To lose a kg of fat, you need to burn about 7000 calories. Reducing your calorie intake by 500 calories a day will create a calorie-deficit of 3500 calories in a week. This means you can lose half a kilo in a week just by reducing your calorie intake by 500 calories. This means you can lose up to 2kg a month.
#1 Don’t Drink Your Calories
Liquid calories are so deceiving, it becomes dangerous. Remember, liquid calories count! Even beverages you perceive as healthy such as fruit juices and smoothies are jam-packed with calories. A cup of orange juice can contain about 150 calories which is almost 10 percent of your daily calorie intake already. Even worse if you order that Starbucks Frap. A Mocha Frappe with whipped cream can contain up to 600 calories – that’s a meal’s worth of calories in itself. You can cut out hundreds of calories by drinking water instead of sweetened beverages!
Read More: 5 Drinks You Should Stop Buying
#2 Cut The Sauce
Adding ketchup or mayo greatly adds to your calorie consumption. For instance, eating salad may not be as healthy as you think if you’re adding that Caesar salad sauce or honey mustard mayo. A tablespoon of mayo contains up to 60 calories and is very high in fat content. Try to cut down on the sauce, or if you must, use a Balsamic vinaigrette for your salad dressing instead. This is much less in calories.
#3 Don’t Eat The Skin
A boneless chicken breast with its skin on has 50 calories more than it’s skinless counterpart. Eating the skin means adding calories to your meal. The skin of a quarter chicken would have far more calories. You should, however, cook your chicken with the skin on. Cooking with the skin on helps keep the meat from absorbing oil. Heat draws moisture from inside the meat to the skin, forming a crust that prevents oil from seeping into the meat. Only remove the skin when eating!
#4 Eat Whole Fruits
Whole fruits are able to fill you up better as compared to fruit juices or dried fruits. Dried fruits are small. It is easy to keep snacking on them and overconsume calories. Take this example for instance – you can eat 10 dried prunes in one seating, but can you consume 10 prunes all at once? Whenever possible, choose whole fruits! This will prevent you from overeating and control your calorie-consumption.
Read More: Do You Know What Fruits Make You Gain Weight?
#5 Drink Water Before Meals
Drink a cup of water before starting your meals. It’s easy to mistake thirst and hunger, causing us to consume more calories. A simple research has found that drinking 2 glasses of water before your meal can reduce your calorie intake by 13 percent. That’s quite a fair bit of calories.
Read More: Water – How Much Do We Need Daily?
