Brush Your Teeth Early to Lose Weight
Here's another of my Top 100 weight loss tips for the series as article number 31.
In this article, here's a really useful tip for stopping yourself snacking late at night when you're trying to lose weight. It's pretty simple and maybe something you never thought about before, but you are going to be surprised when you see what it is...
Brush your teeth early, don't just wait until you are ready to go to bed! If you want to know why you should do that, read on...
Why You Should Brush Your Teeth Early?
This is not some kind of trick, by the way. It's a psychological technique that you can successfully use on yourself to help you lose weight fast by preventing yourself from eating late at night. It is simple and effective, whether you believe it or not, just try it and see what happens.
To highlight the point, take into consideration this common scenario. If you are overweight, here's something you probably do now:
You'll likely eat your last meal of the day in the early evening after you get home from work and then dump yourself down on the sofa to watch TV for the rest of the evening. Later on, you're bound to get a little peckish, especially of you ate fairly early, say around 6:00 pm or thereabouts.
Late Night Snack
So it could be after 10:00pm and you're in the kitchen rummaging through the fridge or pantry for a snack. And before you know it, you're coming away with a king sized sandwich filled with cheese and/or ham, salami or something equally high calorie and high fat!
If that wasn't bad enough, you probably also added a side of some potato chips, pretzels, popcorn or tortilla chips or similar salty snack that will load on even more calories. Of course, that's all to be washed down with some coke or other sugar-laden, artificially flavored soda for an even bigger calorie hit.
Oh boy, if that's you, then are you heading for a visit to the obesity clinic or early heart attack!
To change that habit and stop gaining any more weight, there are two things you can (and should) do. The first is to make sure you have finished eating your last meal of the evening a little later, say by 7:00pm or thereabouts if you can. That's to stop you feeling hungry before you go to bed.
Then there is one other really simple thing you can do. That is to go brush your teeth at 9:30 or 10:00pm. Then go back to watching the TV (if you really must). Later, you'll go to bed without having felt the need to go raid the kitchen beforehand.
Why?
Clever Psychology
What happens there is you have created a psychological barrier to eating any more food for the day. That's because you habitually brush your teeth as the last thing before going to bed. You wouldn't dream of eating anything after doing that because it's generally so late.
Plus you just cleaned your teeth and you don't want to get them all dirty again by eating food! By bringing that time forward and brushing at say 9:30-10:00pm you are telling your subconscious that you have finished eating for the day by the very act of brushing your teeth.
Try it, it actually works!
When you get into the habit of doing that every day, you'll become so accustomed to it that it will become second nature. It will have become on the the best habits you can have for not just getting back in shape but staying there in the long term.
100 Weight Loss Tips number 30 follows in the next post!
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Posted on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 2 Comments
2 thoughts on "Brush Your Teeth Early to Lose Weight"
Carl says:
Thank you for another tremendous article on doing something as simple as brushing your teeth early to lose weight! Where else could anyone get that kind of information in such a complete way of writing? I have a presentation incoming week, and I am on the look out for such information.
Carrie says:
Great article with accurate information. Thanks for getting the word about oral health out too!!