WATER, SLEEP AND OTHER TIPS! Easy tricks that helped me lose weight!

It has been a while since I last wrote something about the "Diet" side of "VeloDiet" but the time has come to share some additional tips that helped me lose weight. Just backtracking a little, the key to lose weight is to primarily live an active lifestyle daily ("Velo" / Bike) with healthy eating habits ("Diet"). The Diet aspect comes both from the types food you eat (as covered previously on EAT YOUR CAKE AND KEEP IT TOO! How I lost weight and still ate what I like! ) AND how you eat it, which is just as important!

If you've read this blog before, you surely must've come across the words "never feel full, never feel hungry". At the risk of being repetitive, I must stress how important that sentence was for me in adjusting my eating habits. As an overeater, I enjoyed feeling full and always equated "dieting" with "feeling hungry". That is an important topic on its own, and you can read more about it by clicking this link! But this post goes into other tips, most of them quite easy, that helped along my journey!

Yes, the time of the day matters!

Let's start with meals and the time of the day! First, there is breakfast, which Americans call the "most important meal of the day" and is also the easiest meal to skip altogether. You should always eat a good breakfast! Personally, I subscribe to the continental breakfast of some cereal, breads, maybe some fruit and definitely coffee, but many make breakfast a much bigger meal, which is also ok. The point is to start the day telling your body that you will be providing nutrition and that it can go ahead and start burning calories. So eat your breakfast and get that metabolic engine going right away!

Lunch is my biggest meal of the day. It's a very latin thing to do and I suppose that's why I always crave that siesta in the early afternoon. Generally, I would eat out at a local restaurant during my lunch breaks and always had trouble handling the "generous" portions I would often encounter, so it was natural for me to make it the biggest caloric intake of the day. I still do my best to follow the "never fell full" guideline, but it's nice to know that I still have the rest of the day to burn off those calories.

Which leads me to dinner, my smallest meal of the day. It's almost a snack, really. The reason is simple, you are not going to be able to burn those calories before your body slows down and you go to sleep. Now, I even struggle to fall asleep if I have a bigger meal too late in the day. It is also important to eat your dinner early to give your body enough time for digestion before sleep. At the very very least, you should try not to eat anything 2 hours before going to sleep.

And then, there are the snacks! Finding healthy snacks that I actually wanted to eat was actually hugely important for my weight loss. In order to keep your metabolism working for you, it must get the fuel it needs when it needs. So, if I start to feel hungry but it's not time for a meal, I reach for that snack (think fruit, not chocolate bar!) Also, before you reach for that healthy "nutrition bar", take a quick look at the nutrition facts, as some of those healthy snacks are packed full of calories and protein, since many are designed for athletes actively exercising or recovering - and not for the usual office employee!

Let me include a special note about the "6 smaller meals a day" method. Back when I was a "larger individual", I liked really big meals! Feeling full made me happy, and when I tried the 6 smaller meals a day method, I ended up eating 6 "still pretty big meals" and gained weight. Everyone is different, and if you are capable of controlling yourself, the approach is really solid. Eating many small meals (or snacks) throughout the day will not only keep your from overeating, but will also keep your metabolic engine running at high speed with the "constant" digestions. But still today, that approach is too dangerous for me.

The 6-liter bottle of water above should last you 2 days!

Water! Drink water! Lots of water! We've all heard that our bodies are 60% water and the reality is that every system in our body needs water to function. It's amazing how little water most people drink today, considering that the general recommendation is about 3 liters of water daily. That can include other liquids, but beware of the calories and sugar hidden in a lot of drinks. Being hydrated not only helps your body run efficiently, but feeling dehydrated can make you feel tired, which could lead you to eat more!

Sleep! When you consider that sleeping regulates hormones that impact hunger and that lack of sleep will negatively affect your metabolism, you can see that sleeping is essential for you to keep your healthy eating habits. Also, if you don't sleep, you will be tired and less willing to go for that bike ride. And on that note, it's after almost midnight as I write this, so...good night!