We’d all love to learn how to lose weight fast(er). But does it ever feel like your weight loss is happening at a snail’s pace?
Would you be interested in a few tricks that can speed that process up—all while making it easier to stick to your diet?
Well, you’re in luck! Here are 3 quick “kitchen fat-loss tips” you can use to put your diet on autopilot.
Prelude: Why the kitchen?
Ever heard the phrase, “Abs are made in the kitchen?”
Well…yeah.
If you want to learn how to lose weight fast, you have to eat fewer calories. That’s where 90% of your fat loss comes from.
All that other stuff—cardio, cold exposure, supplements, the list goes on—can help you lose weight…but these things all take a major backseat to your diet.
When it comes to weight loss, your diet is king.
And when it comes to your diet, the kitchen is king.
That’s because your kitchen is where you make most of your food decisions. It’s where you select which foods to stuff in your mouth and how much of them to stuff.
A kitchen that’s packed full of sugary treats like ice cream, candy, and potato chips is like a calorie landmine. Even a dedicated bodybuilder or fitness model will have trouble resisting these temptations if he/she encounters them multiple times a day, day after day.
So the moral here should be pretty clear. Make your kitchen a junk-food-free zone, and it will be much easier to stick to your diet.
And that’s how to lose weight fast.
Makes sense, right?
If your kitchen is full of healthy foods, then there are no temptations to resist. There won’t be any hard choices to make because every choice will be a good choice.
That’s what I call “putting your diet on autopilot.”
How to Lose Weight Fast Kitchen Hack #1: Purge Your Kitchen
There are 2 ways to make your kitchen a junk-food-free zone:
Way #1 is to stop buying junk food at the grocery store. Over time, your supply of junk food will gradually diminish and disappear, because you’ll be eating it and not replenishing it.
Way #2 is to rip that band-aid off right now, baby. Throw away every box or bag of crappy food in your kitchen. RIGHT. NOW.*
I highly recommend Way #2 if you really want to know how to lose weight fast.
I call this “purging your kitchen,” and trust me guys: it feels awesome.
It makes you feel cleansed. Dedicated. Empowered.
Purging your kitchen doesn’t just get rid of junk food. It makes a statement.
By purging your kitchen of all your crappy, toxic junk food, you’re making a statement to yourself…to the world…to your cabinets…and to the universe that you are effing SERIOUS about losing weight.
And at the same time, think of all the empty calories you’ll be saving yourself. Throwing out a bag of Doritos? There’s 1 pound. Box of Oreos? 2 more pounds. Bag of M&Ms? That’s like 5 pounds already!
Now let me ask you: would you rather put those empty calories in the trash…or on your ass?
* Note: If you feel bad about throwing away good food, I feel you. Just donate it instead. But put it in a bag NOW and leave that bag by the door so you won’t make excuses later.
How to Lose Weight Fast Kitchen Hack #2: Put Up a Strategic Mirror
One of the most underrated weight-loss tricks is mindfulness.
In other words, being aware of exactly how much you’re eating.
This is a very well-studied phenomenon. (Even Harvard Medical School agrees.)
Successful dieters are pros at this, whether they realize it or not. They don’t eat mindlessly. Instead, they pay attention to everything they put in their mouth.
If you want to adopt this habit for yourself, one trick to getting a jump-start on the process is to place a few strategic mirrors around your kitchen and dining room.
Studies show that seeing yourself in a mirror makes you momentarily more self-conscious.
(Makes sense, right?)
And you can take advantage of this effect by placing mirrors in a couple spots where you’re most likely to benefit, such as:
- On your refrigerator door
- Across from your seat at the table
- On the inside of your junk-food cabinet
Just imagine: you’re walking around, lost in thought—your mind is a million miles away. Somehow you find yourself in the kitchen, opening the cupboards to see what you’ve got. Seeing a bag of Cheetos, you reach out to grab them…
When suddenly you see yourself in the mirror that you’ve attached to the inside of the cupboard.
Just this split-second of seeing yourself in the mirror is enough to shake you free from your daydream, and make you realize what you’re about to do.
Now you’re present and actually thinking about what you’re doing.
Do you really need those Cheetos? Nah, you were probably bored. You put them back and close the cupboard.
(Or better yet, go back up to Trick #1 and purge that crap!)
How to Lose Weight Fast Kitchen Hack #3: Separate High-Calorie Foods into Individual Servings
Ideally, you won’t have any junk food in your house. But sometimes, that’s just not possible.
Maybe you have roommates, kids, friends, a spouse, etc. who buys it.
And as much as you’d love to have complete control over everyone in your life like some kind of magical puppetmaster, unfortunately you don’t.
(At least not yet…*evil laugh*)
So what should you do?
Well, the least you can do is take those high-calorie junk foods and separate them into individual servings.
Here’s the problem:
Eating foods like potato chips out of the bag is a TERRIBLE idea because you have no easy way of knowing how much you’ve eaten. You can’t see through the bag, so you don’t know if the bag still looks mostly full, half full, or if it’s almost empty.
You can’t actually *see* how much you’re eating, which makes it really hard for your brain to register how full you should feel.
(Especially when your brain is focusing elsewhere…like Netflix.)
This is a big problem, because it leads to a LOT of overeating. Fortunately, there’s a pretty easy fix.
Just take all the junk food in your kitchen (this also works for healthy high-calorie foods like almonds) and separate it into individual servings.
Measure out one serving of potato chips (or M&Ms, or cookies, or whatever it is) and put it into an individual sandwich baggie.
This way, when you want a snack you can grab a sandwich baggie—with exactly one serving inside—instead of grabbing the whole bag and eating 5 servings without even thinking about it.
It’s a super-easy and super-effective way to cut down on mindless overeating.
And You’re Done!
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