
I was on Twitter a few days ago tweeting about how I’m staying up waaay too late and then sleeping in because of it. How I want to be normal. How I’m not a hamster. Then I remembered how a few months ago when I was trying to lose weight, I found some tips through my two hamsters, Priscilla and Mitzi. With my “Think Hamster” plan, I was able to lose about 20lbs. It may sound silly getting weight loss ideas from short-lived, nocturnal rodents, but if you look into them, they know what they’re doing… Even though both of mine are very, shall we say, “fluffy.”
Think Hamster—Lose Weight
• If your out eating and feel full, don’t feel pressured to finish your meal. Stuff it in a pouch and take it with you. You might want to eat it later. This way you won’t feel bloated.
• After eating a meal, go for a walk or quick jog to get everything going and burn off a few calories.
• Whenever you wake up, take time to stretch. It feels great and is good for your muscles.
• Don’t be afraid to come up with new exercises. If you’re feeling crazy one day, do some upside-down air running or anything else you can think of.
• Drink plenty of water, but not all at once. Don’t make yourself feel overly full from it, but get enough to quench your thirst.
• Eat lots of veggies! Hamsters do eat the occasional meat (Priscilla enjoys a bit of lean chicken now and then), but they know that fruits and veggies make the world go ’round… or at least taste better. There’s nothing finer to my girls than sinking their teeth into a fresh garden pea or diving into a bowl of salad.
• Snack healthy, like popcorn. Of course my hamsters cannot have butter or salt, so plain popcorn is best for them. For us humans, if you can’t stand plain popcorn, there are plenty of other ways you can dress it with flavor and still keep it pretty healthy.
• Cheese is your friend! I’m not talking a gallon bucket of nacho cheese, although that sounds very delish, huh? Some cheese every now and then gives us calcium we need to stay healthy and strong. You can over do it, but having a slice on a sandwich, sprinkled on a salad, or just sitting down with some slices while you watch TV can be good for you.
• Eat fruity yogurt, and you’re killing two birds with one stone. Again, like the cheese, it gives you all those dairy needs.
• Take long, relaxing baths. Don’t be like Priscilla and be and obsessive bather where you start gnawing your leg off in the process, but taking baths can help calm you. Anyone knows, especially women, that being stressed out causes you to pack on and hold all that unwanted weight. So take a bath, fluff yourself up all nice, and feel good about yourself.
• Think of chores as excercise. My hamsters are constantly rearranging their homes or digging new tunnels. That’s a lot of work. But in that work, you’re using a lot of muscles that you normally wouldn’t, and doing that helps you burn those calories. Go change your living room around. If someone offers to help you move the couch, yell, “Hey! Go lose your own weight!” Not really. You can’t lose weight laying in the hospital with a broken back.
• Finally, don’t forget that you burn calories in your sleep also. You may even sleepwalk or be violent in your dreaming. My dog-niece, Sam, runs marathons all night long. Don’t sit too close to her or you’ll get kicked for sure. Sometimes she gets pretty vocal about it and wakes herself up barking. Either way, you’ll also be able to kick the stress throughout the day and be in a better mood when you wake up with the right amount of sleep. Perfect for shedding those pounds.
See? Hamsters know what they’re doing! Just follow them or other animals with good habits and you’ll be slipping into your old clothes in no time. Notice how I didn’t use my guinea pigs as examples? They do what gets us to this in the first place. Eat too much, then sit and do nothing the rest of the day. They are SO fat. I hope they’re just bulking up for winter. They’re eating so much right now that I may have to make them start paying for their own food! How do you tell the pigs to be like the hamsters?