Chamomile Tea Weight Loss Benefits

In this post, I will be talking about chamomile tea and how you can use it for weight loss.

What Is Chamomile Tea

Chamomile tea is an herbal tea made from dried flowers of the chamomile plant. It does not contain caffeine, so it can be a great tea to use if you are caffeine sensitive. You can find chamomile tea in most stores. There are various brands and prices. You can find boxes of chamomile tea for as cheap as $1.00. It's is a super common tea.

How Chamomile Tea Helps You Lose Weight

If you have trouble with stress in your life, it can cause weight gain especially around your waist. Chamomile tea can significantly lower your stress levels, therefore preventing the weight gain and cravings that come from being stressed all the time.

Chamomile tea boosts metabolism by improving digestion. Chamomile tea is used to help with a number of gastrointestinal problems that may be slowing your metabolism and causing you to hold onto extra weight.

There are multiple ways that chamomile tea helps you with suppressing your appetite. You can control cravings using chamomile tea as a de-stressor and sleep aid.

How To Make Chamomile Tea

Heat up some water and place the tea bag in the hot water. Let the tea bag sit for about 5-10 minutes. The longer the tea bag sits, the stronger the tea will taste. Now you are ready to consume your chamomile tea.

Try not to add any sugar or calories to your tea. I suggest using no calorie stevia if you need a sweetener for your tea. Since we are trying to lose weight, it makes more sense to leave out the extra calories and sugar.

When To Drink Chamomile Tea For Weight Loss

Chamomile tea is known to be a mild sedative. It helps to relax you. Many people drink it late at night to help them relax before bed. For some people, the effects of the tea may not be as strong as for others, so it may be okay to drink it at other times of the day as well.

I suggest you try chamomile tea during the day and see how it makes you feel. If it makes you feel too sleepy for daytime, then you may want to consume it at night just to be safe. You don't want to feel drowsy during the day when you need energy to get things done.

If you have no trouble drinking chamomile tea during the day, then I suggest drinking one cup before each meal.

How Much Weight Can You Lose With Chamomile Tea?

There are no known solid sources to claim how much weight can be lost with chamomile tea. Chamomile has not been studied very well. Weight loss of 1-2 lbs per week is average for anyone on a weight loss journey.

Other Benefits of Chamomile Tea

Chamomile tea has other health benefits besides weight loss. Those benefits include:

• Helps you sleep better
• Anti-cancer benefits
• Improves digestion
• Improves blood sugar
• Anti-inflammatory
• Anti-stress
• Conditions hair

A little more on that last note: I have used chamomile tea in my hair as a conditioner. It makes the hair softer and more shiny. It's really nice and smells like flowers. You just make some tea, let it cool down to room temp, and pour it over your hair. Let it sit for some time, then wash it out in the shower.

Other Weight Loss Suggestions

If you want to further increase your weight loss from chamomile tea, I have a few more suggestions you can add to this plan.

Add one of the following ingredients to your chamomile tea:

• Apple cider vinegar
• Ginger
• Cinnamon

Any of these ingredients will boost the weight loss effects of the chamomile tea and help you lose even more weight.

Another tip to lose more weight is to begin walking each day for 30 minutes. This will help boost your metabolism even more so that you can burn fat faster.

Does The Moon Effect Appetite

In today's post I want to discuss if the moon, particularly the moon phase, effects a person's level of hunger and why.

I began noticing a pattern in my own life. I would get ravenously hungry around the full moon, sometimes ruining all my diet efforts of the month. When you get thrown off for a few days or a week, it's often hard to get back on it. Once that happens, it could ruin the whole diet for you and you have to start over again. But if this happens once a month, it could start an awful cycle of dieting, eating a lot, failing, restarting, etc.

I wanted to get to the bottom of why this was happening. So I decided to do a little research myself and find out if the moon phase may be effecting my hunger. I read some anecdotal reports of other people that have the same issues. They report increases in cravings and hunger right around the time of the full moon.

The Cause of Hunger During a Full Moon

Then I realized I know something about the full moon, and that's that parasites become more active. Almost all of us have parasites, so if that thought alone creeps you out, you may want to stop reading here. Some people don't like to think that they have things inside of them and I get that, but pretending they aren't there doesn't make them go away lol.

