7 Nearly-No Effort Hacks That Really Help People Lose Weight
Simple tricks—from twisted bacon to frozen bread—make weight loss surprisingly easy
Olympic athletes and professional wellness influencers love to share their hours-long fitness routines and around-the-clock supplement regimens as inspiration. But their health advice can feel complicated and exhausting. How about a simpler answer to the question of how to lose weight fast and level up our health? So I asked people for their easiest tricks. Things so simple and pleasant, it’s surprising that they even work. But they do work, and research proves it. Enjoy this roundup of the best, nearly-no effort hacks that really help people lose weight.
To cut cravings, try eating with a twist
While watching food trends, I was intrigued when I heard about women shaking up their low-carb diets (and losing huge amounts of weight) by eating “twisted” bacon, essentially bulking up the look and satisfaction of this food without adding any calories. To make, simple wrap bacon into ringlets and cook in the oven on a rimmed baking sheet. The trend, started by dieter Abby Durlewanger—who lost 130 pounds on a keto diet—has since gone viral.
While we often talk about feelings of fullness happening in the stomach, it actually starts with the eyes, explains Barbara Rolls, PhD, a world-renowned weight-loss researcher at Penn State University: “It’s not just how foods exist in your gut, but a whole complex process that includes seeing the food and seeing a full plate that signals fullness.”
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Roll’s research-backed weight-loss approach centers on “volumetrics”—or the practice of making food look bigger so you feel satisfied while eating less. Something as simple as adding air to foods (like frothy bubbles to smoothies) or stacking ingredients in surprising ways can satisfy hunger more quickly, leading to weight-loss success. People found that eating just a couple pieces of twisted bacon satisfied them as much as a whole plate of flat bacon used to.
Reach for this spice shaker
In one large study, researchers took favorite comfort-food recipes and discovered people liked the taste as much, if not more, after some of the salt and fat were replaced with low-calorie spices. Enter the diet-friendly super spice known as nutritional yeast. It is considered a complete protein, while being low calorie and free of sugar and gluten.
Stanford University’s Gregory Hammer, MD, says, “I eat lots of nutritional yeast. It’s like having a secret ingredient!” One reason why: This seasoning contains beta-glucan fiber, proven to help dieters shed weight faster than normal. In fact, one dieter, Angel Grier, used nutritional yeast on her journey of losing 127 pounds!
Tap into the citrus-water secret
Jennifer Witherspoon, who lost 104 pounds, says, “one of the things that maximized my weight loss was adding lemon to my water.” She adds, “I went from losing 2 pounds a week to 3 or 4 pounds a week. Pretty crazy!”
It’s all thanks to antioxidants found in citrus fruits—including naringin and hesperidin—proven to support fat loss and recontour the body. Plus, when the body is optimally hydrated, everything—including metabolism—works more efficiently.
Try the frozen bread trick
“Resistant starch is something people don’t know enough about, and it can be a game changer for a woman’s nutrition,” says Amy Shah, MD, author of I’m So Effing Hungry. You can effortlessly get more resistant starch into your diet by tweaking some of your favorite foods. For example, if you enjoy sourdough toast, just freeze the bread before toasting it to enhance its resistant starch content. Or if you routinely eat mashed potatoes or cooked rice, make extra helpings, refrigerate the leftovers and then reheat them the next day.
Why it works: When certain starches are cooled in the fridge or freezer, their molecules reorganize in a chemical process called retrogradation, transforming the starch into a special fiber known as resistant starch that passes through the body undigested. That means it doesn’t add as many calories to your system. Georgina Hughes used this trick to lose 43 pounds!
Foam roll your way to a smaller size
The network of connective tissue called fascia that rests under our skin can stiffen and bunch up as we age, making us look heavier and wider than we really are. But stretching out our fascia by using a foam roller on our hips and thighs can quickly make us look a size slimmer, says fascia expert Lauren Roxburgh, author of Taller, Slimmer, Younger. It can also flush toxins and rid water retention. “I lost 20 pounds,” she shares. “Foam rolling for 10 minutes per day completely transformed my body.”
By pampering our fascia we also improve our posture to look leaner and relieve pain that may be holding us back from getting more weight-improving movement throughout our day. Plus, research published in the journal Cogent Medicine proves that utilizing tools like a simple foam roller increased metabolism and allowed people to burn an extra 168 calories per day.
Make the allulose sugar swap
Artificial sugars can drive our weight problems. Canadian research proves that consuming sweeteners like sucralose and aspartame is linked to a higher risk of weight gain. But swapping those fake sugars for all-natural allulose might help. The FDA has acknowledged that this plant-based sugar substitute is metabolized by the body in a different way than other sugars. It may actually make us feel full for longer.
How? It releases appetite-controlling GLP-1 hormones, like the ones stimulated by popular weight-loss medications. While artificial sweeteners hamper those hormones by 35 percent, allulose actually boosts weight-loss hormones by 70 percent in as little as one hour, according to research. Lisa Brounstein lost 139 pounds with the help of using allulose in her diet.
Grab an accountability partner
You may already know that accountability can help with weight loss, but that accountability can even come from strangers. People on Reddit have been raving about the changes they’ve seen even in the short term by following a 30-day accountability challenge. One user has already lost 62 pounds by tapping into anonymous social support online.
Another woman, Rhonda Roush, lost 114 pounds by joining a weight-loss support group called TOPS and reporting her progress and struggles to a friend. Rhonda recalls, “we talked about our weight, and we decided we wanted to become accountability buddies.” Those easy check-ins, whether daily or weekly, kept her committed to her goals so she didn’t give up.
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