5 Easy Tips To Fend Off Food Cravings And Lose Weight

Do you frequently feel that you absolutely must have a slice of cake, a slab of chocolate, or some chips to munch on? Unfortunately, this can sometimes snowball, and you may end up binge eating. There is no denying that food cravings are a dieter’s downfall.

Satisfying cravings can become a habit, and it gradually becomes easy to grab mouth-watering, calorie-dense, and nutrient-poor foods without thinking about the consequences.

Don’t let food cravings sabotage your weight loss goals! These five strategies can help you with managing food cravings so you can stay on track in your weight loss journey.

1. Drink a tall glass of water

If you feel sudden food cravings, try drinking a glass of water instead. Sometimes, you may even feel your urge fade because you were just thirsty. The body often misinterprets signals from the brain, and thirst can sometimes be confused with hunger or food cravings.

Additionally, drinking an adequate amount of water helps you stay hydrated and lose weight. If plain water sounds boring, try infusing it with some slices of lemon, lime, or cucumber, among other refreshing alternatives.

2. Optimise your kitchen or pantry design

An effective way to manage a craving is to distance yourself from it. As we like to say, “out of sight, out of mind”. Re-equip your kitchen and keep healthy snacks around. You can’t give in to unhealthy food cravings if the food is not in your pantry in the first place!

Another tip is to refrain from stocking up on certain foods that may trigger your binge eating when you head grocery shopping. That way, the next time you crave them, you would have to put in extra effort to get them. This would encourage you to opt for your healthy options.

3. Brush your teeth

Part of having food cravings is the anticipation of the mouth-watering taste of food. Well, almost nothing tastes good after you’ve brushed your teeth or gargled with an antiseptic mouthwash! The cool mint flavour makes it hard to eat anything afterwards.

You can also opt for sugar-free candy, which uses artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. These have fewer to no calories and may be all you need to satisfy your sweet tooth — with less impact on your blood sugar levels.

4. Don’t skip your three balanced meals

Follow a consistent meal pattern daily, with an emphasis on protein. Protein keeps you full for longer, reduces cravings and keeps you from overeating. Eating a high-protein breakfast, in particular, can result in fewer cravings for sweet and savoury foods.

Plan your meals and nutritious snacks to eliminate that factor of uncertainty. Never skip your meals to prevent hunger pangs and low blood sugar, which can trigger cravings.

5. Practice mindful eating

The bottom line is willpower! This may sound intuitive, but you need to ask yourself if you are actually hungry. It’s important to distinguish whether your cravings are physical or psychological. While you may think food cravings come from the stomach, your brain is the more responsible party. One should never deny hunger pangs, but there’s a difference between that and mental or emotional cravings.

Mindful eating makes you more aware of your eating habits and sensations like physical hunger and food cravings. It motivates you to respond wisely instead of acting impulsively. Many people find it helpful to keep a food journal or planner, jotting down their cravings, how long they lasted and how they handled the situation— this makes acting on strategies more productive.

Conclusion

Part of living a healthy lifestyle is knowing how to listen to your body. If you are truly hungry, it’s crucial not to deprive yourself. But it’s equally vital to distinguish mental cravings and devise measures to deal with them effectively.

Looking for a healthy and effective way to lose fat? Slim Couture is the best slimming centre in Singapore that utilises natural Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) techniques to help you lose unwanted weight in a fast, safe and healthy way. Moreover, there are no negative side effects associated with this slimming programme. Contact us now to get started on your weight loss journey.

6 Tips to Measure and Control Portion Sizes for Weight Loss

Controlling portion sizes is one of the intuitive ways to maintain or lose weight. It is universally acknowledged that controlling your calorie intake and having small meals will result in weight loss. Still, this is often easier said than done. Research has shown that we cannot always rely on our own judgement to limit our meals. When people eat the occasional big meal, they might not see any immediate difference, making it easy to understate the effects and continue to overeat.

The misconceptions

When people hear the oft-discussed “portion size”, they usually imagine a physical amount of food. However, portion size actually refers more to the caloric intake of the food consumed as opposed to the physical quantity. This is why eating a big bowl of a vegetable salad may still be more portion-accurate than that unassuming slice of pizza.

Asking the right questions

To start your journey on eating mindfully, ask yourself these questions: what, when, where, why, and how much you eat.

