Let’s face reality; More than seven percent of the world’s population is having problems with excessive weight gain. In the United States alone, around sixty-six percent of the American adult population is either overweight or obese. With the increasing trend of weight values, chronic health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, gallbladder and liver disease, cardiovascular problems and cancer, also arise.

Are you one of those patients suffering from the direct and indirect consequences of overweight and obesity? Have you tried using one weight loss strategy after another without apparent weight reduction? Have you tried buying and following some of those commercial weight loss e-books and ending up being disappointed with the results?

You see, you are not the only one having this problem. There are so many people out there who are also facing bitter disappointments with losing weight like you do. But you know what? There is one good news just for you: you can still lose weight easily and successfully using inexpensive ways. Here’s how:

Make water your ally in losing weight. Most of us overlook the power of water in shedding excess pounds. However, water is a powerful tool that can induce satiety and decrease your overall caloric intake. As mentioned by Daily Record in August 2010, even the simple drinking of two glasses of water before each meal can help you shed those unwanted pounds. In a study published by The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2003, it has been shown that your metabolic rate can increase by thirty percent within ten to forty minutes after drinking a 500 ml bottle of water and all in all, this small activity can burn up to 100 kilojoules of your energy. This only means that if you practice drinking two liters of water per day, you can burn up to 400 kilojoules of your energy only through this activity.

Enhance the activity of your satiety center. Stimulating your brain’s satiety center can make you feel satisfied with your food in lesser amount of time. There are many ways you can do this:

  • Eat plenty of fibers. Eating lots of fibers is one of the sure ways to make you feel full faster than you normally do. You see, fibers give bulk to the food you eat and it absorbs water too. With greater bulk and weight, your stomach will feel satisfied much faster.
  • Eat your egg. Yes it’s really true; eating egg can help stimulate your satiety center and make you lose weight. In fact, it has fifty percent greater satiety index than most breakfast cereals and breads available in the market.
  • Use chewing gums. Chewing gum is a great tool for losing weight. Why? The action of chewing fires signal from your jaw muscles to the satiety center of your brain, helping you feel some satisfaction without having an actual caloric intake. Through this mechanism, you won’t feel starved even when you are actually cutting your calories.

Keep a food journal. Do you know that keeping a food journal could double the success of your weight loss? According to Kaiser Permanente, having a food journal can increase your weight loss success rate by up to two hundred percent. And it doesn’t matter whether you keep a formal journal or just scribble what you eat in a piece of paper. The mere action of writing what you eat can give you a better grip of your self control when it comes to food intake.

Use a pedometer. This inexpensive, easy-to-use small gadget can be a good stimulator when it comes to burning those calories in the form of walking and physical activity. According to the Stanford School of Medicine, using a pedometer can stimulate a person to carry out more physical activity that he usually does. With greater physical activity, more weight loss can be expected.