For those who aren't scared, parasites live among us. Some believe it's a symbiotic relationship, meaning both parties (you and the parasites) stand to benefit. But there can be cases where the immune system is compromised and the parasites grow and breed to the point where they cause you discomfort and negative symptoms.

Some of those negative symptoms include increased hunger, rashes on the skin, digestive upsets, and fatigue.

Since parasites are active during a full moon, those symptoms may increase at that time, including increased hunger. This could leave you craving everything under the Sun, especially those sugary and carby foods.

What This Means For Weight Loss

Well, it certainly makes losing weight harder when you have these little creatures bothering you to eat extra food. They send signals to your brain and it's pretty hard to resist, especially when we already want to eat food all the time anyway. The way I see it is there are two options: You can try really really hard to ignore them and keep up your diet, or you can do a series of parasite cleanses to get rid of the bulk of them.

The one name that comes to mind when I think of parasite cleanse is Hulda Clark. Here is a really helpful beginner's resource for everything you may need to know about parasites.

A parasite cleanse typically involves the consumption of herbs and foods that make the environment unfavorable for a parasite or out-right kills the parasite. Once the environment isn't fun to be in anymore, they leave.

Once you have gotten parasites under control, you may experience lessened hunger, more energy, and other health benefits depending on how badly they were effecting you. This could be really helpful in your weight loss journey. You don't know how much of your cravings could just be coming from them wanting you to eat more.

To sum up, YES the full moon can make you way more hungry than you normally would be. You are not going crazy. So the next time you are ravenously hungry, check the date.

How To Lose Weight With Oolong Tea

In this post, I want to discuss oolong tea and how it can be used for weight loss.

What Is Oolong Tea

Oolong tea comes from the same plant as green tea, black tea, and white tea. What determines the type of tea is the stage of the leaves when picked. Oolong tea is between green tea and black tea. It has many health benefits, including boosting the metabolism.

Weight Loss Benefits of Oolong Tea

Oolong tea can help you lose weight by increasing insulin sensitivity. This will keep your appetite under control and increase your body's ability to burn fat. You will be using more of your body fat for energy, which will decrease your body fat percentage. This fat burning is due to the compounds found in the tea leaves.

Oolong tea also boosts your metabolism. That means that it increases your energy expenditure, which can result in weight loss. You will actually feel this effect if you drink oolong tea. I have personally felt it. Your energy will increase and you will sweat more.

Oolong tea can decrease the amount of fat your body absorbs from the food you eat. There are some popular weight loss pills that do the same thing, but they have major side effects. Oolong tea doesn't really have any side effects unless you are sensitive to caffeine.

Other Health Benefits of Oolong Tea

Oolong contains many vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. As such, it gives you many health benefits when you drink it on a regular basis. Some of the health benefits of oolong tea are:

• Diabetes prevention
• Reduced blood pressure
• Reduced cholesterol
• Cancer prevention
• Brain health
• Increased bone density

That's a lot of good health benefits from this one tea plant.

How To Use Oolong Tea For Weight Loss

To use oolong tea for weight loss, you will want to drink at least 3 cups per day. Do not add any cream or sugar to the tea. Cream and sugar add calories to the tea, which is counterproductive for weight loss. You will also want to try to get a good quality oolong tea in order to get the most benefits.

I personally like to drink oolong tea when it's hot. It seems to have a more bitter taste when it's cold. It really depends on your personal preference. You may want to try it both ways just to see how you would like it. I would usually drink mine hot and without anything added to it.

If you are sensitive to caffeine, oolong tea may not be the best idea for you. You may want to try some other teas that do not contain caffeine.

How Much Weight Can You Lose With Oolong Tea?

From anecdotal stories online, it's clear that you can lose anywhere from 5 to 15 lbs in a month from drinking oolong tea. Of course, this will vary person to person and depends on a number of things. It depends on your starting weight and your over all general health. It is worth a try. The tea tastes amazing. Some people added exercise to their plan in order to speed up weight loss with oolong tea.

