Water Is Really Important!

Are you using your eyes to assess the amount of food you are eating rather than the feelings in your body? When you become aware of why you are overeating at meals, you can then start to change this practice. Your next step is, at mealtimes, to put all the food you plan to eat on your plate. And when you have finished, don’t refill your plate. If you have a bigger portion, you are likely to eat more, rather than leaving it on your plate. Using a slightly smaller plate or bowl can help you eat less. Relaxing, focusing on your food and eating more slowly can help you eat less. This way, you can have the same portion size, but consume less calories. Or are you on the coffee rollercoaster, where you lurch from one coffee to the next? What you drink can make a big difference to how you feel. It can help bring your body into balance, or it can hinder it. It can slow your metabolism or even give it a slight boost. Some drinks reduce your ability to burn fat and make you store fat around your belly. What you drink can also affect your appetite.

No More Tears

Even if you don’t eat more, you may be taking in a lot of calories from your drinks, which isn’t going to help you lose weight. If you are drinking diet drinks to avoid the calories, that may be counterproductive. It may even make you gain weight. Abigail was a bit of a coffee addict. She loved her morning coffee, then drank this stimulant throughout the day. So far, she had kept her snappiness under control, but sometimes wondered if it would bubble over. Her female hormones and blood sugar levels were out of balance, and the coffee wasn’t helping. Cutting back on coffee can cause withdrawal symptoms. Abigail started by cutting out one mug a day. She wasn’t keen on water. So she decided to try having a small glass after each of her coffees. It took some time, but Abigail got down to two coffees a day.

Crumbs from Your Table

And she was gradually increasing her consumption of water. While she wasn’t keen on herbal teas, she found she liked Rooibosh and had started to include a couple of cups a day. Swapping her coffee for another hot drink made it easier. She had already made changes to her diet, so was getting the nutrients she needed to support her adrenals and was generally feeling a bit calmer. Abigail’s main concern when it came to her weight was that she was carrying it around her midriff. This extra weight can be hard to shift, especially as the caffeine was causing her body to release cortisol. And, as we’ve looked at, this stress hormone tells your body to store belly fat. But over time, as Abigail dealt with her stress and reduced her coffee intake, she noticed it was starting to shift. Equally importantly, Abigail felt calmer, more centered, less easily thrown off balance. Do you drink tea or coffee throughout your day? If you add milk and/or sugar, the calories add up. Similarly, with soft drinks, fruit juices or squash. As we’ve discussed, don’t substitute diet drinks.

The Longest Time

Water is really important! Your body needs to be hydrated. We require six to eight glasses of fluid a day for our bodies to work properly. And when their energy drops, many people reach for food to keep going. Increasing the amount of water you drink can help you lose weight. Alcohol is pretty unhelpful when it comes to keeping your body in balance and losing weight. It enhances your appetite and suppresses your ability to burn fat. The fat that is not burned is likely to be stored around your abdomen. Also, alcohol affects a number of neurochemical systems involved in appetite control. If you drink alcohol before a meal, you are likely to eat more. Alcohol also reduces your control over what you eat. Remember that imbalances in your blood sugar levels can lead to imbalances in your female hormones and increase the stress on your body. Also, alcohol puts an additional load on your liver, which processes old hormones. This helps you feel fuller for longer. Juicing removes the fibre from the fruit, so the high sugar content causes your blood sugar levels to rise rapidly. If you drink fruit juice, dilute with an equal amount of water and don’t have it every day. We’ve covered this topic, but it bears repeating that your body is not designed to handle artificial sweeteners, and they can cause you to gain weight. This can lead to a cycle of blood sugar highs and lows, where you need to reach for more caffeine or something sugary to keep yourself going throughout the day. However, caffeine does not have the same impact on everyone. Caffeine may increase blood sugar and insulin levels in some people, but not in others. If you regularly drink coffee, it may have less effect on your blood sugar levels. Cortisol increases your appetite and encourages belly fat. If you consume caffeine daily, you may release less cortisol in response to caffeine than someone who consumes it less often. But you still release cortisol. So what should you do about caffeine? Well, this partly depends on how it affects you. The downside, caffeine can affect your blood sugar balance and it is not good for female hormone balance or stress. If you want to lose weight, these are important. But on the plus side, coffee and some types of tea can boost your metabolism. This all into account, if you drink coffee, it may be best to limit it to a cup or two a day. The teas that may help boost your metabolism are green, oolong and white teas. It seems these components are required together to have an effect on your metabolic rate. If you habitually consume caffeine and are Caucasian, this is likely to have less effect.