We should also extend that to who— who is eating? The ideal calorie intake varies with factors such as age, height, body size, gender, genetics, hormonal imbalances, level of physical activity and more.

Based on the average Singaporean’s weight and physical activity, the recommended daily intake is 2200 calories for males and 1800 calories for females. With that wrapped up, we can now share with you these simple tips on how to cut back and control on your portion sizes.

1. Use smaller plates

The size of your dinnerware influences how much food you heap on it. Swap your plate and bowls with smaller alternatives to control yourself. Use your plate to portion a well-balanced meal: vegetables and salads should occupy half the plate, and high-quality protein and complex carbs should each take up the remaining quarters. Ideally, high-fat food and added sugar should not exceed a tablespoon each.

2. Measure accurately

It would also help to make the most of your measuring cups, tablespoons, and other meal prep containers to get accurate and reliable amounts of the foods you are consuming.

3. Don’t eat straight from the container

Dish out your servings separately in small bowls and plates. Refrain from eating directly from jumbo-sized packages or family meal-servings. This will only encourage overeating and second helpings.

4. Keep a food journal

Over time, you will be able to approximate food portions on your own. But tracking your meals is a great way to start out. The goal is not to obsess over every single calorie, but rather to monitor your goals and increase awareness of what and how much you are eating.

5. Don’t skip meals

Always eat your meals at regular times. When you delay or skip meals, you may overeat at some point during the day.

6. Practice mindful eating

This is where the 5 W’s and 1H questions come in. Do not just snack mindlessly. Instead, question yourself on why you are eating and whether you are really hungry.

Try not to help yourself to second servings rashly. Try to employ the 20-minute rule — it may take a while for you to feel full after a meal, so try and wait for 20 minutes before you reach for second helpings.

Lastly, take it slow. Eating quickly increases the likelihood of overeating. Take smaller bites and slowly savour every mouthful. Not only would this help with eliminating the possibilities of overeating, but you are also more likely to enjoy your meal more!

The bottom line

Portion control is not a type of diet but a lifestyle. It must be observed steadfastly to promise results. While eating mindfully does indeed improve your quality of life, the bottom line is that it maintains rather than actively reduces body fat after a certain point. For a more comprehensive weight loss journey, you would have to partake in more active measures, such as TCM slimming.

Slim Couture is the best slimming centre to help you in your weight loss journey. We dedicate ourselves to following the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and providing successful slimming solutions and weight loss programs for you to live your best life starting today.

Contact us to learn more about TCM weight loss in Singapore today.

Your Ultimate Guide To Building A Workout Playlist

Unless you prefer listening to the sound of your own heavy breathing, most of us listen to music whilst working out. Research has found that doing physical activities accompanied by music can elevate your mood, increase your productivity and boost your athletic performance. If there is anything that you can do to make working out more enjoyable, it is certainly the right workout playlist!

Music is a great way to have fun while losing weight— whether it’s to give yourself the push you need to keep going or pumping yourself up, music can help ignite your motivation. Unfortunately, making a suitable workout playlist goes beyond just choosing all your favourite songs and compiling them into a playlist. If you are unsure what songs to include, check out this ultimate guide to creating your workout playlist!

Assess your pace

The rhythm of your movement as you work out should match the beats per minute of your song selection. If you are running or cycling, you may count your movements over a 60-second period. Even if you’re lifting weights or doing strength work that doesn’t involve much movement, your heart rate will still match the music you play, so it’s good to keep it upbeat and energetic. If you are a beginner, try counting the number of steps you can take in a minute and match that to the beat of any song.

Arrange your playlist

As you begin your workout, you are likely to gradually start in simple routines and move your way up to intense ones. Thus, it would be beneficial to make sure that your playlist is arranged accordingly. The songs you are listening to are a way of bringing the entire session together — from warming up to transitioning from different moves and cooling down, so it’s important that you focus on curating a playlist for your whole workout routine. If you’re doing movement routines, choose songs that are continuous so the silence between each song doesn’t affect your pace.

Create a backup playlist

It’s perfectly normal to feel extremely tired when working out. Instead of forcing yourself through your upbeat and high-intensity routines, try building a backup playlist with less intense songs so you do not feel like you are struggling to catch your breath.

