People Shared Their Simple Tricks That Helped Them Shred Their Pounds

Sometimes sweaty hours spent in the gym don’t pay off and the body size you desire might seem unreachable. Apart from intensive training, there are different diet adjustments and new routines that need to be added to your lifestyle. But all of this can be done without much effort or a costly investment — everyone can do them during the day while performing their normal activities.

Bright Side always wants to be a support for our readers in their efforts to shed unnecessary pounds in a healthy and effective way. That’s why we can’t wait to present you with these first-hand weight loss tips that can be a good help on your weight loss journey. Make sure to save and share them!

• Walking. It’s so underrated. Anyone can do it, it can be done anywhere, and it’s free. I leave early for my bus to work and walk 30 minutes along my route, before catching my bus. On the way home I get off the bus earlier and walk home for 30 minutes again. This adds an hour of walking a day with very little disruption to my daily routine. That, plus eating better, and I’ve lost 14 pounds in about 5-6 weeks. © JiMMyCCuDDa / Reddit

• The 70% rule. Eat 70% of the meal, then take a break and talk for a while, drink some water, and enjoy the moment for a bit. You’ll find that most of the time the food will settle in your stomach and you won’t be hungry anymore. © Pizanch / Reddit

• I typically try to use saucers for dinner plates. I can fit modest sized portions of whatever I cooked on there, and it looks a lot better than those same smaller portions on a huge dinner plate. It drives my boyfriend crazy though. He understands why I do it, but he just thinks it looks odd. © salamander423 / Reddit

• I skip dinner or lunch every once in a while. We overeat a lot, so why not under eat once in a while? For me, it’s easier to just not eat, than to try and eat something smaller that isn’t even appetizing. © stancel1fe / Reddit
• The only way that worked for me is “Calories In, Calories Out.” You have to burn more calories than you eat. You can achieve that with any diet you want, but it’s also possible to get a calorie surplus with any diet. © Matty_22 / Reddit
• Count your calories with a tracking app. Most people eat more calories than they think they are. Find a balance between calorie restriction and exercise that keeps you at a calorie deficit and is sustainable over the long term (think years, not weeks). © Matty_22 / Reddit

• Include everything in the calorie tracking chart: ketchup, the cookie you had as a snack, etc. I never imagined how much the little extra things added up. If you love ketchup, you could easily add 100 calories for the meal. You had a glass of milk in-between meals, well there’s another 100-130 calories. A lot of people lie to themselves, saying that they aren’t eating that much. © OnlyTwoOuts / Reddit
• When you feel like snacking, ask yourself if you’re hungry or bored. A lot of the time all it takes is drinking a glass of water, and finding something else to occupy your mind, rather than eating. © ChachaPicante / Reddit
• If you struggle with an eating disorder, focus first on developing a healthy relationship with food before following any type of diet. © unknown / Reddit

• Don’t go all out and start a super hardcore diet or workout regimen. Make slow steady changes to your lifestyle until you are in moderate health, then really go for it. © TheoQ99 / Reddit

• Plan meals ahead and cook them yourself. You would be surprised how much control you give yourself over your calories this way. It also saves a lot of time and money. © totspur1982 / Reddit
• If you’re making your own food, be aware that almost everybody underestimates their portion sizes, and you should probably invest in a cheap food scale. © wild_cannon / Reddit

• Split your meals into snacks so you are eating all day long. Eat between 7 A.M. and 7 P.M. and then stop. Give up as many carbohydrates as you can reduce or eliminate bread, cereal, potatoes, rice, alcohol, and dessert as much as possible. © iwontrememberanyway / Reddit

• Ditch the 3 square meals a day and a dessert concept. For example, if I’m going to the movies, a drink and popcorn is my lunch. Seems crazy to eat even more food after that. And if I’m at a baseball game, I just get garlic fries, there’s no need to get chicken tenders too. © laterdude / Reddit

• Don’t keep junk food in the house. I find myself eating in the middle of the night. Sometimes I would wake up staring at the empty wrappers of popsicles and chocolate I ate during the night. If I want something sweet, I have to go to a shop, where I only buy a small single-serve pack. © kkeeper / Reddit

• Fasting for half the day. You get used to not eating after day 2. And not eating too much before bed is great. Also cardiovascular exercises like crunches, burpees, mountain climbers in a circuit. Get your blood pumping and eat light afterward, then go to bed. © ahyeaman / Reddit
• Water. Drink plenty of it throughout the day, as a lot of hunger hides as thirst. Also, it cuts out liquid calories, which add up quickly and actually make you hungrier and you’ll consume even more calories. © NinjaChemist / Reddit

• Set a goal weight. Calculate back to what you can healthily lose in a week or a month (usually 2 pounds a week). Hit that. Then set a new weekly or monthly goal. Hit that. The big weight loss is the goal, but snowballing the smaller weight losses is more simple to achieve, and allows you to feel that satisfaction much more regularly. © StuHardy / Reddit

• I try to stay as active as possible throughout the day and make sure I’m getting off my seat at least once an hour to move around a bit during work. I only eat until I’m about 75% full and make sure to drink plenty of water before and during meals. I usually let myself have one “unhealthy” snack a day like a small bag of potato chips or a small brownie. © puppercakess / Reddit
• I lost about 100 pounds a couple of years ago and have kept most of it off. One major thing that helped was focusing more on fresh ingredients. The frozen food aisle is your enemy for various reasons. Food there is full of preservatives and unwanted chemicals and often lacking in nutrition. It’s also typically sky-high in salt. © NotARobotSpider / Reddit

• I lost nearly 250 pounds. The biggest factor was probably accepting that this weight is 100% my fault and my problem. Apart from counting calories, I kept a sticker chart of the kilograms I lost to put the whole thing into a long-time ride perspective. Exercise at your comfort level. At over 400 pounds I just walked my dogs for 10 minutes twice a day. I worked up to near-daily gym visits. If you do what is within your realistic ability you’ll be more likely to stick to it. © Arterially / Reddit

Do you have your own tips for a healthy lifestyle and weight loss? Let’s share them in the comments!