What Brand To Use?

You can find many testimonials online. Most of them were using the Foojoy brand, although any brand of oolong tea will work for weight loss. Some people swear by loose leaf teas, claiming they are healthier and more potent than other types of tea. It is up to you which brand you choose. I personally visited an Asian grocery store to purchase my tea.

You can search for a local Asian grocery store if you don't want to buy tea online. This may be more convenient for you if you are looking to start your weight loss journey right away. You also won't have to pay added money for shipping, so it would be cheaper for you.

How To Speed Up Weight Loss

You can increase the amount of weight you lose with oolong tea by adding in some exercise. Try to do an activity you enjoy for 1 hour 4 times per week. This will increase your metabolism and shed fat even faster than by drinking the tea alone.

It's true that many people have lost weight just by drinking oolong tea, but this is how you lose the weight even faster. You can try biking, walking, or dancing. Any activity that is enjoyable to you will work on this plan. It's not necessary for weight loss, but it does help tremendously.

If you are not used to exercising, walking just 30 minutes a few times per week will help you get more in shape. This is a really good starting point for anyone that hasn't exercised in a long time. You would be amazed at how much fat you can burn just from walking.

Do You Have To Count Calories?

It's not required to count calories while drinking oolong tea for weight loss. You absolutely can if it helps you. Those that tend to binge on junk food may have to lower portions to see any weight loss. If you don't have a problem with over-eating junk food, I wouldn't worry too much about counting calories. Just make sure you are eating reasonably, exercising, and drinking the tea throughout the day.

You can always just add the tea, wait to see if there is any weight loss, and if there isn't enough weight loss then you can start counting calories. Check and see what the tea can do for you by itself first. Then adjust your plan as needed.

How To Lose 20 lbs Fast: The Right Way

In this post I want to explain how you can lose 20 lbs. Many people want to lose 20 lbs for weddings, class reunions, and other events. You may be embarrassed about some recent weight gain and want to look better. Here are some tips for you to lose the extra weight.

What Is 20 lbs?

According to science, 20 lbs of fat is equal to 70,000 calories. Over the course of time, you have consumed 70,000 calories more than you should have been consuming, resulting in weight gain. When you overeat, your body will store the extra food as fat on your body. So in order to lose 20 lbs, you must burn 70,000 calories.

Calorie Restriction

One way to burn calories is to eat under your maintenance calories for the day. You would calculate how many calories your body needs per day, then eat 500 less calories per day. If you eat 500 less calories per day, it will result in 1 lb lost per week.

If you need help calculating how many calories you burn in a day, use this handy calculator. Once you know how many calories you burn each day, you can construct a weight loss plan. That calculator gives you suggestions of how many calories to eat per day in order to lose weight.

When you are counting calories, make sure you don't forget to count drinks and condiments such as ketchup, ranch dressing, and mustard, etc. Many people forget that those items have calories and those calories do add up.

Exercise

Another way you can lose 20 lbs is to exercise more. Exercise burns extra calories during the activity. Some exercises burn extra calories for hours after the activity as well. This will help your body burn more fat throughout the day. Try to exercise at least 3 or 4 days per week.

Different exercises have different benefits. It's important to pick an activity that you enjoy. Yoga, weight lifting, swimming, biking, and dancing are all good choices. Joining a local weight loss class can give you even more motivation to push yourself during a workout.

Weight Loss Hacks

Some weight loss hacks work and some do not. Many people are just trying to sell you something so be careful. There are a few weight loss hacks that I know of to speed up weight loss. You can read those articles here:
How To Lose Weight With Apple Cider Vinegar
What Is The 5:2 Diet And How To Do It
Weight Loss Tea For Morning: 4 Fat Burning Teas

How Long Will It Take To Lose 20 lbs?

If you lower your calories, increase your exercise, and use a couple of the weight loss hacks I mentioned, you should be able to drop somewhere around 8-12 lbs per month. That would mean it takes 1.5 to 2.5 months. This is just an average and it depends on many factors, so be mindful of that. It could take you more or less time, depending on a number of things.

