One of the reasons so many people are overweight is because they are always on a diet. Most diets are very strict, often ruling out certain food groups or reducing daily caloric intake to an unhealthy amount. Diets don’t work, in fact; have reverse results. After a while, you get bored and go off the diet to go back to your old eating habits that made you overweight in the first place. Once you return to your previous caloric intake, you will regain proportionally more body fat than you lost. Dieting is not the answer to permanent weight loss. It’s just another way of mistreating your body, like eating the wrong amount of food or the wrong type of food at the wrong time.
Reducing your calorie intake may seem like the best weight loss solution, but when you significantly reduce your calorie intake, your metabolic rate slows down and you burn fewer calories. The more drastic your diet, the greater the drop in your body’s metabolic rate. While on a low-calorie diet, the safety system that protects your body from starvation can be so effective that after just a few weeks you stop losing weight altogether. Do not be fooled; sticking to a calorie restricted diet will only lead to
chronic fatigue, a weaker immune system and psychological stress.
For healthy weight loss results, we must learn to eat sensibly, including a variety of healthy, nutritious foods. It doesn’t mean depriving yourself of the foods you enjoy and eating only horrible-tasting foods. Deprivation creates cravings, and cravings often result in binge eating. Rather, it is learning to eat three or more sensible meals a day with healthy snacks and the occasional treat. Dividing meals into three to six different meals causes different levels of energy expenditure, and the more you divide the calories you eat throughout the day, the more calories you burn.
Most people have not figured out how to balance their food intake.
To get the essential nutrients your body needs, eat a wide variety of foods. Choose the recommended number of daily servings from each of the five main food groups. For a healthy and lean body, you need to eat a proper balance of foods that keep you in perfect harmony. For example; if you had eggs and toast for breakfast, don’t have an egg sandwich for lunch. Try not to duplicate the same food over and over again. The key word for everything is “balance”.
Another important factor in achieving proper food harmony in your body is time. For many of us, dinner is the “big meal” of the day. If you’re concerned about weight, health, and a good night’s sleep, the end of the day is the wrong time to pack on so many calories. In the morning, a good amount of these calories will be stored as body fat. Keep in mind that the later in the day you eat, the lighter you should eat.
Eat everything in moderation.
Avoid large portions of food. In recent years, portion sizes have gotten bigger; in restaurants, fast food places, supermarkets and even in the home. When you’re faced with larger portions, you tend to consume more calories than your body needs. Take a look at the serving sizes suggested by the Food Guide Pyramid and compare the serving sizes to what you normally eat. For example, the recommended serving size for pasta is 1/2 cup, my bet is that most of us eat two to four times that serving in a single meal. Choosing sensible portion sizes is the key to keeping your weight in a healthy range.
Try to eliminate saturated and “trans” fats
Fat is our most fattening nutrient. Fat contains 2 to 3 times more calories than any other type of food. Saturated fatty acids (meat, butter, dairy products…) are more difficult to burn and have a greater tendency to be stored as fat than monounsaturated fatty acids (olive oil, peanut oil, avocado…). As for polyunsaturated fats (fish, omega 3), they are not likely to be stored at all. According to recent evidence, both types of unsaturated fats also help reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood.
What about the sugar!
The typical American eats 20 teaspoons of added sugar a day, and that excludes the natural sugars found in milk, fruit, and fruit juices. Sugar makes up too much of our daily calories, which are worthless calories. According to the US Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid, 10 percent of calories should come from added sweeteners. Many people get 30 percent or more of their calories from added sugar. If you’re counting calories, eating too much of the sweet stuff will take away a large chunk of your calorie allotment for the day and you’ll miss out on essential nutrients. For example, a soft drink or
Fruit drink can contain up to 10 teaspoons of sugar, which is about 150 calories of worthless calories. So if you drink 2 a day, that wastes 300 calories with no nutritional value.
Salt – The main food additive
Salt is a combination of two mineral substances that are essential nutrients: sodium and chloride. But these substances are needed in much smaller amounts than we consume. Our biological need for sodium is 1/10 teaspoon a day, but the average person consumes at least 3 to 4 teaspoons. Salt promotes water retention and increases the intestinal absorption of glucose that can contribute to weight gain. The salt and other sources of sodium that we eat are naturally present in foods, including dairy products, meats, and seafood. Not to mention the salt that is added to food at home during cooking and at the table. The rest comes from processed foods. You can go a long way in reducing your salt intake
intake by avoiding commercially prepared foods that are obviously salty.
Many people eat food with no idea of its nutritional value. You can lose weight if you eat foods that are low in calories and fat for a certain amount of food. If you look at the labels of commercially prepared foods, you’ll soon realize that they’re packed with sugars, salt, fats, and a host of other chemicals that are bad for your body. Eat foods that contain a lot of water like vegetables, fruits, and soups. If you want to reduce your salt, sugar and fat intake, eat fresh.
and oh, I almost forgot… don’t forget to exercise!
