When it comes to losing or maintaining your weight, we know it is not a cakewalk, but unknowingly there can be many reasons contributing to sabotaging your healthy intentions, even in the summer.
There are many cues of gaining weight, right from the pill you're popping on regular basis, to the lightning in a restaurant to replacing fats with carbs. Do these habits sound familiar? Browse on to know about 6 surprising reasons why you gaining weight this summer season.
1. For days, you tend to give up on fats completely, only to replace them with carbs. In order to lower the amount of fat we eat, we tend to replace fatty foods with carb varieties, such as white breads, rice and white pastas. Simple carbs tend to stimulate your body to produce insulin, which can further lead to weight gain. The best solution is to stick to healthy carbs and fats. Go for grains, healthy fruits and vegetables for healthy carbs, and avocado, nuts and fish for monosaturated fats.
2. Popping medicines every now and then. It might sound shocking to you, but popping a pill here and a pain-reliever there can be the biggest hidden reason why you're gaining weight this summer.
3. Types of antidepressants that lead to weight gain, are trycyclic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Many people believe that migraine medicines can contribute to weight gain as well. Diabinese, Insulase (chlorpropamide) drug, used in diabetes can lead to either weight gain or weight loss depending upon the individual.
It is, therefore, essential to take all these drugs under the supervision of a medical professional and follow a proper diet and exercise regimen.
4. BBQ junk food is a huge source of calorie laden carbohydrates and fats. Skip the fatty chemical saturated burgers and hotdogs, and avoid white sugary burger buns. If you attend many BBQ gatherings, stick to salads, and lean meats.
5. Overeating outside because of good ambience, music, dim lights and bright colours. According to a study published in the Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, people who eat when the music is fast and loud tend to eat much more and chew their food hurriedly. Same is the case, when you eat at home with the TV on.
Self awareness is the key here, which will help you combat your act of overeating by keeping a tab on the amount of calories you consume. On the other hand, colour therapists believe that warm colours (like red, orange and yellow), mostly used in fast food joints, tend to encourage people to eat more.
Apart from this, dim lights in restaurants make us eat more as one can't judge the quantity of food easily. The best solution is to avoid going to such places and be clear in your head about the amount of calories you would want to indulge in by way of clever portion control.
6. Drinking too much of cold beer is directly linked to weight gain. The truth is that light beer has only 90 to 100 calories and regular beer generally has less than 200 calories, but this is no licence to drink too much.
When you over-do calorie intake through beer or other seemingly low calorie alcohol, you take in empty calories. This means that you are wasting your calorie-intake on beverages that don't add any nutritions to your diet.
Additionally, you tend to exercise less in the summer months. You must continue exercising in order to avoid facing weight gain in the hot summer months. Within four weeks of detraining muscles lose, their firmness and toning. This means that once the heat lessens, and you feel like getting back to exercise, you will need to begin from scratch all over again.
As exercise offers health benefits it is therefore an ongoing activity that cannot be missed from our lifestyle. And also one has to manage calories in the absence of exercise. The good news is that once you resume working out your body will once again increase the muscle mass and reduce the fat stores, so it is not a permanent effect. But, as mentioned earlier, any neglect will only make it that much tougher for you to achieve your long term health goals.
Therefore, do not take a break from exercise just because the weather isn't friendly. Alter your workouts and diet to better suit the summer months and you'll be fitter for it.
Originally posted HERE
Also read : 4 Reasons Why You Overeat