If These Tips Don't Work

If these tips don't work, consider that you may have a health condition halting your weight loss efforts. Low thyroid, blood sugar problems, and hormonal imbalances may be playing a role in your difficulty with weight. Contact your doctor and discuss your concerns. Have yourself tested for possible health conditions that would make weight loss harder.

How Much Weight Can You Lose If You Cut Out Sugar?

Could you follow a diet with 1 rule only? That's the question I'm asking you today. Because if you can follow 1 rule, you can lose all the extra weight from your body. That one rule is to cut out sugar.

Now, this is a hard thing to do. Most people are addicted to sugar, and sugar is in almost all food. It's even in foods that aren't sweet. Just go into your kitchen and start reading nutrition labels. You will be shocked to see how much sugar is added to all foods.

How To Get Rid Of Sugar

One of the easiest ways to get rid of sugar is to just stop eating processed foods. Processed foods are foods that can be found in boxes, cans, and packages at the store. They tend to have added preservatives, sugar, and all kinds of other unwanted things in them.

This is a pretty extreme way to go if you are used to eating basically whatever you want to eat. If you have food addictions, you may need to take an easier approach to cutting out sugar. That's where this next method comes in.

1 Gram or Less

If you need help eliminating sugar, go by the "1 gram or less" rule. If a food has 1 gram or less of sugar per serving, you are allowed to eat that food. So you can have oatmeal, some breads, and things that are processed, but you are still cutting way back on your sugar intake.

This will help you lose weight if you are a sugar addict. But it will be hard. You will miss sugar at first. Over time that addiction will quiet down. If you go long enough, then some of your favorite sweets will taste way too sweet for you. You won't even want to eat more than a bite or two of items that you used to binge on. Trust me, all of this is possible if you gain control over your sugar intake. You can see these types of benefits within a week of quitting sugar.

Are Natural Sugars Okay?

Natural sugars are those found naturally in foods. Fruits contain natural sugar. There are some natural sugars in the form of coconut sugar that you can buy by the pound. Honey is a natural sugar. But are those sugars okay on this diet?

I believe that fruits are okay, but the others should be eliminated. That is because it's easy for someone with an addiction to overdo it with honey or coconut sugar. You have to be careful with these things. The weight loss won't happen if you are having all these sugars.

Alternative Sweeteners

There are alternative sweeteners on the market. These are lab created sweeteners such as sucralose. They can be found in low calorie drink mixes and diet cokes. I don't believe these sweeteners have been studied enough to know how they effect the body. There is conflicting information out there. Some studies say they are fine, some say they cause health problems. You also have to look at who funded the study. So my advice is to stay away from these fake sugars if you want to lose weight.

How Much Weight Can You Lose By Reducing Sugar?

Here is a story about a man who lost over 150 lbs from cutting out sugar. He also added in exercising as well. However, you will lose weight even without exercise on this diet. I personally know someone who dropped 50 lbs on this diet following the "1 gram or less" rule. It can be done.

Rooibos Tea For Weight Loss

Rooibos tea is a reddish colored herbal tea from South Africa. This tea is claimed to have more antioxidants than some popular teas such as green tea. Rooibos tea can help with weight loss. In this article I will explain how you use rooibos tea for weight loss.

How Does Rooibos Tea Help With Weight Loss?

Rooibos tea can help with weight loss by regulating blood sugar. It also reduces stress, which can reduce appetite, and it improves digestion. Rooibos tea helps to prevent fat storage. It does this by altering hormones. So if you have been gaining weight and don't know how to make it stop, trying rooibos tea may be an option for you.

Other Benefits of Rooibos Tea

There are actually many health benefits to drinking rooibos tea. Some of those benefits are:

• Relieving toothaches
• Sleep aid
• Anti-inflammatory
• Cancer prevention
• Anti-aging
• Builds bones
• Liver protection
• Improve digestive problems

Rooibos also has topical uses. This is when you apply the herb to the outside of the body. Rooibos can help with hair growth and skin health when applied to the body.

