Physical exercise is an easy and cheap way to cut down extra pounds. However, for you to get weight loss results, you may need to do strenuous and torturous exercise. This is the reason why many people would like to know how to lose weight without exercising. And, while physical activity is part of a healthy lifestyle, there are other ways to lose weight. In this discussion we will look at alternative ways to shed weight without exercise.

How to Lose Weight without Exercise

1. Manage Your Calorie Intake

Controlled calorie intake is one of the most effective ways to lose weight without exercise. It is in effect keeping excess weight off of your body. To achieve this, work on cutting out about 500 to 750 calories from your daily intake. This will help you lose 2lb within a week.

You may need a calorie calculator to help you in this process. Your physical activity, age, weight and height are important parameters in determining the amount of calories to cut from your diet and still maintaining your health. Your daily calorie intake should not fall below 1200.

2. Eat a Balanced Diet

A balanced diet is critical to losing weight without exercise. Include fruits and vegetables in your diet to ensure that you get adequate vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants. These help improve not only your health but also boost digestion and burning of calories. Fruits and vegetables should constitute one half of each meal.

Protein provides the body’s building blocks. Protein also keeps us satisfied for longer, thus eliminating hunger and cravings. When taken in the right amount, protein helps maintain good health. Three to four ounces of protein in each meal will suffice.

Include whole grains such as oats and brown rice to take advantage of their high content of fiber, minerals and some vitamins. These are required for supply of energy. One half of a cup in a meal is enough as one of the ways how to lose weight without exercise.

3. Take Healthy Snacks

Snacking while trying to lose weight may sound surprising. However, snacking right can actually help on your journey to attaining the right weight. 

A healthy snack even when you are working on losing weight cushions you from having to disrupt your meal schedules or planned proportions. But beware what you snack on. In any case, a snack should not exceed 200 calories. Healthy snacks include a boiled egg, yogurt, and nut.

4. Adopt Healthier Cooking Techniques

Poor food preparation methods can defeat your weight loss efforts. Mind the type and amount of cooking oil you use, sauces and seasoning added to your food and the amount of butter on bread.

Healthy cooking methods include those where you use very little or no fat, such as the following:

• Steaming
• Boiling
• Grilling
• Roasting
• Braising
• Avoiding certain sauces or limiting them to a minimum
• Switching from saturated cooking fats to extra virgin olive or canola oil
• Avoiding foods prepared by certain cooking techniques such as deep frying and pan frying

5. Increase Water Intake

Drinking more water helps increase the calories burnt even when we sit idle. This is also known as resting energy expenditure. We cannot also ignore the fact that drinking water just before a meal helps you get full faster, which reduces the quantity of food and calories that you ingest. The thirst for water can also often be confused with hunger for food especially when the stomach feels empty. Drinking water regularly can therefore help in your quest for how to lose weight without exercise.

It is generally recommended that an adult person should take at least eight glasses of water a day. Flavored water, unsweetened plain tea and coffee can replace some of your water intake.

6. Avoid Alcohol and Sugary Beverages

Alcohol and sugary beverages contain large amount of calories that will definitely sabotage any weight loss plans. Remember that alcohol is made from starches and sugar. Some alcoholic drinks contain as much as seven calories per gram. It is worth noting that these are empty calories with no nutritional value. They are therefore all converted to and stored as fat in the body. Healthy alcohol consumption should be limited to one glass or less for women and two glasses or less for men. However, with a long term weight loss program, one is advised to quit alcohol all together.

Avoid sugary beverages like sodas, sweetened tea, energy drinks, and juices. A liter of bottled coca cola soda contains about 400 calories and it is not even the most calorie-laden beverage.

7. Get Enough Sleep

Sleeping is good medicine for many conditions. It is recommended that for purposes of general health, including healthy weight; an adult should sleep for about eight hours a day. Inadequate sleep leads to tiredness and low metabolism rate which causes excess calories to be stored as body fat. Good practices to ensure adequate rest include:

• Going to bed at the right time. If you have to get up early, go to bed early so that you have enough sleep time.
• Have uninterrupted sleep through the night. Clear your bedroom of any sources of disruptions such as electronic gadgets.
• Make sure you sleep in a clean and comfortable environment.
• Maintain a specific sleep pattern so that your body is used to it.

8. Engage in More Physical Activity

Physical activity is another way how to lose weight without exercise. Activities like walking, climbing the stairs, lifting objects and carrying stuff help burn calories and thus lead to weight loss.

We can make a point of varying the amount of our baseline physical activity in such ways as taking the stairs instead of the lift, or parking your car further than usual so that you have a longer distance to walk to the office. Walking around during breaks is also another way we can increase our baseline activity.

Some fun activities such as swimming or dancing the week off on a Friday are also calorie burning activities which will increase your weight loss chances without having to hit the gym.

More Tips

• Chew food slowly and thoroughly. This causes you to eat less food and in effect reduces your calorie intake.
• Keep junk food out of easy reach. This will help keep you from the tendency to consume junk at any time of the day.
• Opt for self-service whenever possible. In this way, everybody serves themselves just enough portions of food which is a good practice when aiming to lose weight without exercise.
• Stick to your meal time and restrict your meals to the dining room. Eating while watching the TV will most likely cause you to overeat. Distracted eating could increase intake by up to 10%.