There are many things you can do from within the comfort of your home to improve your overall health and kick-start your weight loss journey.

Here are a few tips featuring common items found in any household:

Buttermilk

1. Include buttermilk instead of curd in your diet for good gut health and optimal metabolism.
2. Asafoetida or hing can help burn calories faster. Take a pinch of asafoetida with buttermilk during lunch to improve your metabolism and aid weight loss.

Fruits

1. Cut added white sugar in your coffee, tea, or juices. Instead, opt for complex sugar foods like fruits to sate your sweet tooth. You will see inch as well as weight loss within a month.
2. Snack on fruit, nuts, or salads instead of ready to eat cookies.
3. Drink your juices without added sugar.
4. Go on a mono fruit diet for an entire day. A sample diet to follow would be – only bananas for breakfast, snack, lunch, and dinner. Do this at least once a week with the fruits that you like.
5. Avocados curb appetite while helping the body burn more calories.

Garlic and ginger

1. Garlic induces thermogenesis or production of heat in the body and enables fat burn. Include garlic in all your recipes as much as you can.
2. Ginger is anti-inflammatory. It sensitizes glucose, gives a feeling of satiety, and helps in weight management.
3. Infuse ginger and garlic slices in honey. Take 1 tsp of this daily to aid weight loss.

Herbs

1. Triphala 1 tsp at bedtime helps cleanse the body and improve metabolism.
2. Guggulu, a gum resin in the form of medohara guggulu tablets is one the most recommended weight loss prescriptions.
3. Intermittent fasting helps reduce calorie intake and improves metabolism.
4. Trikatu choorna is a blend of 3 peppers. Mixed with honey or buttermilk and consumed before a meal helps metabolism and aids weight loss.
5. Katuki, another herb, helps cleanse the gut and improve metabolism indirectly aiding weight loss.

Leaves

1. Curry leaf reduces cholesterol and blood glucose levels. Extract its juice by grinding with some water and mix with honey.
2. Tulsi juice on empty stomach improves metabolism and helps burn belly fat.
3. Mint leaves used in chutney or mint sauce can help stimulate digestive enzymes and turn fat into energy.

Meals and snacks

1. Ensure that every meal has 6 tastes in balance.
2. Instead of a full meal, consume boiled horse gram with onions, pepper powder, cumin powder, and rock salt to help weight loss.
3. Green gram sprout, cucumber, coriander leaves, pepper and lemon as a meal starter can reduce main course meal quantity. A great way to reduce calorie consumption and help weight loss.
4. Kodo millets are rich in vitamin B, niacin, and folic acid and can also replace your carbohydrate-heavy polished rice which is devoid of nutrients.
5. Increase the quantity of pulses in your meal versus the carbohydrates like rice or wheat.
6. Puffed rice is low in calories than its counterpart raw rice, so if you like your rice then make your dishes with puffed rice.
7. Chana is a great as a low calorie snack. Boiled and sautéed with vegetables or greens and coconut, chana is an excellent source of protein and fibre.
8. Pineapple and ginger frozen on a popsicle is a good way to snack. Ginger improves digestion and pineapple reduces inflammation. Together, they help weight loss.
9. Increase the quantity of protein on your plate and reduce carbohydrate.
10. Use Garcinia Cambogia or malabar tamarind to replace tomatoes in your cooking. The hydrocitric acid in garcinia reduces appetite and boosts metabolism.

Good fats

1. Include good fats like ghee in your diet. 1 tsp of ghee every morning or along with your food can help your body use the energy from fats, rather than carbohydrates.
2. Use virgin coconut oil for cooking instead of refined oils. This is a great way to start to your weight management program.
3. Use coconut in all your cooking. The healthy fatty acids along with fibre makes it an ideal addition to your weight loss recipes.
4. Turmeric smoothie in almond milk with a dash of coconut oil is a perfect blend of anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, excellent to reduce fat.
5. Take 2.5 ml of edible castor oil on daily basis for 2 weeks to detox the gut which will improve metabolism and indirectly aid weight loss.

Spices

1. Cinnamon in your tea or while cooking helps burn visceral fat.
2. Cardamom is a good belly fat burner; it can be used in many dishes for a great aroma and taste.
3. Use pepper in meals to help boost metabolism.

Stevia

1. Stevia is a natural plant based sweetener. If you need to add sugar to your coffee or tea, use this zero calorie alternative to add sweetness.
2. Drink tea made of dashamoola kashaya choorna with stevia. It is rich in antioxidants and helps metabolism.

Tea

1. Swap your coffee or tea for a green juice of cucumber ginger and lemon.
2. Hot lemon tea with ginger is a good weight loss beverage break instead of milk based teas.

Water

1. Drink water before every meal. This can reduce your calorie intake.
2. Drink tender coconut water every day for enzymes that aid metabolism.
3. Boil water with cumin seeds (jeera) until the water is reduced to half. Drink this before meals. The enzymes in jeera help easy digestion of carbohydrates and fats, thus improving metabolism and aiding weight loss.
4. Have a glass of hot barley water every day before a meal. Apart from satiating your appetite and keeping you full for a long time, its complex carbohydrates and low glycemic index can help you lose weight.
5. Drink only hot water, or boiled water cooled to room temperature when you are aiming to lose weight. Hot water or boiled water cooled to room temperature  in summer is light for digestion and aids weight loss.
6. Drink herb or fruit infused water at regular hours, this maintains your required glucose levels and prevents you from bingeing.
7. Honey in warm or tepid water known as Ushnodaka is a conventional weight loss recipe.

General tips

1. Chew your food 32 times before you swallow it. Mindful eating practices will help you eat just how much your body requires and not more.
2. Use aromatic oils like grapefruit, peppermint, ginger cinnamon as diffusers which elevate the mood and reduce stress. Stress increases cortisol in your blood which further causes inflammation of fat cells and increase weight.
3. Cocum juice with honey and ginger juice is a great way to kick-start your weight loss program.
4. Soak 1 table spoon of caraway seeds (ajwain) in water and leave it overnight, strain the water & drink it every day. It is a digestive and carminative which improves metabolism and aids weight loss.
5. Shatapushpa (dill seed) is a known kitchen remedy to cure indigestion. It helps metabolism by burning carbohydrates and fats after every meal.
6. Shift to Saindhava Lavana or pink rock salt from your regular processed salt. While pink salt is somewhat more expensive, it significantly reduces sugar cravings by reactivating insulin and thus aids weight loss.
7. Include Apple Cider Vinegar in your diet. ACV has pectin which makes you feel full and satisfied.
8. Soak sabja/tulsi seeds in water and they will swell after a while. Consume this before a meal and it will control your appetite and reduce your calorie intake.
9. Avoid all processed foods like rava, bread, cornflakes, ready to eat foods, sauces, jams and sweets. Shift to whole grains and freshly cooked foods. This indirectly reduces your glycolic index and promotes weight loss.

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Edited by Nisha Salim