Tips for Losing Weight at Home

1. Set the mood Turn up the lighting in your kitchen and dining room. Dim lights make food look more attractive, which encourages binge eating. Music may help curb stress-related eating; it can fill an inner need that might otherwise lead to overeating. Keep your favorite calming song or CD on hand.

2. Go blue Avoid painting the walls red, yellow, and orange in the kitchen and dining areas; these colors may make us hungry! If your walls aren’t blue and repainting is just too much work, use blue silverware, blue plates, napkins, or place mats to help get the same non-hungry effect. Use blue lights in your kitchen or dining room. In a study published in Contract magazine, gala attendees who dined in a blue room ate 33-percent less than those who ate in a yellow or red room. Blue lights make food look less appealing, while warmer colors, especially yellow, have the opposite effect. Fast-food restaurants have known and used this fact for decades, which is why almost all of them have yellowish interiors--they want you to eat more.

3. Downsize Extensive diet research shows that people eat what's put on their plates - even if it's more than they need to satisfy their hunger. If you have huge dinner plates, buy smaller dishes for your home. Buy smaller glasses so you don’t consume too many liquid calories. It’s more difficult to exercise portion control when you’re pouring into a large glass. Use smaller juice glasses and stay away from oversized wine glasses.

4. Stay out of the kitchen Many people talk on the kitchen phone and work at the kitchen table. They're always around food, which increases their likelihood of eating. Just like you sleep better when you don’t work in your bed, you’ll eat better if you don’t work in your kitchen. Don’t confuse the space.

5. Spray lavender on your bed pillows Studies show that natural remedies like lavender can help promote healthy sleep cycles, which in turn may help promote weight loss. People who sleep five hours a night versus the recommended seven to eight hours are 50-percent more likely to be obese.

6. Spray jasmine around the house Peppermint or jasmine scents have been linked to increased energy and alertness. Burn a candle or spray the scent around your home to help boost your energy.

7. Keep simple workout equipment around the house Having dumbbells or a yoga mat sitting around will help keep exercise on your mind. If you’re watching television in the evening and you see your dumbbells, you may be more inclined to pick them up and do a few sets of exercises than if they were hidden away in the closet. Also, if you have stairs, take advantage of them! The average person can burn 105 calories taking the stairs up and down for 15 minutes. If you do that every day for a week you'll burn at least 735 calories.

8. Get rid of "fat clothes" Women often have clothes that span in sizes; this makes it easy to gain weight back because you’re using the wide range of sizes as a safety net. Clean out your closet and get rid of the clothes that are bigger in size.

9. Decorate slim Keep a magazine clipping on your fridge. Use the visual to help you imagine how you will feel when you achieve your goal.

10. Get an App for that!  From a Chinese medical perspective, weight management is all about energy management or in terms of physics, energy conservation. As far as food is concerned, energy is measured in terms of kilo calories or calories, for short. Most people in western society consume in excess of 2500-3500 calories per day. Some folks are consuming close to 4000 or more calories each day. Most adults only need 1800-2000 calories each day for the body to perform its necessary functions. So what happens with all those extra-consumed calories? The body just simply stores them in fatty tissue. So, when a person is consuming 1500 calories a day more than they need, it won't take long for the weight to begin to add up!

One way to monitor calories consumed and calories expended is by using any of the many apps on your smartphone. They're great for storing your commonly consumed foods and your favorite workout and exercises. Many of these apps can keep you informed by emailing you a periodic report! That way you can monitor your daily weight, exercise calories and consumed foods and much more. One of my favorite iPhone apps is Tap & Track. Tap&Track has been recommended in New York Times, as one of the four apps ideal for losing weight! It's also the only paid app in the article and “Users say it's worth every penny!”

Meridian Harmonics