How To Make Rooibos Tea

You can make rooibos tea just like other herbal teas, steeping the tea for around 5 minutes in hot water. You can add honey or lemon to the tea. I personally would not add calories to the it if you are drinking rooibos tea for weight loss benefits. You will want to get the most out of the tea by not adding extra calories.

Stevia is a great option for those that do not want to add extra calories, but may want to make their tea a little more sweet than it already is. Try to find a good quality stevia extract if you are going to use stevia.

What Does Rooibos Tea Taste Like?

Rooibos tea tastes sweet, unlike some other herbal teas. Herbal teas are often bitter, but rooibos is pleasant and sweet tasting. So if you are picky with tastes, you will be pleased with this one. The honey-sweet taste is just one of the allures of this tea.

There is a green version of rooibos tea that isn't very sweet at all, but is said to have even more of the health benefits of the tea. It is up to you to decide which you would like to drink.

I have personally not tried this tea out, so I cannot tell you from personal experience how well it works. But the studies have shown it to be very effective in weight management and prevention of fat storage.

How Much Rooibos Tea Should You Drink?

If you want to receive benefits from rooibos tea, you should be drinking between 4 to 6 cups of tea per day.

There are many herbal teas that can be used for weight loss. Rooibos tea is but one weight loss tea. One of the benefits of choosing rooibos tea over green tea is that rooibos tea is caffeine free. So for those who are sensitive to caffeine, such as myself, you can use rooibos tea and not have to worry about the negative side effects of caffeine.

I hope this article was helpful in explaining how rooibos tea can help with weight loss. Please check out my other articles about weight loss teas:

How To Lose Weight With Green Tea
White Tea Weight Loss: Burn Fat With Tea

Toxins Might Be Making You Fat

Toxins are everywhere. You are always ingesting them in the food, water, and air that you breathe. But did you realize that toxins could be a huge reason for why it's hard to lose weight? I'm going to explain how toxins make you fat and how you can detox and lose weight.

How Toxins Make You Fat

When your body gets inundated with toxins, it will often store it in your fat cells. This is to get it out the bloodstream and protect you from harm. This also makes it hard for you to lose weight. If your body knows it will need the fat in order to store toxins, it is more likely to hold onto that fat. And if your fat is saturated with toxins, it is less likely to burn the fat.

So what can you do to remedy this? Help your body detox.

What Is Detoxing?

Contrary to popular belief, detoxing is not pooping a lot. I know that's what most people think, because you see lots of products claiming to be detox cleanses and they make you poop. A lot. But actually pooping is only one way to release toxins.

Your body also releases toxins through urinating, breathing, and sweating. So the question is how can you help your body to detox more?

Supportive Herbs

There are herbs that support your detoxification pathways. They help move stagnant lymph, purify the blood, and escort toxins out of the body. You can find herbal detox teas and other herbal detox products. I like the Yogi brand detox teas myself, but there are many other products out there.

A few of the herbs to look for in a detox product are dandelion, sarsaparilla, and burdock root. Look for good quality supplements.

Saunas

Saunas are great for detoxing. A lot of times you can get access to a sauna if you have a gym membership. You can also buy a sauna to have at home. There are some amazing and affordable saunas. I personally have not used saunas as much as I would like, but I have been in them a few times.

Make sure when you get done with the sauna that you wash off all that nasty toxic sweat before it gets reabsorbed into the body. Many saunas will have showers you can use.

Epsom Salt Baths

Taking Epsom salt baths are great for detoxing. Your body will absorb the magnesium through the warm water. Be sure to stay in the Epsom salt bath for at least 20 minutes. Make the water as warm as you can stand it without overdoing it.

Some people will add a few drops of essential oils to their bath as well for even more therapeutic benefits. Lemon essential oil is good for supporting detoxification.

Massage

Massage can help bring blood flow to areas of the body that need it and it also moves stagnant lymph. Your lymphatic system is a major way that the body detoxes, so anything you can do to support the lymphatic systems helps so much. Massage, dry brushing, and rebounding are all ways you can help move your lymph.

I hope you liked these tips for how you can detox and lose weight.

Weight Loss Tips For Busy People

In this post, I want to discuss what busy people can do to lose weight. You are never too busy to lose weight. So many people make that excuse, but everyone has time for weight loss.

