It’s easy to lose weight by crash dieting or giving yourself a coronary with an intensive exercise regimen for a small period of time. Either ways, the weight comes back on as fast as it went away and this fluctuating weight brings with itself a whole horde of serious health complications.

The right way to shed pounds and KEEP IT THAT WAY is to follow a healthy diet and a REGULAR, reasonable exercise routine. If you are already doing that and not loving the results, here are 7 easy tips to accelerate weight loss this season:

1. Hydrate, Hydrate and Hydrate

As much as the rule seems discussed to death, somehow people (including ourselves) still seem to ignore it.

Hydration is absolutely essential for a huge number of reasons. The first and the most obvious being it helps stave off hunger pangs. Usually our brain mistakes thirst for hunger pangs and not-so-subtly guides us to the refrigerator even though our body actually doesn’t really need food. An easy trick to combat this confusion? Drink a glass of water and wait for 20 minutes before heading to the kitchen. If you still feel hungry, eat. Don’t starve yourself.

Secondly, water is an extremely important part of all our bodily functions including metabolism. In the absence of water, the body has much more difficulty in metabolizing your stored fat.

For example, if you are dehydrated and our exercising your body off, you won’t see as good results as when you are fully hydrated.

An easy to way to keep yourself watered up is to carry a reusable water bottle with you at all times. Fill it with good, old plain water or your favorite detox water. Remember, no sugary drinks allowed!

2. Eliminate Empty Carbohydrates from your Diet

No we are still not recommending crash diets or starving yourself to weight loss. We are just asking you to stop eating the wrong types of food or at least reduce their intake.

One of the worst diet culprits is sugar – simple carbohydrates. These are the easiest to digest so the body simply uses them as soon as you eat them without bothering to look into what you have got saved in your fat reserve. This means that while these carbohydrates may not make you gain weight (unless, you are obviously eating them in tonnes) but they do hamper the weight loss process.

Worse, since the body quickly uses them up and releases energy all if it at once (sugar high, anyone?), you feel hungry again in a short period of time, which definitely amounts to eventual weight gain.

Some of the most commonly eaten empty carbohydrates include sugary drinks, white bread, pasta, white rice and cookies.

3. Replace Empty Carbs with PFF

Sort of like your BFF, PFF is your ally in losing weight the healthy way. PFF stands for Proteins, Fiber and Healthy Fats.

Make sure that each of your meal contains all of these three to ensure that not only your body is not deprived of nutrients but also, to keep a healthy flow of energy without overeating.

All of these three nutrients digest slowly and take their own sweet time to burn and release energy. This means that a PFF meal will keep you feeling fuller for longer, allowing you to avoid mindless snacks in between meals.

While proteins help increase your “calorie-burning lean muscle mass”, fibers helps usher out toxins, avoid water retention and bloating. The healthy fats, on the other hand, and we are quoting “help reduce inflammation, control hunger, turn off your fat-storage genes, and control blood sugar”.

4. Snack if You Still Want To

Eating a PFF meal will help stave off random hunger pangs but that doesn’t mean you can’t snack every other while. It is absolutely okay to snack to tide you over between meals and keep your metabolism running. However, it is NOT okay to snack on sugary treats and no-nutrient munchies.

If you have a tendency to do mindless snacking while you watch TV or even while you work, keep healthy snacks on hand. Healthy snacks mean low-carbohydrate, high protein munchies. These can range from fruits, vegetables, nuts, granola bars to yoghurt, hummus and whole wheat toast sandwiches. Whatever strikes your taste as long as it is providing you essential nutrients and helping your body destroy fat even as you eat.

5. Cook at Home

And, no this does not mean piercing the film and sticking it in the microwave oven.

Prepare your meal from scratch so that you know what’s going in it rather than having to rely on food chain stores to load you up with preservatives and everything that is wrong with our obese nation. Avoiding processed food will also help you achieve more flawless skin, and lets admit it, that’s our ultimate goal, ain’t it?

If you have a super hectic schedule and do not have the time to cook every day, take time out on weekends to prep half meals and freeze them. On late work nights, you can simple defrost and give them a final cook and STILL have a home-cooked meal rather than having to rely on that greasy, cheesy pizza.

Prepare your meal plan in advance to ensure that you are getting all essential nutrients each day. During the week, you might be too busy to check with scrutiny what’s and what’s not going in your tummy.

6. Walk Wherever You Can

If you have the option to walk to work/supermarket/gym/mall, wherever, do walk. You can easily burn extra calories by doing light walking to your destination every day. Not only will it keep you more active and fresh but once it is in your routine, it will help you burn off great lumps of fat in no time.

This goes especially for those who do not have the time to exercise regularly. Make your daily routine a form of exercise. In any case, just get moving.

Also, if you have stairs to climb, then do so. Skip the elevators. There is NO better exercise than climbing the stairs to tone those fatty things and flabby calves. Absolutely no replacement for this simple ritual of climbing the stairs. Get your trainers on, peeps!

7. Sleep

Our favorite trick to losing weight: sleep.

Yes, it is actually as simple as that. Make sure you get a full night of restful sleep for a good 7 to 8 hours. Also, ensure that you are sleeping and waking up at the same time everyday to get your body clock in rhythm.

A fatigued mind sends hunger signals and fatty food cravings through these crazy hormones called endocannabinoids. A recipe for disaster, ain’t it?

So indulge yourself in a good shut eye every night to ensure you wake up refreshed AND on time the next day to get out and about the healthy way.