3 Simple Tips For Successful Weight Loss
One of the biggest reasons people starting training in Martial Arts is weight loss or weight control. Irrespective of the whether you train Kickboxing, Jiu Jitsu, MMA or Karate, Martial Arts can be great for helping you lose a few pounds or keep those pounds off.
Over the last ten years, I’ve helped hundreds of people lose weight through martial arts training, here are three great tips that will help you achieve your weight loss goals.
Tip #1 – Keep a Food Diary
This is something I learned recently, and there are a couple of different ways to do it. Firstly, you could keep a written diary of everything that you put in your mouth.
People tend to underestimate the amount they eat and drink (more on this later). If you keep an accurate food diary, you will be able to see exactly what you are eating, how much, and how often.
The other benefit of actually writing down what you eat is that you will feel pretty silly writing “1 kilo of chocolate” when you’re supposed to be dieting.
A cooler way to keep a food diary is through pictures. If you want to be really ninja, post up a picture of everything you eat online. This is a way you can be held accountable by your friends and family for what you are eating and drinking.
I have tried both of these, and they work extremely well. You start to think about what you are eating.
Tip #2 – Weigh Yourself Regularly
This is one thing I have used a lot in the past and has worked well for me. Studies have shown that people who weigh themselves regularly, control their weight a lot better than people that don’t.
I believe the reason behind that is you are more conscious of what you are doing, and what how it will affect your body.
A word of warning on this one, though, people can go to far with checking their weight and can become obsessive.
To avoid this, I recommend checking your weight once par day in the morning before breakfast. This will give you an accurate weight, as everything you eat and drink has a weight (e.g. a bag of crisps weigh’s 60g) and will, therefore, add weight to your body, but not necessarily increase your weight.
Phew, I hope that makes sense.
Another thing you may find when you weigh yourself regularly is that you may plateau. There are several reasons for this; the most common one is that you will put on lean muscle mass. This is particularly if you are exercising at the same time.
The weight of your new muscle will replace the weight of your lost fat. A good diet and exercise are in my opinion the best ways to lose weight.
A way around this is to not only measure your weight but also your body fat percentage and body measurements, aka inches.
Here are a few benefits of gaining lean muscle mass.
1) Increased Metabolic Rate – An increase in lean muscle increases the body’s metabolic rate, causing the body to burn more calories throughout the day.
2) Increasing and Restoring Bone Density – Inactivity and ageing can lead to a decrease in bone density and brittleness. Studies have clearly proven that consistent strength training can increase bone density and prevent Osteoporosis.
3) Increased Lean Muscle Mass and Muscle Strength, Power, and Endurance – Everyone can benefit from being stronger. We can work harder, we can play more, we can workout longer, and we can be more alive.
4) Injury Prevention – A wide variety of sports-related or life-related injuries can be prevented by strengthening muscles and joints.
5) Improved Balance, Flexibility, Mobility and Stability – Stronger and more resilient muscles, improves your balance, which means more comfortable living & fewer falls or accidents.
6) Decreased Risk of Coronary Disease – Participation in a consistent strength-training program has a wide variety of associated health benefits including reducing cholesterol and lowering your blood pressure.
7) Aids Rehabilitation and Recovery – One of the best ways to heal many types of injuries is to strengthen muscles surrounding the injured area. The stronger your muscles, the quicker the healing process.
8) Enhanced Performance in Sports or Exercise – No matter what your favourite sport or physical activity, with the proper strength training program, your performance can unquestionably be improved, and in some cases dramatically so.
9) Ageing Gracefully – There is no more important reason to making strength training a consistent part of your life than to ensure you age gracefully.
Physical activity keeps us alive and vibrant. Strength training ensures we are strong enough to participate in aerobic activities, outdoor recreation, and sports.
Strong seniors fall less. If they do fall, their stronger bodies are more resilient, are injured less by the fall, and can heal more quickly after an injury.
10) Feeling Better and Looking Better – As painful as strength training can sometimes feel, there is nothing more satisfying than the feeling after a good solid workout.
Stronger muscles and joints can have a dramatic impact on posture, and leaner toned muscles tend to make everyone feel better about their appearance. This all leads to improved self-esteem and increased self-confidence.
(Taken from http://waterfordpersonaltrainer.ie/benefits-of-gaining-lean-muscle/)
As you can see plateauing in weight loss is not necessarily a bad thing, providing you are gaining muscle mass and losing body fat.
Tip #3 – Drink More Water
This is one thing that everyone knows but no one does, and there are a huge amount of benefits to drinking an adequate amount of water.
Here are a few benefits of drinking water;
1) Lose weight: Drinking water helps you lose weight because it flushes down the by-products of fat breakdown. Drinking water reduces hunger; it’s an effective appetite suppressant, so you’ll eat less.
Plus, water has zero calories. Here are the further details on how to achieve fat loss by drinking water.
2) Natural Remedy for A headache: Helps to relieve a headache and back pains due to dehydration. Although many reasons contribute to a headache, dehydration is the common one.
3) Look Younger with Healthier Skin: You’ll look younger when your skin is properly hydrated. Water helps to replenish skin tissues, moisturises skin and increases skin elasticity.
4) Better Productivity at Work: Your brain is mostly made up of water, thus drinking water helps you think better, be more alert and more concentrated.
5) Better Exercise: Drinking water regulates your body temperature. That means you’ll feel more energetic when doing exercises. Water also helps to fuel your muscle.
6) Helps in Digestion and Constipation: Drinking water raises your metabolism because it helps in digestion. Fibre and water go hand in hand so that you can have your daily bowel movement.
7) Fewer Cramps and Sprains: Proper hydration helps keep your joints and muscles lubricated, so you’ll less likely get cramps and sprains.
8) Less Likely to Get Sick and Feel Healthy: Drinking plenty of water helps fight against flu and other ailments like kidney stones and heart attack. Water with lemon is used for ailments like respiratory disease, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis, etc. In other words, one of the benefits of drinking water is that it can improve your immune system.
9) Relieves Fatigue: Water is used by the body to help flush out toxins and waste products from the body.
If your body lacks water, your heart, for instance, needs to work harder to pump out the oxygenated blood to all cells, so are the rest of the vital organs, your organs will be exhausted and so will you.
10) Good Mood: Your body feels very good, and that’s why you feel happy.
11) Reduce the Risk of Cancer: Related to the digestive system, some studies show that drinking a healthy amount of water may reduce the risks of bladder cancer and colon cancer.
Water dilutes the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and shortens the time in which they are in contact with bladder
(taken from http://www.mangosteen-natural-remedies.com/benefits-of-drinking-water.html)
OK, that’s 11, but you get the idea. Drinking the correct amount of water is essential.
We regularly do 30 Day Challenges at the Academy. A few months ago the challenge was to drink 1 litre of water per 20 kilo’s body weight.
For me, that worked out to be about 3 litres. This seemed like a lot at the start of the month, however by the end it seemed easy. The simplest way to do this is to get a big bottle fill it up in the morning and then drink it slowly throughout the day.
This was one of the best challenges I have ever done, and several of my students and friends agreed. The results were crazy.
I have never felt so go or looked so ripped. I wish I’d taken a before and after photo so you could see the difference.
There you are, my three top tips to help you lose weight or maintain a healthy lifestyle. As you can see from these tips, they are fairly simple to do and can easily be integrated into your life.
For me, this is the key to any diet or lifestyle change; simple and easy.
The other thing I hope you have got from this post is the importance of not only diet but also exercise. The combination of these two is what will make a big change in your lifestyle whether it is weight loss or well-being.
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