Most people tend to gain weight during winter time, simply because they stop their fitness routines and start to eat more sweets and high caloric food. The main explanation for quitting sports during winter time are, of course, the cold weather. The holiday season, Christmas and the New Year parties are good excuses for large meals, alcohol and sweets abuse.

The winter weight loss and fitness tips provided below are very handy for controlling your body weight, keeping your body fit and why not, for losing weight. You will be surprised how helpful most winter sports are for burning calories. Perform as many such sports, as often as possible and you will overcome the winter season with ease.

Top 10 winter weight loss tips

10. Wear Red
Many claim that wearing red aids in weight loss. The winter months are the best time for wearing this color, so, you can easily try this magical theory out. You can dress yourself as Santa Claus, wear red underwear, try a red scarf or anything similar.
Red pajamas should not miss from your wardrobe.

Followers claim that the red color provides pure energy and will melt your fat away. You can even lose weight during your sleep using the above mentioned red pajamas. More, for getting rid of belly or but fat, you should wear a red bicycle short, during the night.

9. Away Parking
Parking your car further away is another great solution of burning extra calories. You can apply this tip very easy. Just find a place for parking your car so that you allow yourself some walking distance until you reach your destination. Allow yourself a 5 minute walk every time you drive.

This is a great tip for all seasons. However nothing is more refreshing like a 5 minutes winter walk. This way you will refresh yourself and burn calories in the same time.

Of course, the ideal solution would be to replace driving with walking as often as possible.

8. Shopping
You might be surprised, but yes shopping can aid in weight loss. Christmas and the winter season are important reasons for shopping. We can all agree about the fact that everyone needs to shop for Christmas gifts during this time of the year.

Shopping implies a lot of walking, standing and even carrying especially for those who want to take on every store and every mall.

A decent shopping session can burn around 165 calories per hour for the average individual. Take care because it can burn a lot more cash though.

7. Snow cleaning
This is another great winter workout. Cleaning the snow from your car, sidewalk or porch can be a very fun and requesting activity.

You only need the proper clothing, a shovel and a snow brush. One hour of snow shoveling burns up to an impressive amount of 550 calories. A simple morning car snow cleaning will easily burn 100 calories within 10 minutes.

So, pray for snow, because it’s worth it!

6. Dancing
The winter holidays and the New Year are some great occasions for hosting or attending to parties. I advise you to use every opportunity for maximizing the weight loss process and dancing is one of them.

Dancing can burn up to 400 calories per hour. This is probably the nicest way of burning the extra fight. Dancing is both fun, relaxing and interactive.

I strongly advise you not to miss a party this winter!

5. Ice Skating
Nothing is more pleasant like an evening skating session at the local skating ring. Many people, nice music and mulled wine are a guarantee for a nice evening together with your friends.

You don’t even need your own skates. All skating rings offer various skating boots for rent. Half an hour of moderate skating burns around 200 calories. Considering that an average skating session last 90 minutes, you can burn easily 500 calories and have lots of fun.
Skate carefully!

4. Cross Country Skiing

Cross country skiing is a pleasant winter sport practiced usually by middle aged people. It’s a great cardiovascular fitness workout. It’s a sport with low injury risks.

However you need special cross country tracks do practice it. The equipment consists in cross country boots and skies. Special cross country suit is also needed.

Half an hour of cross country skiing can waste an impressive number of 375 calories.

3. Downhill Skiing
Downhill skiing couldn’t miss the top 3 entrance. The most popular winter sport is of course a great calorie burner. It’s a mind and body refreshing activity which can easily rise your adrenaline level with every skied slope.

However please rate your skiing level accordingly and chose the appropriate slope difficulty. Leg and especially knee injuries are common for beginner and advanced skiers.

30 minutes of skiing burn an average of 325 calories!

2. Snowboarding
Surprisingly or not snowboarding burns fat faster than skiing. Half an hour of snowboarding burns on average 350 calories. However because of injury risks and difficulty snowboarding is usually performed by young and middle aged people.

In order to snowboard you need a complete equipment starting with snowboard suit. The snowboard goggles and gloves are a must. The boots and the actual snowboard should be selected after consulting a snowboard instructor.

Are you ready for the number 1 winter weight loss activity?

1. Snowshoe walking
Snowshoeing or snow shoe walking is perhaps one of the most efficient safe and easy to perform winter activity. You only need a pair of snowshoes, two poles and some friends to walk with. Practically everyone who can walk can enjoy snowshoeing.

