Selena Gomez: Lemons
What hot drink has zero calories tastes refreshing and spurs your metabolism to get moving? Hot water with lemon! A warm or hot cup gets your body moving at a rapid pace and that means your entire body is engaged in creating and using energy that leads to weight loss. “The more lemon water you drink the better for you since it helps food break down easily in your digestive system,” says Suzanne Jezek-Arriaga, a nutrition and holistic health coach. But Selena Gomez prefers another form of lemon – an entire fruit sliced and sprinkled with salt. Her concept isn’t wrong, just too sour of our tastes. Lemon has vitamin C to aid weight loss. A study found that people who have sufficient levels of vitamin C intake burned more fat than people who were C deficient. Another way hot lemon water helps is simply that people prefer the taste of lemon water to plain water. If the idea of water isn’t appealing, you might have a glass of juice before breakfast. Juice is pure sugar with zero health benefits. But if you think hot water with lemon tastes great, then you’ll have it instead of high-calorie, sugary drinks.
Katy Perry: Mushrooms
Katy Perry uses the “M Diet” to slim down her belly and lower half. And the M stands for mushrooms. She swaps out one meal daily for raw mushrooms over the course of 2 weeks. That sounds really hard to swallow! Mushrooms can be an awesome addition to your diet – 1 cup is only 20 calories. So just the act of lowering her calorie intake could be what helps Katy look so amazing, and you can do that minus the shrooms. You want big results from a diet but if you go big too soon, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. “Too often we think we’re not doing enough, so we give up,” says Denise Posnak Gaffney, a Pilates instructor and founder of MyBOD Wellness. “Value the small things you do and you can go much farther with your wellness goals.” That might mean cutting out sugar for one week, not one month, and reevaluating after that. Breaking goals into attainable chunks will make them easier to meet.
Amanda Seyfried: Raw Fruits & Veggies
“Reach for a piece of fruit when a slim figure is your goal,” says Rachel Swanson, a RDN at Lifespan Medicine. Research done over a 24-year period found that people who ate fruits high in anthocyanin and flavonoids lost more weight. Swanson says you can find these miracle compounds in apples, pears, berries, prunes and strawberries. Bonus: Vegetables like peppers and celery were also associated with less weight gain in this study! Amanda Seyfried reportedly won’t eat any veggies cooked about 115 degress Faraenheit. There are many celeb fans of the raw food diet, which suggests cooking removes essential nutrients from fruits, vegetables, grains and seeds that your body needs in order to cleanse itself. The goal is to stick to food in its raw state. We agree that you should swap out processed snacks and bring in nature’s bounty, but it’s ok to grill the zucchini.
Megan Fox: Apple Cider Vinegar
The acetic acid in apple cider vinegar that gives it that funky smell is also what can help you lose weight. It suppresses hunger and keeps you feeling full after meals. Plus it stimulates weight loss and helps to maintain consistent levels of blood sugar. Megan Fox throws back a spoonful of ACV each morning and she’s on to something. “Apple cider vinegar is a fermented food that aids digestion and promotes the growth of healthy gut flora,” says Dr. Lisa Davis, chief nutrition officer at Terra’s Kitchen. “Preliminary evidence also suggests that it may help with fat loss.” A study found that people who took an apple cider vinegar supplement every day for 12 weeks lost more weight than those who didn’t have any. You can mix a tablespoon apple cider vinegar with water and honey if drinking it straight isn’t tempting.
Kourtney Kardashian: Ghee
If you have no idea what ghee is, you’re not alone. We had to ask the experts to clue us in. Ghee is clarified butter. That mean’s it’s been heated and purified until all that is left is the natural butterfat found in milk. It’s been a part of traditional Indian cooking for ages but is picking up steam in celeb circles as a path to weight loss. Kourtney Kardashian takes a teaspoon of ghee each morning, melts it and then drinks it (followed by a glass of water). Ghee has some interesting things going for it. It’s a natural fat, which is a good thing. It contains vitamins A, E and D, all of which are fat-soluble, meaning they need to be taken with fat to be absorbed into the body. This is where the potential anti-inflammatory and weight loss promoting effects are found.
[Photos: Splash, Shutterstock]