I believe this because you don't necessarily have to exercise in order to lose weight. A large percentage of weight loss is about what goes into your mouth, or what doesn't go into your mouth. It's fine if you have time to exercise and make trips to the gym, but when you don't have that extra time, it's important to focus more on diet.

Water

Keep a bottle of water with you at all times. You can buy a reusable bottle of water so that you aren't using so much plastic. This is so you won't be tempted to buy sodas and other drinks. It's convenient and helps you get your daily water for weight loss.

Make it a point to not put any calorie filled liquids into your mouth. Only drink water. If you need to get some little flavor packs, go ahead and do that.

As far as coffee goes, I'm not going to tell you to give up your coffee. Most people that drink it are addicted anyway and can't really let go of it. But do try to limit yourself. What we are trying to do is cut back on the caloric intake so that you can lose weight since you are too busy to exercise.

Meal Prep

A great way to stay on track with calories is to meal prep. This makes it so you aren't cooking all week. You basically pick a day when you aren't too busy and do all your cooking on that day. Then you pack the food into pre-portioned bowls and freeze them. You can take the food out as you need it throughout the week.

This can be a lot of work, but if you are only doing it one day per week, it's not as bad as having to cook every day.

Another option is to find food items at restaurants that are within your calorie limit and choose those options. It will cost more, but at least you don't have to cook everything yourself.

Calorie Count Apps

There are a number of apps out there that help you track your calories for weight loss. These are good to use on the go because a lot of times they will have a scanner where you can scan the barcode on your food and it will enter your calories for you.

People that don't really have the time to count calories can do so much easier with the use of one of these apps. One of the most popular apps for this is My Fitness Pal.

IF

I talk a lot about intermittent fasting on this blog, but it truly is one of the most easy and effective ways to lose weight. If you don't have much time, surely you have time to do intermittent fasting. At first, it's not very easy and you will experience hunger. But over time you will get more used to it and actually enjoy it. And the results that can be achieved from IF are superior to most other weight loss methods.

You can also download apps to make intermittent fasting easier. You just search for the apps and pick the one that looks best to you.

Which Green Tea Is Best For Weight Loss?

You may have heard that green tea is great for weight loss. In this post, I want to explain how to lose weight with green tea and which green tea is best for weight loss. But first, let's talk about the weight loss benefits of green tea.

Green Tea Weight Loss Benefits

Green tea is used for weight loss for a number of reasons. The weight loss benefits of green tea include:

• Increased metabolism
• Less belly fat
• Appetite suppression
• Less fat absorption

All of these benefits combined lead to weight loss in those who drink green tea daily.

That is pretty much everything you could want in a weight loss tea. These benefits are proven by studies, which is why green tea is so popular today. It's one of the only weight loss teas that has so many studies to back it's benefits.

So how much of a metabolism boost can you expect from green tea? The research suggests there is a 4% boost per day in metabolism. Since green tea targets belly fat, it will help you get a better figure.

How Much Green Tea Should I Drink?

In this study, four cups of green tea per day resulted in weight loss, less belly fat, and decreased blood pressure. The other groups in the study that were not drinking green tea did not see those benefits. Many experts suggest having between 3 to 5 cups of green tea per day in order to receive weight loss benefits from it. Having one cup of green tea before each major meal of the day is a good idea.

Green Tea Weight Loss Tips

To lose even more weight from green tea, it would be best to drink the tea before your meals. This will increase the appetite suppression effects of the green tea. You should also not add any cream, sugar, or extra calories to your green tea. Drinking it plain is best, as you don't want to add calories and offset any of the weight loss. Also, loose leaf teas are higher quality so if you can get a hold of some loose leaf green tea, you will experience greater effects.

Green tea can also be taken in capsule form as green tea extract. This is also effective at helping you lose weight, although there are dental benefits to consuming it in tea form. We also have no way of verifying the contents of dietary supplements.

Exercising and consuming green tea show even more benefits. You will get more results from a workout if you are taking green tea as well. However, exercise is not required for losing weight with green tea.

