7 Healthy Ways To Lose Weight Without 'Dieting'

When it comes to losing weight and getting healthy, the little things add up -- trying just one new thing every day can quickly make a big difference. With that in mind, we’ve taken science’s best weight-loss strategies and created seven healthy (and slimming) to-do's!

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Learn A Lesson in Portion Control

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Studies show that recording meals may help you lose up to 5 percent of your weight, says Robert A. Carels, Ph.D., an associate professor in the psychology department at Bowling Green State University. Start today: Snap before and after photos of each meal with your camera phone. Keeping a visual food diary is a more accurate way to see what and how much you're eating, United Kingdom researchers say. Afterward, download the pics so you'll have a record. More from Health.com: Get Slim All Over Superfast The Best Gadgets to Make You Slim 16 Little Ways to Lose Big Pounds

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Studies show that recording meals may help you lose up to 5 percent of your weight, says Robert A. Carels, Ph.D., an associate professor in the psychology department at Bowling Green State University.

Start today: Snap before and after photos of each meal with your camera phone. Keeping a visual food diary is a more accurate way to see what and how much you're eating, United Kingdom researchers say. Afterward, download the pics so you'll have a record.

More from Health.com:
Get Slim All Over Superfast
The Best Gadgets to Make You Slim
16 Little Ways to Lose Big Pounds

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Comments

[Jane Cartelli]

12:59 PM on 08/15/2011

With the exception of tripling the Vitamin C, which I only heard about recently, I find that I am already doing all the other steps. I am maintaining a weight loss of over 200 pounds so I can see that it is working so far. Hmm, maybe I already get a triple amount of Vit C without trying. I eat a lot of vegetables containing the vitamin.

Jane Cartelli~
Keepingthepoundsoff.com

[Francois Bergeron]

10:39 AM on 08/13/2011

I got one.
Start young. In europe you don't see fat kids.
In the US, parents are the biggest problem.

[IanGHenderson]

09:17 AM on 08/04/2011

To lose weight you have to count the calories, eat healthy nutritional foods as in fruit especially berries, salads and bulk up the plate with vegetables and drink plenty water.

You can still that special treat of your favourite food as Mick Stewart did, have that McDonalds etc but it has to be counted into your daily calorie count.

Last but not least exercise is a must whether it be walking briskly jogging or a great exercise is swimming as it works most of the muscles and burns of the calories.

www.weighles.com

[Mick Stewart]

05:40 PM on 07/31/2011

Guys, there is no secret to weight loss. I went from 205 to 169 in less than three months. I ate healthy (I still had McDonalds ... *once* a week), worked out every day, and walked, walked, walked my rear end off. My before and after photos are on my website: http://www.mikestewartfitness.com.

The key to loosing weight is eating right SIX out of SEVEN days a week.

All the working out in the world will do you *no good* unless you can first get your diet under control.

[Quin Etiam]

05:42 AM on 07/13/2011

I have found the cure.
http://quinetiam.com/?p=456

[Jonathan Robert]

04:27 PM on 06/29/2011

Eat more fruits and vegetables. Drink more water. Eat less bread/pasta/refined foods. I also think eating several small meals works well as opposed to one large meal at night.

http://green-cures.blogspot.com

[Bon1042]

01:38 AM on 07/02/2011

I was reading that the small meals idea is not really a good one.. on Shine that's there a lot when you are on your home page... I have Yahoo. I can't remember just why.

[LovingFit]

04:00 AM on 06/29/2011

I think it's pretty common sense that circuit training and portion control will help you loose weight. I would have to disagree on the Buddy up part. When we get a buddy to work out with or keep fit with, we become too dependent on that person, I believe that's why so many people fail.
There is a lot more that goes into loosing weight and keeping it off than those 5 tips. Anyone can just loose the weight, but to keep of you need to develop good habits, and you have to loose weight the right way.

http://www.lovingfit.com/nutrition/my-complete-guide-to-nutrition/

[SW84]

12:00 PM on 06/29/2011

have to disagree with some of your statements on your website

"Always eat 5 or 6 times a day, more depending on how you workout. Two or three meals or one big meal is just not enough."

increasing meal frequency has no advantage over less frequent meals. also there is no metabolic advantage to increased meal frequency

"Keep your carbs lower at dinner time, especially simple carbs such as rice, pasta, bread etc. Instead you can load up on any veggie you like, preferable raw or lightly steamed"

there is no real reason why you should keep carbs down at dinner time

"The right way is decreasing body fat, while building more muscle and adjusting your BMR"

body recomp is incredibly hard to do and is a very slow process. a better idea would be to cut down to x bf% while lifting heavy to preserve LBM, then start a caloric surplus (10-20% over maintenance) and build muscle

also carb cycling is more useful for people that are already lean to lose fat ie. bf under 15%

[Steph Monster]

03:42 PM on 06/28/2011

Personally I think it helps to write down everything you eat. Dedicating yourself to losing weight is the only way to do it, and its honestly not a hard thing to do since there are so many great resources on the net http://www.bettyconfidential.com/ar/ld/a/summer-slim-down-easy-ways-to-lose-weight-without-joining-a-program.html

[theredqueen]

01:46 PM on 06/28/2011

Modifying one's diet, cutting out sugars as much as possible, eating lean proteins, veggies and fruit, walking as much as I can every day, swimming when I can get to the pool , lifting weights twice a week, all of this has kept me the same size (ten) for more years than I care to state. I am a senior and it seems to work even though I like a nice glass or two of "bubbly" from time to time. I'm not exactly skinny but I'm definitely in the good BMI range.

