If you have been thinking about going on a crash diet, abstaining from food as much as possible to be able to squeeze into a dress that’s a size smaller, please don’t! Since crash dieting equates to starving for the major part of the day in order to skimp down calories – please do remember that such a diet also leads to sluggish metabolism and the body would cling on to fat more dearly, deciphering it to be a famine situation. Also, when food is available back, it would most likely be stored than expended. Let us explain – when you crash diet, the body switches to the “starvation mode” where it lowers metabolism, increases calorie absorption from food, shoots up hunger and cravings – all to make up for lower food intake. Additionally, the body raises the levels of stress hormone “cortisol,” that increases water retention and that means “a bloated belly!” Also, since crash dieting throws quite a few hormones (ghrelin, leptin, cortisol to name a few), out of whack, you are most likely to remain “hangry” all through the day. As we have mentioned earlier, not eating enough food lowers metabolism and pushes body to conserve fat instead of burning it out. It also means that starving your body would ultimately result in weight gain and not weight loss. Summing up, crash dieting will not result in the kind of weight loss you are expecting, it may prove to be counterproductive, so do not starve to lose weight – do these 10 things instead!

1. Start on the Right Kind of Weight Loss Diet: Without eating right, weight loss will not happen! Not if you eat more, not at all if you eat too less. Even if you spend hours together in the gym, the weighing scale would not move in your favour if there’s no calorie deficit established through dieting. That’s why following the right kind of weight loss diet is imperative to burn fat, and Rati Beauty Weight Loss diets on the Rati Beauty app help to drop extra weight the healthy way without compromising on nutrition. Also, diet food is not “bland or tasteless” anymore on these weekly diet programs.
2. Boost Metabolism with these 21 Tricks: Metabolism is that engine which torches up extra calories in your body. This system is at work even when you are resting, sitting, and even sleeping and needed to produce energy for all bodily functions. If you want to accelerate the pace of weight loss, you must find ways to shoot up metabolism. Read about “21 Tricks to Boost your Metabolism”x to drop weight.
3. Do NEAT Activities: Do you know what fit people do to stay in shape? They practice NEAT activities. Being on your feet throughout the day, helps in burning calories and to keep metabolism high. In fact, fit people never feel one hour of workout in the gym is enough, they keep moving throughout the day and practice NEAT activities. NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis and is the energy we use for everything we do in our day-to-day life except for when we are sleeping or exercising. Using the stairs instead of the lift, squatting on the floor to lift something up, walking while talking on the phone, doing household chores like dusting, sweeping, mopping- every activity we do while being on our feet, comes under NEAT. All these activities help to burn some amount of calories and these bits of calories spent here and there, add up to a considerable amount when you are trying to lose weight. Read more about how you can include NEAT activities in your daily life in this post.

4. Sleep Like a Baby: It is a fact that 6-8 hours of sleep is essential to slim down. If you are not getting a full night’s sleep, the body automatically slows down metabolism and increases the levels of stress hormone cortisol and hunger hormone ghrelin. As a result, you would wake up extremely hungry the next morning and with low energy. Lack of sleep greatly increases the risk of obesity, so get 7 hours and more of sleep every night, to help the body melt away extra fat – in short, sleep like a baby!
5. Say no to Refined Sugar and Refined Flour: Refined carbs and sugar get digested and raise blood sugar rapidly, not to mention the amount of empty calories they manage to pump into the body. When energy is available in the form of empty calories from refined carbs, the body would hardly make an effort to reach the “fat burning” stage. Eliminate refined carbs, especially refined flour and sugar completely from your diet to see weight loss happen.
6. Practice Portion Control: It’s an essential aspect of any good diet, portion control helps one to get into calorie deficit and melt away extra fat. If you are clueless about how to portion control, read about these “10 Tips to Portion Control Food for Weight Loss.”
7. Make Water your Best Friend: We repeat this in every weight loss post, but that’s because water is essential for weight loss. There are so many of us out there who just forget to sip on water through the day, and fall short of the mandatory 8 glasses of water per day. Drinking minimum (yes you read it right hon!!!) two liters of water a day speeds up your metabolism, leaves less room in your stomach for food, detoxifies your body, and aids in the fat-burning process.
8. Stay Away from Processed/Fast Food: The toughest battle on everyone’s weight loss journey is to fight  intense junk food cravings. It’s really hard to fight off junk food cravings, especially with the mushrooming of so many food-ordering apps where you can get delicious (and often junk food) delivered at your doorstep. An indulgence once in a week should pose no problem, but when junk food starts replacing healthy food, in your daily diet, your health will take a toll and weight loss will become impossible. Also, a large population of people actually turn to junk food for comfort and to reduce stress, and since everyone is leading a stressful life, how frequently are we indulging in stress eating such kind of food? It’s just not right to put the blame entirely on lack of will power when it comes to junk food. If you are addicted to junk food and processed stuff, read about “18 Effective Tips to Beat Cravings for Indian Junk Food.”
9. Put a Full Stop to Frequent Snacking: Insulin, which is a fat-storing hormone along with maintaining blood sugar levels, encourages the body to store fat and frequent snacking raises insulin levels in the body and too many insulin spikes through the day will result in creation of new fat cells. Restrict snacking to just twice a day. Find out healthy snacking options on the Rati Beauty app.
10. Increase Protein Intake: It’s easy for the body to process carbs and fat whereas protein consume more calories to get digested and processed. You get to burn more calories while digesting protein-rich food and that’s why a high-protein diet will enhance the whole fat-burning process. Check out the weight loss plans on Rati Beauty that give you high-protein meals to accelerate shedding of extra pounds.

Bonus Tip: Reduce stress levels – Losing weight itself is a stressful task, but being in a state of chronic stress, can be one of the major reasons why your weight isn’t coming down. When you feel stressed out, it can increase the level of a hormone called cortisol which leads to weight gain. One key tip to shed those extra pounds is to worry less about situations and stay carefree about the same. Don’t make losing weight a job to do, make it a hobby or passion. This will change your outlook towards it and cause less stress inside your mind. Read about “10 Tips to Lower Stress in order to Lose Weight.”

10 Tips to Lower Stress in order to Lose Weight
10 Tips to Portion Control Food for Weight Loss

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