Green Tea Extract

As stated, green tea can also be purchased as a supplement. These are capsules which contain green tea extract. These extracts contain the antioxidant EGCG, which is the cause of most of the health and weight loss benefits from green tea. In order to receive benefits, you will want to consume a product that has at least 500 mg of EGCG per day. This will give you the weight loss benefits that you hear about.

I suggest taking it daily with a glass of water. Follow the instructions on the bottle for best results.

This concludes this post about how to lose weight with green tea. I hope it was informative for you and I wish you luck.

Which Green Tea Is Best For Weight Loss?

The green tea with the most antioxidants per cup is matcha green tea. Matcha green tea is equal to about 10 cups of regular brewed green tea. It comes in a powder which mixes very smoothly with water. Many people like to put match green tea powder in their morning smoothies or yogurt for a weight loss boost.

The next best green tea is loose leaf green tea. You can buy loose leaf green tea online. You have to brew it by placing the tea leaves in a tea ball and infusing it in a cup of hot water.

And last, but not least, we have regular old green tea that you can buy at the grocery store. It comes in tea bags and you just place the tea bag in a cup of hot water to steep. Even though this type of green tea isn't as effective for weight loss as other types, it will still bring you many benefits and it's conveniently located in a store near you.

10 Weeks Weight Loss Results

I haven't updated you on my weight loss journey since 6 weeks. The last update was published a month into my journey. Now we are at week 10. I thought I should give an update since it's been a while.

For the first month of my weight loss journey, I was doing 18/6 intermittent fasting. I had lost around 4-5 lbs in one month of just intermittent fasting. I felt like the fasting schedule was not really working out for me personally. I love intermittent fasting. I just don't feel like 18/6 intermittent fasting is "enough" for me.

This month (March) I began with 19/5 intermittent fasting. It may not seem like much of a difference, but it is. That one extra hour of being pushed to fast makes a difference. It creates more discipline. There is one less hour of eating which creates more of a deficit and helps more with weight loss. There are slightly more benefits.

I am trying out 19/5 intermittent fasting for this month. I don't want to weigh myself until April 1st because I want to give it time. I expect my weight to fluctuate. It always does. So waiting until April 1st gives me more of an idea of how this is going to work for me.

Until then, I will keep on intermittent fasting with a 19/5 schedule. If you want to know more about intermitttent fasting, I am going to provide a few links below that you can check out:

What is 19/5 intermittent fasting?
Intermittent Fasting 1 Year Results
Intermittent Fasting For Women

How Much Water Do You Need For Weight Loss

Photo by Boxed Water Is Better on Unsplash

It's no secret that water helps with weight loss, but how much water do you need for weight loss? We will explore this question today so that we know how much water to drink for weight loss.

How Water Helps With Weight Loss

Water is essential for weight loss. Drinking more water increases the amount of calories your body burns. So drinking water actually increases your metabolism without you doing anything different. It can be an absolute essential to your weight loss routine. What can be more easy than drinking water to lose weight?

Drinking more water leads to:

• Increased metabolism
• Appetite suppression
• Weight loss

In this study, overweight women lost weight just by increasing how much water they drank each day. They didn't change their diet or add any new exercises or other changes. All they did was increase the amount of water they consumed. It has actually been proven in several studies that drinking more water leads to an increased metabolism.

So as you can tell, if you are on a weight loss journey, getting plenty of water is super important.

How Much Water Do You Need?

There are a few ways to calculate this, because experts tend to be in disagreement about how much water a person needs.

There is the blanket statement of eight 8 ounce glasses of water per day, but this is just a general rule. This would be 64 ounces in total. You may need more if you sweat a lot or weigh more than average.

A more accurate way of gauging how much water you need per day is to half your weight and drink that amount in ounces. So if you weigh 150 lbs, take half which is 75. So you would drink 75 ounces of water per day, which is more than the 64 ounce recommendation.

It really is left up to the individual, since experts are not in agreement. All we really know is that too little water can cause dehydration and too much water can cause electrolyte imbalance, which could lead to health complications. You don't want either of those situations to occur, so drinking enough water is essential to maintain good health and a healthy metabolism.