Snowshoe walking targets a large social and age range. It is a fun, inexpensive and healthy activity. It allows you to spend a fun and interactive day together with friends or family.

Referring to the health benefits, snowshoeing is a great cardiovascular exercise. More, it is considered one of the most efficient calorie burning exercise. 30 minutes of vigorous deep snow walking on varied terrain can burn up to 400 calories.

Snowshoe walking video

Lemons
Lemons are some of the best diet fruits. They contain a substance, which prevents you from feeling hungry. This means that it reduces appetite and the amounts of food that you eat. Vitamin C is also found in lemons and is known for helping at the weight reduction process. A research of American experts, has shown that women who consumed daily a liter of water with lemon, during one year, lose 4 kilograms without any other effort.

Watermelon
The watermelon is rich in vitamins, minerals and fibers. It is also very nourishing, meaning that it can still easily even the hungriest. The watermelon helps your digestion, because it contains over 90% of water. It also reduces the appetite for sweets, because it contains sugar. A diet based on consumption of this fruit can help you to lose up to 4 kilograms in one week.

Cherries
The cherries contain 80% water, proteins, vitamins, mineral salt and provide only 64 kcal/100g. They are very good for general health, because they decrease the cholesterol level . Cherries also help you to lose weight. If you eat a balanced diet and include a meal of 300g of cherries daily, you’ll start losing weight from the first month. This makes cherries some of the best fruits to use in a diet. However, cherries in large amounts are not indicated for people with high gastric acidity.

Peaches
Are some of the best fruits which contribute in boosting our energy levels. They are easily assimilated by the organism. A peach has a high water content and provides a laxative effect. Also, the peach favors the elimination of toxins. If you follow a 3 days peach diet, without eating anything else instead, you will most probably lose one kilogram per day. This is why peaches have entered in my best diet fruits top 4.

Many feel like this when they wear their favorite dress, business suit for the first time after a longer period of the time. The case is similar when going out the first time to the beach, after a few cold winter months or a long break. I am here to offer you good news. You can lose some weight very fast and fell more in shape for the above mentioned events.

You just need to start preparing your body about a week before the event. The best results are seen at the individuals that are usually not to active. A simple one hour per day physical exercise routine can offer a good shape to your body within only a week. All the muscles will be refreshed and your body will look at least a few pounds slimmer even if this is not the case.

People that follow this technique lose around 1-2 pounds in the 7 days of training. The idea is that your body won’t lose fat that fast, but your muscles will become more vigorous and make you look fitter.

So, just make a list with your favorite sports and plan your week out. You need at least 3 different sports. All 3 should make your body train a large area of muscles. If your list contains 3 sports activities, you can repeat each activity twice a week to complete your 7 day schedule.

Be careful to start easily the first 2 days, especially those people that are not that active during their every day life. You don’t need to overexert yourself. Sweat and muscle fatigue during the exercise is a sign that you are training efficiently. Do not forget to hydrate yourself properly.

One last tip, avoid to eat a few hours before the planned party. This can really help in most cases. An untrained ab will look much better with an empty stomach as with a filled up one.

Bad Eating Habits

You think that you are following a proper weight loss diet and have correct eating habits, but the extra kilograms don’t want to melt? You are aware that you are doing something wrong but can’t figure out what? During this article I will mention a few common eating problems and hopefully help you to solve your mystery.

Bad Eating Habits
1. Do you eat between meals?
If the answer is Yes, you need to correct this habit. In order not to feel the necessity to taste something between the main meals, you should be careful how you build your main meals. To solved this add in your breakfast and lunch meals: farinaceous (bread, rice, spaghetti, cereals, vegetables, potatoes) which will give you the necessary energy to go over a stressing day, and fruits because they are rich in fibers.

2. You don’t cook?
If you don’t cook or someone from your family doesn’t cook for you, it means that you are doing something if we talk about eating habits. First you should learn how to cook some easy and healthy meals.
Do not forget that the homemade food is the best method of knowing what you eat and gives you the control of this very important part of your nourishment routine.
The salads made from fresh vegetables, the rice and the soups are very easy to cook.

3. Do you dine at the restaurant?
In this case you need to be careful. Avoid as much as possible eating at the fast foods. The best food to eat while dining in the city are: a salad, soup or some grill with vegetables. If you want to go also for a dessert you can eat a fruit salad. Also try to keep alcohol away from your table as much as possible.