[HerrMonk]

02:47 PM on 06/28/2011

Where do you get your dietary fats then?

How can you say in the same sentence that you cut our sugars as much as possible and eat fruit...?

[theredqueen]

03:22 PM on 06/28/2011

A. Olive oil.

B. I might suggest your looking up the term "as much as possible". For some people - and I happen to be one of them- moderation is possible. I see from your earlier posting that fruit seems to be your bete noir.

C. Food fads and food faddists are my particular bete noir..

[rwilli1972]

08:19 PM on 08/07/2011

These are great comments you have made. I think you are doing all the right things. Keep up the good work. http://www.perspectivestv.com Twitter @PerspectivesGA

[HerrMonk]

11:21 AM on 06/28/2011

Weight is lost in the kitchen, not the gym.

While none of this stuff is bad advice, it's not going to make a dent in a bad diet.

At the end of the day people need to acknowledge that there are 'bad' foods out there that just shouldn't be eaten. Whether you cut them out completely or just moderate them has to do with your goals, but this 'everything in moderation', 'use portion control' and 'you can just burn it off art the gym' none-sense isn't helpful.

Also, fruit is just sugar: sugar makes you fat most of the time: stop pushing fruit constantly. A piece or two a day is fine, but it shouldn't be the backbone of a diet.

[williamg]

12:42 PM on 06/28/2011

Huh?

That has to be one of the most simplistic and foolish pieces of advice I've ever seen on this site.

Calories in a pound of fa/t: ....3500

So to burn a pound of fa/t you need to intake 3500 calories less than you burn, or burn 3500 calories less than you intake.

A one hour jog can burn well over 1,000 calories alone. If you jog early in the morning, it raises your metabolism for the rest of the day, meaning your body will burn hundreds more calories. So jogging, or other types of vigorous exercise can raise your metabolism by well over 1,000 calories a day.

If one were to eat their baseline amount of calories (calories needed to maintain current weight) and add in vigorous exercise, you would effectively lose 1 pound every 3 days.

So any fool_ that thinks that weight is lost only in the kitchen, is just that: a foo/l... Probably a la/zy foo/l at that.

Weight is lost in the kitchen, at the gym, running on the street, on a stairclimber, on a bike, hiking up a hill, walking down the street, etc.

[HerrMonk]

12:51 PM on 06/28/2011

You keep telling yourself that.

Your body doesn't "burn" calories. It utilizes calories. The only calories it actually burns regularly are fat at low outputs and carbs at high output.

Your "If one were to eat their baseline amount of calories (calories needed to maintain current weight) and add in vigorous exercise, you would effectivel­y lose 1 pound every 3 days" is prefect: if you were right, this would happen. But you aren't. I promise you, if you could consistently lose a pound of fat every three days so easily, there wouldn't be many fat people.

Fat is lost PRIMARILY in the kitchen. I'm not interested in weight loss, I'm interested in fat loss. I've lost ten pounds in two hours biking. Wow! Not fat: don't care. Sure, you NEPA will contribute a little to fat loss, but that's not relevant to the conversation.

[williamg]

12:55 PM on 06/28/2011

So lets say a person requires 3,000 calories a day to maintain their current weight (meaning, this is how many calories a day their body naturally needs).

One can simply reduce their calorie intake to 2,000 calories a day, and they would lose 1 pound ever 3.5 days. Or, they can continue eating 3,000 calories a day, and work in an hour of good exercise that burns 1,000 calories, and they would lose a pound every 3.5 days. Even more, if they do that exercise first thing in the morning, it increases their calories burned during the rest of the day -- even at rest.

So again, to claim that weight is lost in the kitchen, not the gym, is flat out wrong. It is lost in either one, or both.

[HerrMonk]

01:04 PM on 06/28/2011

No: the claims you're making are wrong.

I know it looks neat on paper, but it doesn't actually work that way, as your body will spend different calories differently depending on its needs and habits.

Again, fat, not weight. Sure, there are not absolutes. You will burn some extra calories doing your job, and you'll pump your metabolism a little, but it's negligible. And the overall effect (raised metabolism, muscle-repair, exe.) will have a far greater impact on fat loss than the additional calories expended during the activity itself.

[SW84]

03:17 PM on 06/28/2011

you are correct it's lost either by increasing exercise or dieting or a combo of both. i'd say for the avg. person weight loss will be from about 80% diet 20% exercise.

an hr of good exercise most likely won't burn 1000 cals, unless you are vigorously exercising (like running at 8mph for an hr) not a lot of out of shape people can maintain such levels of exercise

[CAELadyJane50]

11:38 PM on 06/27/2011

I find it is better to lose weight slowly than too quickly, no more than 1 or 2 pounds per week; losing one pound per week adds up to 52 pounds in one year.

