Losing weight for some people can be really hard. Often, your own bad habits are a cause of your failure towards your weight loss goals. There are some habits that might come as an obstacle in your path to lose weight. The good news is that you can always change these habits or find a way to avoid doing them. The first step is to know what your b
ad habits are. Here are given some habits and ways to avoid them.
Wrong Choices At The Wrong Time
People most often make wrong choices of food when they are really hungry. For example at the end of the day after work or school you are probably so hungry that you eat the first edible thing on your way or at home. Every time you grab a fast food item or heat up an easy to cook microwave meal you are enforcing this wrong habit.
What to Do Instead
The best way to help yourself out from this situation is to cook your meal ahead of time. Keeping some cooked chicken and chopped vegetables in the fridge will always leave you with ingredients ready for a sandwich. You can also keep boiled beans and lentils, add salt and pepper and other vegetables to make a quick salad.
Skipping Workout
Skipping workout is one of the most common habits that may hurt your weight loss goals. Either you just procrastinate or you are just too lazy to roll out of the bed every morning.
What to Do Instead
Set your priorities. You can do that by having a gym partner, this will give you a sense of responsibility to support them along with motivation to workout more regularly and effectively.
Wrong Sleeping Pattern
Not sleeping at the right time and in the correct position and place can disturb your sleeping patterns. This damages your internal body system. Imbalance of hormones effects your growth, cell rejuvenation and causes radical damage. When you have a lot of work, you tend to put off sleep for gaining more time and making up for procrastinating earlier. This reduces the efficiency of your brain, effecting your memory, learning and causes imbalance in your body’s sugar level that directly affects your weight loss. Staying up all night is also known to cause bloating.
What to Do Instead
Practically, it is difficult to avoid doing this with a tight schedule. However, you should avoid missing out on sleep for more than one night if you really have to. And make sure you make up for it when you get time to sleep. You should try to sleep 6-8 hours a night following a proper sleep schedule and try to stick to it as much as you can.
Skipping Breakfast
Turning off your alarm and sleeping those precious ‘five minutes’ may cost you your breakfast as you run through to your work place or college. Breakfast serves as a head start for your day, without it you lose your energy real quick and within a couple of hours your body starts craving foods rich in carbohydrates as it is in need of instant glucose. This might lead you to have sugary office coffee and junk food that might make you feel horrible later.
What to Do Instead
Try and keep ten minutes in the morning to have a healthy breakfast even if it’s just an oatmeal cereal, a couple of fruits on your way or glass of milk or juice. This helps give you kick start for the day and gives enough energy to go on till lunch time without feeling grumpy.
Grazing During the Day
Most of us have a habit of eating mid meal snacks and cannot continue working if we stop munching something. This adds several hundred calories to your waistline that you do not need.
What to Do Instead
You can change this by giving it a second thought before eating, are you really hungry? Do you need these calories? Often during stressful situations what we feel is emotional hunger. If you really cannot stop yourself from eating, pick out healthy snacks and chew each bite for a longer time. Healthy snacks include nuts, fruits and salads.
Not Enjoying Food In The Right Way
When you have so many new shows and movies coming up, it is difficult to eat without watching something. While you are at YouTube and mega share, you tend to eat much more than you would normally as most of your concentration is on the screen rather than on your plate. You tend to eat up too much and too fast.
What to Do Instead
Try to avoid watching shows and games while you are eating. Focus solely on your plate; enjoy your meal properly using all your five senses.
Not Keeping Hydrated
Although, this might sound dumb but you often find yourself standing in the kitchen with the fried open not knowing what you need and return back to your room with a pack of crisps. This trip might be your body asking for water without you realizing. Research says you should drink water before you feel thirsty, because you are already dehydrated by the time you get thirsty.
What to Do Instead
Make sure you are having 8-10 glasses of water daily. Keep a safe plastic water bottle along with you and keep having water every now and then. Water helps you keep alert and stops you from munching random snacks as it gives your stomach a feeling of full. If you are one of those who forget to drink water, there are applications on android and ios that can remind you to drink water and keep a record. But really you can drink water on your own!