Any food you eat that contains water also counts toward how much water you are taking in.

If You Don't Like The Taste of Water

I've heard many people say "water is gross" or "I hate the taste of water" and to this I say add something to it.

If you are trying to lose weight, it would be best that you don't add any calories to your water, but you can make your water taste better without calories. You can add lemon juice, cucumber slices, frozen berries, mint sprigs, or a number of natural ingredients to your water to give it a little flavor.

I personally like to add lemon juice or lime juice with a stevia packet to my water from time to time. I also like to put a pinch of pink Himalayan salt to my water if I feel like I need the extra minerals and want the slightly salty taste. This is a personal preference. Whatever you have to do to make the water taste good is fine, as long as it is healthy and not full of chemicals.

I actually have a whole post written about how to make water taste better.

There Is a Such Thing As Too Much Water

Do your best not to go overboard when it comes to water. I know you want to lose weight, but there is a such thing as too much water. Make sure you are following expert guidelines and measure your water to be sure of how much you are getting. If you feel like you are drinking too much water, it's okay to back off and let your body re-calibrate.

Increasing your water intake is important for weight loss. It's also important to know just how much water you need for weight loss. Hopefully this article cleared that up for you.

What Is The 5:2 Diet And How To Do It

You may have heard someone mention the 5:2 diet, and you became curious about what it means. Well this post will answer all your questions about 5:2.

What Is The 5:2 Diet?

The 5:2 diet is where you fast for 2 non-consecutive days of the week and eat normally for the other 5 days. This may sound unhealthy to those who have never heard of intermittent fasting, but the benefits are amazing.

Just to name a few benefits of intermittent fasting:

• Increased BDNF (brain-derived neurotropic factor)
• Decreased inflammation
• Fat loss (while sparing muscle)
• Lower risk of illness

The benefits of intermittent fasting have been proven in many studies. I will cover those in more depth in another post, but for now we are talking specifically about the 5:2 diet.

How To Do The 5:2 Diet

For 5 days of the week you will eat your normal diet, whatever that may be. There is no counting or restrictions on those days.

For two days of the week, you will be fasting. You will consume 500 calories of low carb food on those days. Some people modify this by not consuming anything on those days, because sometimes it can be easier to eat nothing at all than to eat just a little bit.

Drink only water and no calorie beverages on your fasting days.

You would choose fasting days that are not beside each other on a calendar. So you would not choose to fast Monday and Tuesday. Instead you would need to choose something like Monday and Thursday. The idea is to break up the fast by at least one eating day.

Why Choose The 5:2 Diet

If you want to achieve weight loss, the 5:2 diet is a pretty good choice. This is because it's much easier than following a strict diet or calorie counting. Followers of the 5:2 diet lose weight without counting calories or restricting food on non fasting days. This makes it super easy to follow because you aren't torturing yourself every single day. You just have to make it through your 2 fasting days per week in order to see weight loss.

From what I've read and experienced, average weight loss on the 5:2 diet is 1 lb per week. Some people may not like that and they may think it's too slow. The weight loss is pretty good considering you are only dieting for 2 days of the week. In one year you could lose 52 lbs just by dieting for two days a week. That's not bad. You don't have to deprive yourself for 5 days of the week, making this diet very easy to stick to.

What If Weight Stalls?

If your weight stalls, it usually means that you are eating a bit more than average on your "eating" days. Most people are able to lose the average amount of weight on the 5:2 diet, but some people may struggle and their weight may stall.

If this happens, people will usually add an extra fasting day, making the diet 4:3. After doing this, weight loss typically picks back up again.

How Do You Maintain Weight Loss?

First of all, congratulations in advance for reaching your goal weight. For most people on the 5:2 diet, they will maintain weight loss by switching to a 6:1 schedule. This means fasting one day per week in order to maintain the weight you have lost. For the other 6 days, you will eat normally.

Overall, this is a great diet. Most people fail diets that they start, but studies have proven that the 5:2 diet is much easier to stick with. This is because you are only dieting twice a week, as opposed to having to restrict daily. You are more likely to succeed and keep the weight off for good on the 5:2 diet.