Avoid These Habits to Lose Weight Naturally

These everyday habits can undermine your weight loss efforts. Here’s how to avoid them to lose weight naturally.

The three worst diet-destroying habits for your waistline include drinking alcohol, not getting enough sleep and watching TV, according to new research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The most diet-damaging of the three is drinking alcohol, followed by lack of sleep then watching TV. These habits are not only associated with being overweight or obese, the researchers that the habits make us gain weight.

 

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Drinking Alcohol

Alcohol is known to induce alterations in our hunger hormones so that appetite is stimulated. Ethanol also impacts other areas of the brain that enhances the feel-good responses of foods, so we want to eat more. Research shows that having alcohol before a meal will boost hunger and increase our enjoyment in the food contained in the meal. What’s more, alcohol is known to disrupt your sleep, which leads to the second most physique-destroying habit…lack of sleep.

Read: Put the Brakes on Booze to Lose

Bottom line Effect: You’re hungrier and food becomes more desirable.

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Skimping on Your Zzzzs

Numerous studies consistently show that getting less than 7 hours of sleep per night boosts hunger hormones and cravings. In fact, some sleep deprivation studies have found that when we’re tired we lose our resolve to eat well. That’s because hunger hormones are more activated when we don’t get enough sleep. For more on how sleep makes us overweight, read these posts:

Eight is Too Late

The Dream Diet

 

Bottom line effect: If you’re tired, you’re going to feel hungrier and be less inclined to eat healthy choices.

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Watching Too Much TV

We know that people who watch TV tend to be more overweight and research suggests it’s because images of  desirable foods on TV make us hungrier by triggering the hunger hormone, ghrelin. If Housewives, Homeland or Modern Family is your guilty pleasure, be aware of the effect TV has on your brain and set a ground-rule that you do not eat while watching TV.  If you spend more than two hours a day in front of the TV, do light exercises and stretching during the commercials or while you’re watching.

Read: The best weight loss advice ever?

Bottom line: If you eat while watching TV you’re going to overeat, and you’ll likely have uncontrollable urges for unhealthy trigger foods.