How You Can Lose Weight If You Are Not Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey did it! Do you think you can do it just like her?

No, I don't mean marrying a younger man. In case you don't know, she just got married a few months back, and yes, to a much younger man. (Read my previous post Mariah Carey Married?)

No, no. no. I am talking about how my favourite singer managed to slim down to her former glory and looked all toned and fit. Even if you are not a fan, you would have seen her getting quite plump the past few years. It's not very flattering to be plump and wearing so little. But I forgave her because she made it up by singing really well.

That all changed this year. Nowadays, I am full of admiration when she goes on stage. Want to know her secret? Just read all about it at Mun's Blog.

And that brings us to today's topic. How you can lose weight even if you are not as rich as Mariah and cannot possibly afford a personal trainer who also doubles up as your chef and have a say in what you can or cannot eat!

OK, if you are a man and cannot identify with Mariah, how about reading how you can build a body like Will Smith?

Now in case you are the type of person who says you are comfortable being fat and don't have the slightest desire to lose weight, let Merqury tell you 10 good reasons to slim down.

Although I’m not fat or overweight, I know a lot of people who are. What’s more, Malaysia has the most number of fat people in the ASEAN region, and the number is increasing.

Most Malaysians attempt to slim down by going on a diet and also exercising. But they may be doing it the wrong way. Learning how to lose weight from books mainly written by authors from outside Malaysia does not really help because these books usually do not take into consideration our culture and food.

Which is one reason why I recommend this newest book called “Slim Malaysians” by Jayden Chen which I found at MPH bookstore. This book is specially written for Malaysians in mind and gives very good advice on what Malaysian food to eat and to avoid in order for us to lose weight.

And so, let me present you 5 sure-fire ways to trim those fat and lose weight.

1. Eat more frequently and in smaller portions.

Instead of eating the 3 main meals daily ie. breakfast, lunch and dinner, switch to 5 or 6 meals a day. However, for each meal, eat smaller portions of what you usually eat. The advantage of this is three fold.

Firstly, by eating frequently, you will not go hungry and therefore won’t binge or overeat on your next meal.

Secondly, by eating frequently and less at every meal, you are in better control of your blood sugar. Your blood sugar won’t suddenly spike and make you feel lethargic. You’ll be more energetic throughout the day. (By the way, this is especially useful for diabetics)

Thirdly, by eating in smaller portions, your body can make use of the food instead of storing excess food as fat in your body.

A great way is eat every 3 hours, eg. 7.30am, 10.30am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm.

Warning: You must eat much smaller portions for every meal, or else you’ll be eating more than what you did previously and become much fatter than before!

2. Do high intensity interval exercises 3 times weekly.

Instead of your usual 1 hour aerobic exercises daily, switch to high intensity interval training for just 20 minutes every other day or 3-4 times a week. When you jog continuously at the same speed for 1 hour, you will lose fat during the exercise, and that’s about it! If you start to overeat after your exercise, the fat will all come back!

In contrast, if you do high intensity interval training, you will raise your metabolic rate and your body will continue to burn fat hours after your exercise! Would you rather burn fat all the time or just during exercise?

A very simple way to do interval training is this. Let’s say you choose jogging. First you run as fast you can for 1 minute, then you jog slowly for the next minute. Keep alternating between running at high intensity and jogging slowly every minute for the next 20 minutes. You can adjust the intensity and duration depending on your fitness level. For example, if you are just a beginner, you may want to jog for 1 minute, then walk slowly for 2 minutes and keep alternating for the next 20 minutes.

Research has shown that interval training not only helps you to lose weight more effectively, it is also more efficient at strengthening your heart than if you continuously jog for 1 hour at the same rate.

You may ask, why limit to 20 minutes? Why not 1 hour? Well, the answer is simple. Because of the intensity of this kind of exercise, you cannot strain yourself too long or else your immune system will suffer. Anyway, why exercise for 1 hour when you can see better benefits for just 20 minutes?

3. Lift weight and build some muscles.

This is the BIG secret not many people know about! Most people think that weight-lifting only helps you to build muscles and has nothing to do with weight loss. How wrong they are!

Now here’s a shocking revelation – building muscles will boost your metabolic rate to such an extent that you will burn fat even while sleeping! It’s not wrong to say that the more muscles you have, the more calories you’ll burn daily!

Furthermore, if you don’t lift weight, and only do cardio and diet to lose weight, you won’t look very good even when you have slimmed down. You need weight-lifting to tone you up.

4. Eat your breakfast.

Don’t ever, ever skip breakfast. If you want to lose weight, you simply cannot afford to ignore this rule.

The reason is one, when you eat breakfast you raise your metabolic rate for the day. That helps you to burn fat.

Secondly, by skipping breakfast, your blood sugar will drop and you will start craving for sweet stuffs the rest of the day. You also tend to overeat for your lunch!

By the way, never skip any meals and remember to eat every 3 hours to keep your blood sugar stable at all times.

5. Do not eat after 8pm.

This cannot be over emphasized. Although it’s hard to do this everyday, if you can do it 5 times a week, it’s good enough.

One way is to brush your teeth right after dinner so you won’t be tempted to eat anything after.

The reason for this is any food taken in excess at night will very likely end up as fat because you are mostly inactive a night and the body’s metabolic rate also dip at this time. As such, your ability to burn fat is compromised.

Another reason you should not eat late at night is because your liver is working hard to detoxify itself at this time and you do not want to make its job even harder by adding food into your system.

If you really must eat something after 8pm, choose low calorie, easy to digest food like fruits.

Now if you seriously put the above 5 rules into practice, you will definitely see a more slimmer you. No need to be jealous of Mariah or Will Smith. You can do it too!