10-Second Weight Loss Tricks

I’ve collected and distilled a few quick weight loss tricks for you. These are a few 10-second tricks I’ve tried in my quest to lose the baby weight after having my children. They're all quick and simple and, best of all, totally safe! If you’re still hanging onto a few extra pounds, try these quick fixes to retrain yourself and make lasting changes.

1. The Rubber Band Trick. This is a behaviour modification trick. Wear a rubber band or hair elastic on your wrist throughout the day. Every time you have an urge to eat or drink something you are trying to avoid, snap your wrist repeatedly with the rubber band until you’ve distracted yourself. I like a little pain (guess that’s why I have the job I do...) but don’t self-wound! Just a light snap to bring you back to reality and clear your mind. Then, move onto something else. Idle hands are a Mars bar’s playground!

2. The Water Sandwich. We’ve all heard it takes about 20 minutes to feel fullness in your stomach and that we should eat slower in order to sense real fullness earlier and quit the clean-your-plate club. But eating slowly is not natural to all of us. I’m a practical eater, not a foodie (and by "practical" I mean I unhinge my jaw like a python and swallow my food whole, practically...). If there’s food in front of me, I’ll eat it efficiently, not luxuriate and taste every morsel. Sound familiar? Try a glass of water before starting your meal and a glass of water immediately following your meal. The water will increase the volume in your stomach, plus add a few minutes to your meal time to help you feel fuller sooner.

3. Spice It Up. There is some evidence that spicy foods actually spike the metabolism (about as much as a jolt of caffeine or a glass of water will do) but here’s another reason to spice your food: it makes it spicy! Chances are you’ll slow down when your food has more heat to it and you’ll need less food to feel satisfied when each bite is packed with flavour and spice. I LOVE spicy food and I take every opportunity to add spice to my meals, especially when I’m trying to drop pounds: cinnamon in my coffee, curry powder in my lunchtime stir fry and red pepper flakes and jalapenos in my marinades and side dishes. Yum!

4. Chew Gum. While preparing meals and any other time you are prone to mindless snacking, keep your face occupied and shave, possibly, a couple of hundred calories off your daily total. Women preparing meals and serving snacks and meals to little people, in my experience, tend to take several non-meal bites over the course of the day. In addition to being sure not to treat yourself as a garbage disposal and clean uneaten food from your kids' plates directly into your own gullet (come on, I can't be the only one who does this?...), chewing gum during preparation will keep you from pre-eating and "testing" your meals. Do you really need to eat a chicken nugget to determine whether it is too hot to serve to your preschooler? You get the idea.

Sweaty Kid turned 5 a couple of weeks ago and her birthday very much flagged a milestone in my life. With kids 2.5 and 5 years, I feel like I'm offficially out of the "babymaking" stage of my life. I am still very much in the "babyrearing" stage, but the hardest physical part of childbearing is over for me. While I'm still nursing Sweaty Kid #2 once or twice per day, I'm not concerned about quantity of breastmilk and I feel I can finally trim down and focus on these last 5-10 vanity pounds that will take me from looking like regular fit mommy to regular fit personal trainer. They're not necessary pounds, but in my business, improving one's appearance is always good for the bottom line.

Exercise is super important to lasting weight loss, and to ensuring you are shaving off fat pounds and not wasting away all that attractive, firm and useful muscle tissue. But weight loss is at least 75% diet—as the old saying goes:

"Abs are made in the kitchen."

This is not a recommendation but here’s what I’m focusing on with my diet based on consultations with doctors and years of experimenting with what works for me:
• Less sugar
• Less wheat, yeast and grains
• More raw veggies
• More yogurt
• Less coffee (must admit this one is not going so hot...)
• Less alcohol (blaargh...patio season. This is a tough one.)

Do you have a quick fix weight loss trick that works for you? Share it here!