What if you could lose weight without having to spend hours per week partaking in grueling workouts? What if you didn’t have to live off of soups and salads prepared from scratch?
While high-intensity exercise and crash dieting can help you shed the pounds, such weight loss methods can involve making big sacrifices for long periods of time. Many of us can find it hard to motivate ourselves to make these long-term sacrifices. As a result, we may look to easier forms of weight loss that don’t require these sacrifices. This could include taking weight loss pills or trying weight loss therapy.
But just how effective are these ‘easier’ forms of weight loss? Are they in fact much harder than they look? Here are just a few forms of weight loss that some people turn to as the easy way out along with their pros and cons.
Weight loss surgery
Weight loss surgery can be a fast and drastic way to lose weight. Bariatric surgery is one option – this commonly involves reducing the size of the stomach to reduce appetite. There’s also liposuction, which physically involves removing excess fat from the body.
Surgery certainly takes a lot of the hard work out of weight loss, but you could argue whether it’s truly ‘easy’. Weight loss surgery firstly isn’t cheap and is something you need to be prepared to save up funds for. You also need to be comfortable going under the knife, which some people aren’t.
On top of this, it’s common for patients to be asked to lose some weight naturally before undergoing weight loss surgery. This can mean having to exercise or follow a low-calorie diet for a number of weeks. The purpose of this is to increase the success rate of surgery. It can reduce the size of the liver, improving safety during surgery. It also encourages the patient to take up a healthier lifestyle that may be essential for after surgery (you could risk piling the pounds back on afterward if you don’t change your lifestyle permanently).
For these reasons, weight loss surgery is best treated as a last resort for those that are determined to lose weight but have had no joy with other methods. It will get you results, but it’s up to you whether you can keep the weight off. Other factors can make a difference to your success when undergoing surgery such as choosing the right clinic and doctor. By doing your research, you can find the best liposuction treatment out there. A good doctor and clinic will give you the encouragement you need to lose weight beforehand, while also ensuring that the operation is carried out effectively.
Weight loss pills
There are several pills on the market that claim to help people lose weight. These include over-the-counter pills and prescription pills. Such pills tend to work by suppressing the appetite or by making it harder to absorb fat.
A common misconception about these weight loss pills is that taking them alone can help you get slim. This isn’t the case – you need to be dieting and exercising too for weight loss pills to have any effect. As a result, they’re not the ‘easy’ option. Compared to exercising and dieting without pills, you are likely to see better results, but you still need to be relying on these traditional forms of weight loss.
On top of this, weight loss pills can have side effects for some users. Often made using ingredients such as caffeine, they can cause high blood pressure and shaking. Some have also been known to cause diarrhea or constipation.
It’s best to do your research when choosing a pill so that you know the possible side effects and so that you can get a good idea of the effectiveness. Most pills on the market will get results when combined with exercise and a healthy diet, although some have a better reputation than others. They’re worth considering as a supplement, but definitely not as a sole method of weight loss.
Waist trainers
Some people believe that wearing a waist trainer will help them to lose weight. Despite the claims of some celebrities, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that a waist trainer can help you to burn fat – even with the addition of exercise and dieting.
So what is the point of a waist trainer? While they can’t shift fat, they can make the waist appear slimmer much like a corset. There is also evidence to suggest that they improve posture, which could improve results during some exercises. If you’re going to buy a waist trainer, buy it for these reasons rather than as a weight-loss method.
Hypnotherapy
It’s possible to seek out hypnotherapy for weight loss. This works by helping to eliminate bad habits leading to weight gain such as overeating by changing one’s attitude toward food.
Hypnotherapy alone won’t cause you to lose weight. You still need to exercise and follow a strict diet – hypnosis can simply make these tasks less daunting by removing negative associations, helping to make these traditional weight-loss strategies a little ‘easier’.
Unfortunately, hypnotherapy isn’t 100% successful. However, for many people, it does have an impact. If you’re generally skeptical of things like hypnosis, it’s less likely to work. You should always try to see a reputable hypnotherapist when undertaking this treatment. Check out reviews online to find a clinic that others recommend.
Low-intensity exercise
High-intensity exercise has been proven to get weight loss results. But what about low-intensity exercise?
It turns out you don’t have to exercise hard to lose weight. Leisurely walking, cycling, and swimming can all help you to burn calories. You just won’t burn calories as fast as you would from high-intensity exercise (e.g. running, jumping, and heavy lifting).
Low-intensity exercise may be easier for some people to motivate themselves to do because it doesn’t involve pushing yourself until you are sweating and in pain. You may even be able to incorporate it into your daily life by walking locally more and taking the car less.
Healthy ready meals
Ready meals such as frozen meals, microwavable meals, and meal kits can take the time and stress out of cooking. Such meals however tend to be less healthy than eating from scratch. Some of these meals are loaded with added preservatives, sugar, and fat as a way of keeping them tasting nice.
Fortunately, there are now a growing number of healthier ready meal options, which aim to make healthy eating easier. These don’t contain the same amount of fats, sugars, and other additives, while still tasting good and being easy to prepare.
You should still get into a habit of reading ingredients as some ‘healthy’ ready meals are less healthy than others. It also depends very much on the type of food you buy – a ‘healthy’ frozen burger is still going to be less nutritious than a healthy frozen stir fry and possibly less nutritious than a non-healthy frozen stir fry.
There are claims that processes such as freezing and microwaving can reduce nutritional value. This would suggest that such ready meals will always be less healthy than cooking fresh. However, more recent studies have found little to suggest that nutrition is affected by freezing and microwaving (microwaving generally had the same effect as traditional cooking). Meal kits can offer fresh ingredients but are pre-chopped and pre-portioned, making them a good option for those that want to stay fresh, however, there’s generally little reason to opt for fresh over frozen when it comes to nutrition (flavor may be affected).
So, is there an easy way to lose weight?
While there are lots of ways to lose weight that are branded as ‘easier’, none are quite as effective alone as relying on a strict dieting and intense exercise. That said, the above options can make great supplements.
Weight loss surgery is the most certain option to get results, provided that you can afford it, don’t mind going under the knife, and can lose the initial weight beforehand naturally. Weight loss pills meanwhile could speed up traditional weight loss methods, while hypnotherapy can make traditional weight loss methods less daunting. Meanwhile, low-intensity exercise can help you lose weight, but over a longer period than high-intensity exercise, while ‘healthy ready meals’ can be easier and just as effective as cooking from fresh, providing you always check the packaging.
It’s worth also considering how you exercise and prepare meals. A workout doesn’t have to involve an hour’s jog in the rain – you can exercise in front of the TV using static exercises and still get results. The same goes for preparing healthy meals – why not combine cooking with leisure time by listening to music or watching TV in your kitchen as you cook? Some people also find exercise and cooking a lot more rewarding when doing it with other people such as friends or family. By giving the process another purpose it can quickly become less of a chore.