Play with the beats

Something as simple as a beat could push your routine such as cycling or running to the next level. So, when you plan on stepping up your game, create a playlist with songs that are slightly faster than your natural pace — remember that just a few extra beats per minute already make a difference. With a faster music pace, you will be able to do more work and not notice or mind the increase in workload.

Slimming comes in many ways, such as TCM slimming

There’s no doubt that listening to your favourite songs can make working out more fun, but the right playlist can certainly boost your performance and make your session even more productive! Still, slimming isn’t all about just working out – it also comes in many ways, with the most common methods being adopting plant-based diets and portion control.

Besides the methods mentioned above, you could also try TCM slimming to achieve your goal in no time! TCM slimming is a healthy alternative to slimming methods such as crash dieting, pills, or excessive exercise. This all-natural technique has zero dangerous potential side effects and will be able to produce results that are long-lasting.

Conclusion

Here at Slim Couture, we use traditional Chinese medicine techniques to help you shed some extra pounds, speed up your metabolism, and obtain the slimmed-down body you’ve always dreamed of! Offering a money-back guarantee on the results of your weight loss, we promise that you will get what you pay for. Our dedicated team of experts are with you every step of the way and will even provide you with comprehensive diet plans as part of our post-treatment support.

Contact us today to get started on your weight loss journey with the best slimming centre in Singapore.

Weight Loss: Effective Ways to Lose Stubborn Arm Fat

As everyone’s bodies are completely different, we all hold onto fat differently. Some carry excess weight proportionately, while others tend to carry them in specific areas such as the belly, thighs, and arms. The arms are one of the most common areas of concern for many people.

What causes arm fat?

Arm fat is one of the many side effects of growing older. As you grow older, your metabolism decreases and excess fat could get stored in your arms, especially if you are not following a physically active lifestyle.

Research has shown that excess arm fat can also arise from low testosterone levels. As women grow older, their testosterone levels begin to decrease, making it increasingly difficult to lose the stubborn arm fat.

So, the question lies, is there a sure-fire way to lose flabby arms? To help you out, we have compiled a list of some effective ways you can reduce arm fat.

Focusing on overall weight loss

Spot reduction is a type of targeted exercise intended to burn fat in specific areas of the body. While it has been popular in the health and fitness industry, most studies have found it to be ineffective. According to a study involving 104 adults who completed a 3 month training program, focusing the training on one arm resulted in decreased overall body fat, but had little effect on the specific area being exercised.

Hence, it would be best to not zero in on your arms, but to focus on a full-scale and all-inclusive weight loss program. Cardio is a great way to get your heart rate up to burn extra calories. Activities such as running, swimming and even dancing are excellent ways to have fun while losing weight!

Building strength in your arms

Instead of focusing on only reducing fat, you could switch your focus to building strength in your arms. Resistance training is a type of exercise that builds muscle mass and strength. Lifting weights, in particular, can tone your arms and make them look slimmer.

Some examples of exercises you could do are bicep curls, triceps kickbacks and overhead presses with barbells, dumbbells, and resistance bands. However, it is also possible to exercise without weights and equipment. Exercises such as arm circles, push-ups, inchworms, and planks can be easily integrated into your morning routine. They help build muscle strength, giving you toned and sculpted arms.

Eating clean and staying hydrated

Eating clean is one of the most effective ways to lose stubborn arm fat. Watching your diet can help to boost metabolism and promote good digestion. Easing up on refined carbohydrates, reducing sugar intake and incorporating more fibre and protein into your diet can support weight management and help you lose excess body fat.

Additionally, it would help to make a mental note to always stay hydrated! Research has shown that drinking plenty of water each day can increase one’s metabolism. Water is also a healthier alternative to high calorie drinks such as sodas.

Conclusion

There are many methods that can help with losing stubborn arm fat effectively.  Switching up your diet, regular exercise and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are just some ways to regulate your body composition.

Another novel method that is gaining traction, especially for those struggling with the above methods, is TCM slimming. Here at Slim Couture, we incorporate traditional Chinese medicine methods into our slimming program to help you lose weight naturally. This therapy helps remove toxins from your body, stimulating your metabolism and allows you to maintain a fit body. To learn more, contact us at Slim Couture to get you started on your weight loss journey with the best slimming centre in Singapore.