4. Do you follow drastic weight loss diets?
Sever weight loss drastic are not recommended simply because everything that it is done suddenly and exaggeratedly does more harm as good.
Y won’t be able to follow a strict weight loss diet for a long term. Even worse, after you quit such a severe diet, you have big chances of gaining weight back again. Don’t eliminate the indispensable foods, like: cereals, bread, meat from your diet.
The most important thing is that you should avoid skipping your meals.

Weight Loss Sleep

Recent studies confirm that a proper night’s sleep prevents adding extra kilograms. More, proper sleep combined with a weight loss diet, can help you lose weight. The German nutritionist Detlef Pape ensures that the human body can be prepared to burn 70-100 calories during a healthy night’s sleep. This means that we could lose up to 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) per month.

Another study conducted in the United States, that involved 18.000 subjects, concluded that 4 hours or less of sleep per night will increase the risk of obesity with 73%, compared to an individual that sleeps between 7 and 9 hours per night. For a 5 hours sleep the overweight risk stands at 50%, while at 6 hours it’s only 23%.

Pape, the German nutritionist, advises his patients to eat three consistent meals a day. He recommends larger meals at the start of the day, during breakfast and lunch, while for dinner carbohydrates are strongly interdicted. His goal is to energize the body during the day with the help of rich morning and lunch meals, while during the evening the body should be prepared for the night’s sleep.

Carbohydrates are causing our body to release insulin. Getting them at dinner would prevent the body to burn calories during the midnight sleep because of the prolonged insulin secretion. Pape also recommends his patients to quit eating between the main meals, in his attempt to reduce insulin secretion levels and to maximize calorie burning.

His weight loss program has been called The Pape Diet. I will cover in detail this German weight loss diet in one of my upcoming articles. Stay tuned.

Water and weight loss

A study made by researches of the ‘Charite’ hospital from Berlin reports that people that drink daily and important amount of fluids especially water, burn 200 more calories as the rest.

We all know that human bodyweight is represented in quantities of 70%-75% by fluids and water. Babies can reach 85% and the percentage slowly declines with aging. Water is helping our system to perform it’s daily tasks at normal levels. A lack of water will slow down our metabolism and the rest of the fat burning processes.

Water intake varies upon the climate in which we live in. During winter time or cold weather time when we sweat less our body usually needs around 2-2.5 liters of fluids a day. In the summer time, during hot weather the required fluid quantity nearly doubles towards 4-4.5 liters.

In order to achieve this goal you can drink 3,4 times a day 0.5 liters of filtered water between your meals. The rest of the fluids are gathered from other nourishments like soup, tea, milk and so on. This will guarantee that your system has enough water to work properly and you will maximize your calorie burning.

Sauna Weight Loss

Sauna was invented by the Finish people. This is why the sessions where you experience extreme heat conditions in a small room, where called Finish Saunas. The finish people used this overheated rooms for reinvigoration and for strengthening the body. The temperatures in this small rooms where starting from 70-80 degrees Celsius (160-180 degrees Fahrenheit and reaching up to over 90 °C (200 °F). Saunas where mixed places where people where allowed to enter naked using only a towel.

The sauna inventors never intended to build them for weight loss but this days modern saunas are also used to aid in losing extra kilograms. Further on I will concentrate only on the weight loss benefits that result from repeated sauna sessions. I will only remind you that sauna sessions are used for numerous health benefits starting with asthma and chronic bronchitis and ending with diabetes, arteriosclerosis, obesity, hypertension and smoking induced symptoms.

Sauna Weight Loss
Obesity can be threated with sauna sessions. As all the treatments that aid in weight loss they are not efficient while used alone, outside of a well designed weight loss program.

In order for the sauna sessions to be efficient against obesity, you need to follow a moderate diet. This means that you shouldn’t overeat yourself and also you should follow a healthy food menu. More, you have to combine sauna sessions with fitness exercises.

Sauna sessions help in eliminating fats from our body. It is known that fats become water-soluble starting with 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit). During this wet heat session our body is forced to eliminate a large quantity of excess water and if done properly it will also eliminate fats.

I recommend you to perform sauna sessions after your fitness training. This way the sauna heat will attack directly your fat reserves. I usually do sauna twice a week and perform fitness exercises 4 times a week. After a fitness training, I rest for around 20-30 minutes and proceed with the sauna. You should drink water during the fitness exercises and before the sauna. But NEVER drink water during the sauna and 30 minutes after it if you want to obtain a weight loss effect on your body.

