The least intrusive weight loss methods, and those most often recommended by physicians, are adjustments to eating patterns and increased physical exercise.
Usually, health professionals will recommend that their overweight patients combine a reduction of the caloric content of the diet with an increase in physical activity.[7] A good approach to do this might be to choose calorie-poor food and exercising at night (to avoid eating while watching TV, ...) [8] If however, you exercise a lot during the course of the day (or all day for that matter), it may be better to not try to reduce your calories in your food during the day at all (you will usually burn all of it anyway during the day), and just eat when hungry, and, in addition, only try to reduce your calories at night. This method may be better for those people exercising all day to avoid to lose energy too quickly, which often translates in eating a lot more at certain moments, usually to this degree/speed of eating that you can no longer assess you've had enough. A good indicator to tell you that you didn't eat too much is again the hunger feeling; exercise until you feel tired and/or hungry and then go to bed only slightly hungry. However, even if you do not watch your calorie-density of your food (by the method explained just above), it is always best that you eat slowly, or eat a bit and then wait a little. Often, your hunger disappears if you leave a little time as the stomach needs time to digest and tell your body you've had enough. [9] Also, another good complementary technique is not too make your food tasty at all and leaving it basic (to avoid "eating out of taste" instead of hunger); for this, one may eg decide to no longer put anything between theirButterbrot or sandwich, ...). In addition, a much proposed method to hold oneself to a decreased calorie-diet is to increase the amount of liquid you drink. When water or low-calorie drinks are not a working alternative/option, vegetables may be used instead. However, whenever possible (not hungry), (overweight) people are advocated of not eating/drinking at all, to allow the body/stomach to shrink, so that the person will automatically reduce the amount they eat (as the hunger feeling disappears), hereby normally (although not always) also decreasing the amounts of calories he consumes. Yet another method maybe the increasing of ambient temperature. Increasing the ambient temperature makes it much easier for certain people to endure the hunger feeling (as its intensity weakens with higher temperature [10] Increasing the temperature may be done by either heating up the house (trough radiators, convectors, ...) -or- by putting on more clothes (eg several layers thereof and making sure the ends of the clothes overlap). Note that after a while, when you get used to the extra heat, your appetite may go up again; when this happens extra layers are added to again increase the heat. This latter method is recommended as it allows continuous high temperature (even if you go outside), is cheaper and also puts up less stress for the environment. Also, the implementation of a new hobby (eg listening music, ...) [11] [12] Most of these methods have been proposed by nutritionists as BCM and other organisations involved in weight loss[13][14] Also, nutritionists as BCM advocate reducing the amounts you eat entirely (to only 3 meals a day).
Other methods of losing weight include use of drugs and supplements that decrease appetite, block fat absorption, or reduce stomach volume. Especially medicine with herbs as Fucus vesiculosus are popular [15]. Also, there are also some mental tricks (eg brushing your teeth early to avoid snacking at night, avoiding to buy high-calorie foods at the supermarket, ...) that -although they may be low-tech-, have return big results [16]. Finally, a more radical (and usually less recommended, unless really necessairy) method is Surgery. Bariatric surgery artificially reduces the size of the stomach, limiting the intake of food energy. Some of these treatments may have serious side-effects.