I read the biggest reason why diets fail is because some of those diets are too hard for some people to stick with. Maybe the best way to lose weight is to eat like always but cut back on portions and be more physically active than usual. Cutting back on portion sizes of food automatically cuts down on calories, salt, fats and sugar and being more physically active raises your good cholesterol (HDL), seratonin and burns more calories.

[HerrMonk]

12:40 PM on 06/28/2011

Is the goal simply to lose weight (just a number on the scale) or improve body composition?

You can lose weight on a calorie-restricted diet of Twinkies and coke. Is the goal to be a smaller, skinny-fat version of yourself, or to lose fat while maintaining/increasing LBM i.e.: improving body composition?

The biggest reason people fail, is because they're mentally weak (a combination of nature and nurture: I'm not going to pretend our society doesn't contribute to this) and can't cut-out, or nearly cut out bad foods, and instead seek dietary approaches that let them eat how they're already eating, but use words like moderation and portion control.

The folks who can do portion control aren't fat. For those of us who can't handle that day in day out, we simply need to remove (or almost remove) unnecessary and bad food from our diets.

[SW84]

01:38 PM on 06/28/2011

assuming you meet your macro nutrient goals for the day (let's say 1g protein per lb of LBM and .45g of fat per lb of bodyweight) and still in a caloric deficit, having Twinkies and soda aren't going to be detrimental to your body comp. what's most important is to hit your macro nutrient goals, whole foods are better then processed food or supplements because of their micro nutrient profiles.

[CAELadyJane50]

01:19 AM on 06/29/2011

I've been eating a balanced diet all my life; three square meals per day. If you don't know what a balanced diet is, it is basically similar to the "Pyramid Diet".

Based on your reply, I think I know what you mean. Some families eat differently, they don't have sit down meals together as a family because certain family members don't get along with each other at the table; they fight, argue and throw food at each other, so they have to eat separately. This is very sad to me because then they are going to transcend bad table/social etiquette to others like their children, co-workers, and in restaurants, etc. My advice to parents who have trouble with their children not getting along with each other at the table during mealtime, hire a professional table/social etiquette instructor or go to the local library and check out a video or dvd on this subject about table manners and view it with your children and discuss this with them.

[veritas88]

09:02 PM on 06/27/2011

kettlebells!

[williamg]

08:47 PM on 06/27/2011

Just burn more calories than you take in.

If you exercise well, and eat moderately (meaning, intaking less calories than you burn) and you will lose weight.

It really is just that simple.

[HerrMonk]

12:02 PM on 06/28/2011

Weight is lost in the kitchen.

That half-hour power walk in the morning just isn't going to make that much of a difference.

[williamg]

12:33 PM on 06/28/2011

Ok, lets try this again for the simpletons: burn more calories than you take in.

As I noted above, if you exercise well, and eat moderately (INTAKING LESS CALORIES THAN YOU BURN) you will lose weight.

Its a simple mathematical equation. A pound of fat equates to roughly 3500 calories. A power walk in the morning will burn 250 calories per half hour, but also raises your metabolism for the rest of the day -- effectively burning hundreds more.

However you create the deficit, whether through increased exercise, or calorie restriction, or both, all ends up being a calorie deficit, which creates fat loss.

So to simply claim that weight is lost in the kitchen is a very simplistic and limited answer to weight loss.

[Oilygarch]

07:32 PM on 06/27/2011

I know of someone who has a friend with benefits. They both lost 15 pounds straight-away. As far as I know, they are still friends and they still have bennies, so they will probably lose a few more! :-D

[playsindirt]

04:27 PM on 06/27/2011

I lost 30 pounds on my own once with portion control. I was always hungry but it worked. And I found it to be just as hard to maintain that method of eating as any other diet.

[Oilygarch]

07:42 PM on 06/27/2011

It does work, but it's so hard for those of us who like to eat. I finally started shedding off pounds by doing more exercise while eating a bit smarter. Now it's 20 pounds less later and I'm still going at it. At times it seems slowly but slowly, but eventually they come off.

I do feel a lot better now, but I know I could feel even better yet, so I make it part of my early morning routine. Sometimes I even look forward to it and the rest of the day feels so much better.

I have learned to really appreciate the elliptical. It's so much more of a full-body workout than the standard treadmill, plus, it's no-impact, so my feet-joints don't hurt afterward. I end up burning more calories in less time while feeling much less tired than with the treadmill, so I've become a convert.

At 1st I started at 10minnutes a day combined with other nautilus style workouts. As I got into better shape I progressed until I found that 29 minutes is my sweet spot for sure-fire weight-loss while still enjoying my food as I like it.

I do this 4 to 5 days a week. I have discovered that this is what works for me.

[playsindirt]

10:22 AM on 06/28/2011

My husband did it just with exercising too. We both love to eat. He devotes hours a day to cycling, walking, weights, etc. I run 3x a week and do yoga 2x and the scale hasn't budged. But I'm fighting Ms. Menopause and she's a b*tch!