A 30 minutes sauna session provides the amount of transpiration that is caused by 10 kilometers (around 5.5 miles) of jogging. There are several types of saunas including heat-storage types (smoke sauna, heat storage-sauna) and continuous-heat types (continuous fire sauna, infrared saunas).

Detect and avoid fats

Fats are the main enemies for our silhouette. I think this is not something new for you, because everyone knows that the fats are responsible for the additional kilograms. What some of us don’t know exactly is what foods hide fats optimally and in what amounts. Knowing how to detect fats will be sure one positive step towards avoiding them. Here is a little help for identifying fats.

Detect Fats
The most oblivious place for big amounts of fat is the meat and especially the pork meat. Meat is easiest to detect and best advised to avoid.

Fats are also found in important amounts in sweets. It is a little harder to detect fats in sweets because there is a large variation of them. Fruit salads, jelly and even dry cookies are not that rich in calories and are accepted in decent amounts. But, any other form of cookies that contains toppings, cremes or chocolate are made using important quantities of margarine and butter and they end up in dangerous caloric bombs.

Calories are best hidden in sauces. The simple mayonnaise can transform a healthy salad in an unhealthy caloric warehouse. This is also applied on all other sauces that include oils and fried stuff as well as salads that contain a large quantity of oils.

Now try to chose your daily menu searching and avoiding the fats as I taught you in the above lines.

Top 5 Most dangerous Fats
1. Fats contained by meat.
2. Fats found in margarine.
3. Fats from butter.
4. Fats contained in oils.
5. Fats provided by olive oil. (best option)

Wholemeal – The weight loss ally

Bread is widely known by many as a nourishment that leads to overweight. Well you might be surprised that this is not always true. What if I say to you that there is a type of bread called wholemeal which not only doesn’t bring extra kilograms, but also helps with weight loss. Yes this is true, wholemeal is one of the weight loss allies and you have the explanation in the following paragraphs.

Wholemeal contains a reduced number of calories. As any type of bread the wholemeal leads to a faster sensation of saturation. This means that eating bread will makes us feel filled up much more faster and this will prevent us from eating other types of food, which might surely contain more calories as the wholemeal. Also the result of a shorter meal is that the digestion is improved, as you won’t end up overeating.

The most weight loss advices recommend you to stop fully stop eating bread. This is a risky decision. It might be OK if you are eating regular bread. The best solution is to switch from regular bread to wholemeal. Quiting on any type of bread might not be the proper solution. If you do that, you will just end up eating much more other types of food to get the filled up sensation. This will start a chain of events that eventually leads to additional pounds and kilograms.

Wholemeal – Weight Loss Tip
There is one thing that you need to keep in mind with wholemeal. Avoid combining it with big meals of grilled steak and sauces, because that will end up in a real calorie bomb. Else, you can consider wholemeal free to eat.

Alcohol abuse leads to overweight

Alcohol has an important influence on the human weight. Studies proved that it pretty much depends on the amounts of alcohol drunk. Decent intakes of beer or other alcoholic drinks will not harm our general health. More, it is widely known that a glass of red wine is recommended daily in order to prevent heart diseases.

On the other side, you need to avoid large intakes of alcohol during short time intervals. An example would be the holidays, when people usually exaggerate with eating and drinking. It has been proved that large consumption of wine or any other alcoholic drink during short time frames, result in a substantial boost of extra kilograms.
The alcohol messes up the liver functions and helps the water accumulation in the human tissue. This means that our body will retain more water as usual. More, exaggerated amounts of alcohol can cause sudden and strong hunger sensations, because it disturbs the activity of our central nervous system.

The recommended amounts of wine intake are two glasses of wine during the main meal. You can double it, by diluting the wine with soda water. You should obtain a sufficient amount in this case.

Alcohol Abuse can lead to Overweight – Beer
The biggest danger for our silhouette is provided by beer drinking. If you consider that beer is one of the most consumed alcoholic drink by the males, you have the answer why many guys have weight problems.

Beer enlarges our body’s capacity of assimilation. This is caused by the estrogens contained by this drink. Beer can lead to additional kilograms even if we have a normal eating diet and don’t overeat ourselves.
The extra fats that are deployed on our body will be accumulated especially in the abdominal region and waist.

As a solution I recommend you to replace beer with mineral water, or diluted wine with soda water.