Eating healthy food and training in the gym are perhaps the most common and obvious ways to lose weight, but what if we were to reveal to you that there are a few more techniques, a bit bizarre, that will help you shed the unnecessary pounds while you don’t have to give up the amount of food and you don’t even have to lift a finger and exercise?
National Health Service doctor in Lancashire England, Zac Waqar-Uddin, said there is no such thing as a ‘quick fix’ when it comes to weight loss – but agreed that some of these quirky techniques could certainly help. According to the doctor’s words to the British website Daily Mail, these are the slightly strange techniques that can help you lose weight:
Cold showers
Replacing the warm and pampering shower with a cold one, maybe freezing and sounds not so pleasant, but can help in the fight against body fat. Exposure to freezing temperatures has the potential to increase metabolism by activating ‘heat fat’ in the body. According to Kim Pearson, a nutritionist specializing in weight loss, the brown type of fat is actually “good” for us, unlike its white counterpart, which exists in abundance in our bodies.
When the body is exposed to a temperature below 16 degrees, brown fat, found around the shoulder blades, spine and kidneys, tries to keep the body warm. It does this by burning excess calories stored in the body, usually in the form of white fat. Scientists believe that cold therapy may therefore offer one way to tackle obesity and type 2 diabetes. Pearson added: “Reducing your body temperature can increase your metabolism because your body uses more energy trying to bring itself back to a good temperature.”
A recent paper, in the 2009 edition of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that being in the cold water for less than five minutes had powerful effects. David Winer, an exercise and nutrition expert at the fitness app Freeletics, said the same logic applies to drinking cold water, rather than room temperature water. However, it is about burning very few calories.
Sitting at the table
Sitting down to eat can help you lose weight, as long as it’s at the table and not anywhere else. Experts claim that the person’s mind is not distracted while eating at the dining table, the easier it is for the body to recognize when it is full. According to them, this way you stay more focused on your food, as opposed to watching TV or a book while eating. Nutritionist Pearson recommends slowing down the pace of eating by chewing the food thoroughly: “30 chews while the food is in the mouth will ensure, in theory, that the food is completely soft before swallowing. Eventually the body will get used to chewing until the food becomes a soft paste and not full of solid chunks.”
Dining table, illustration (Photo: Inimage)Recording the food in the diary
Experts claim that manually monitoring the food that enters our bodies can be the best way to bypass bad habits. Nutritionist Pearson also agreed on this: “Keeping a food diary for a week can help keep attention on these mindless habits and make people aware of the things they are doing that are not helping them.”
However, experts and charities warn that tracking calories can lead people to disordered eating. While they can help with individual goals and motivation, it can “trigger, maintain, or worsen disordered eating symptoms.” Therefore, calorie counting may cause “more harm than good”, with food tracking apps particularly amplifying “the rigidity associated with calorie counting”, doctors warn.
Sleep in a dark room
The beauty year is also very important for weight loss. Sleeping seven to nine hours a night can prevent unnecessary snacking and keep the body’s energy levels high to stay active the next day. This also helps curb cravings and regulate leptin and ghrelin – hormones that control hunger and appetite.
Sleep, illustration (Photo: Inimage)It is not only important to sleep a lot, but also to make sure that the room you sleep in is dark. Scientists say we should turn off our phone, TV and lights before bed, and even sleep with a mask. A team from Northwestern University in Illinois found that those who were exposed to too much light during the night had a greater than 50% risk of obesity. The study, published in the journal Sleep, followed the light exposure of 550 volunteers in their sixties to eighties for one week. About 41% of the participants who spent less than five consecutive hours in the dark at night gained weight, and one in five suffered from diabetes. However, the obesity rate was only 27% among those who slept in the dark, while only one in ten had diabetes.
The color of the plate
Like where you eat, the size and color of the plate you use can affect how much food you eat. Professor Charles Spence, a cognitive psychologist from the University of Oxford, stated in his book in 2018 that the color of the plate tricks the brain into smaller meals. He said: “You should put unhealthy food on a red plate – in the end you eat a little less, because the red color on the plate triggers some kind of danger or avoidance signal in the brain.”
Macaroni on a plate (Photo: Ingaimg)In addition, the Belgian philosopher Franz Delboeuf discovered that smaller plates can help you eat less, according to his research that began in the 1960s. The Delboeuf illusion is one type of visual trick in which a dot surrounded by a large circle appears smaller than a dot of the same size surrounded by a small circle. The diagram forces the mind to perceive the point in the context of the outer ring. In theory, a smaller plate might similarly trick people into thinking they have more food.
In contrast, a psychological study from 2018 by researchers from the Negev University called the findings into question. They found that hungry people can accurately identify portion sizes, even if it’s on a small plate.