diet and do regular exercise to give your body the natural time to change for better.
Consume complex carbs
Carbohydrates, being the source of energy, affects your physical and mental performance. Therefore, it is always advisable to load up on carbohydrates before rigorous workouts or physical activity.
However, simple carbohydrates can disrupt your metabolism of fat increasing the fat content in your body. Therefore it is important to eat complex carbohydrates.
Take enough protein
The food for muscle building, protein is responsible for repair, maintenance and growth of muscle cells. Besides, the amino acids in proteins form enzymes required for smooth running of your body.
Consume unsaturated or polyunsaturated fats
Unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats lowers the cholesterol levels and reduces the risk of heart disease. Besides foods that have higher content of saturated fats are also high in essential fatty acids which is beneficial for the human body.
Avoid processed foods
When natural food items are processed or refined, they lose much of the fibre and nutrients in the process. Moreover, some processed foods can actually harm the body. That is the reason, it is advised to take complex carbohydrates since they do not rush through your system and overwhelm it.
Manage salt intake
Salt is an essential mineral; if we do not get enough of it, our health and athletic performance will be affected. However, if we consume too much of it, our health will also be damaged.
Besides causing serious health problems such as high blood pressure, taking too much salt will also upset our bodies’ water balance, which can slow us down.
As most of our diets are already too high in salt, we need to cut back on seasoning our food and on our consumption of packaged (canned or preserved) food.
Avoid junk food
Fast food often contains too much sugar, saturated fats, cholesterol and salt. Most fast-food products have very little to offer in terms of complex carbohydrates, protein, fibre, essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Do we need more reasons to avoid them?
It is all about changing your habits so you can reach your best body in terms of health, first, and then looks. It goes without saying that there are many different healthy body types out there. So, stop comparing yourself and just learn what works best for you and how to take care of YOUR body!
Most overweight (or even underweight people for that matter) have tried various pills, diets, machines, and exercise measures to get that perfect body — but mostly, without success. Staying fit and maintaining a healthy body weight without the proper support, guidance, coaching is an uphill battle that most of the people DO NOT win.
People tend to plan their own weight loss or weight gain journey by joining gyms and self-planned diets. These plans are fine and one can achieve the desired body, but it is usually only short term. Besides, many people do not get a long term sustainable solution and the weight usually returns, and this time with health issues. So, it is always advisable to follow scientifically proven methods for more sustainable fitness.
And this is where a weight loss coach comes to help. These coaches educate you on the best healthy and wholesome foods that will help you to manage the right weight and healthy lifestyle in the long run.
We at 8 Fitness Tips have trained, experienced and certified coaches who work with the clients to develop an individualized eating and exercise plan that works as per the client’s requirement.
Our fitness and wellness coach works to understand and work on the weight management need, encourage you to stay active and dedicated on your journey towards weight management, help you plan your diet and lifestyle for better health and fitness and motivate you to opt for healthy eating options.
Benefits of partnering with 8 Fitness Tips Fitness and Wellness Coach
Achieve long-lasting result
Besides providing you with the kick start towards your weight management journey, our wellness coach helps you develop a healthy lifestyle. We have the tools and support which you will need to make healthy choices and retain a healthy and optimum weight.
Offer you more than fitness
When you have the support and guidance of a weight management coach, you experience improvements in your overall health including your physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and cognitive well-being. Our coaches not only help you in your weight management and healthy diet plan, but they also help you in improving in other areas of your life and that’s the reason we call them ‘Wellness Coach’
Helps you set achievable goals
The right guidance leads to the right path and that is what helps you achieve your goal of a healthy and fit life. 8 Fitness Tips’ Weight Management Program follows a client-centred approach in designing around you as a unique individual.
Weight management coaches or nutrition experts help you to perceive the journey in an easy way. They make you understand the process of losing or gaining weight. Once you achieve your desired weight, you can then continue on your journey all by yourself. And this time you are better equipped to carry on with it.
Besides, coaching has been proven to be more effective and efficient in achieving more motivation, more satisfaction, and a better sense of wellbeing.
Article at a Glance:
Setting a transformation challenge is a great way to overcome your inactive lifestyle or breathe new life into your fitness regime.
They motivate you to set commitment for yourself by giving a definitive purpose. They help you focus your efforts on your achievable goal.
Body Transformation Challenge is a fantastic way to develop healthy habits which is the most basic requirement for building a stronger and healthier body.
What is Body Transformation Challenge?
Body Transformation Challenge is a commitment you do to yourself to achieve a certain fitness or health goal by tweaking your lifestyle over a set period. You need to set small-term and long-term goals and keep measuring your progress to ensure you are on the right track throughout your journey.
Let’s take an example:
Your goal is to lose excess weight and become fitter.
This is how your Body Transformation Challenge will look like:
I intend to shed 5 kg of my body fat over the next 30 days to achieve the target weight of 50 kg.
For this, I will take in 1200 calories per day and do 3 interval training workouts per week.
To measure my progress, I will record my body fat percentage and body weight every three days.
Tips for Transformation Challenge
When setting up your challenge, there are some key things that you need to consider.
Keep it Achievable
A too difficult challenge can leave you frustrated and you may feel like giving up. Similarly, too easy will not be a real challenge at all.
Here is what 8 Fitness Tips’ experts recommend to help you set realistic goals for weight loss and muscle building challenge.
- Weight loss goal of 0.5 – 1 kg of fat per week
- Muscle building goal of 0.5 lbs muscle per week
Make it Measurable
Transformation Challenges remove uncertainty and keep you focused. Therefore these challenges are so effective. Avoid unclear challenges and keep tracking your progress to stay motivated.
Here are some metrics suggested that you can keep a record of:
- Body Weight
- Body Fat Percentage
- Lean Body Mass
- Body Measurements such as chest, waist, thigh etc.
These metrics are easily measurable and excellent progress indicators. For better motivation, you can combine these metrics with progress pictures for comprehensive and insightful records.
Give Yourself Some Time
The “time” factor is determined by the challenge that you give to yourself. Aim for a longer duration to measure effective progress and shorter duration to stay motivated without getting bored.
As per our expert recommendation, 30 days is a good length of time to see results for most challenges.
Make a planner
Plan your activities on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and don’t leave anything to chance. Create a fitness planner that marks your workouts and records other milestones. Set reminders to record these milestones so that you don’t miss your track.
Review your progress
Set-up regular review points where you look at progress and reflect on any changes in your body. We recommend you to review every 5 days for a better reflection of your progress. This will ensure that you don’t find any surprises at the end of your challenge.
This also helps in finding out what is working for you and what’s not! And you can tweak your plan and steer your activity during the challenge.
Stay Social with your Challenge
Your Body Transformation Challenge should not be your solo mission.
8 Fitness Tips’ Body Transformation experts can help you with setting up your goal, track your progress and win your challenge!
If you are convinced that body transformation challenges are powerful drivers for change. We will make it easy to set up, help to keep you focused and accountable and achieve it stipulated time.
Why not try one over the next 30 days and let help you to get on!