Eat Frequently, and Eat Slowly. It is important to understand what happens when you skip a meal or go on a crash diet. When you skip a meal your metabolism slows to conserve your energy. And when you lose weight too quickly for a few days, your body thinks it is threatened with starvation and goes into survival mode. It fights to conserve your fat stores, and any weight loss comes mostly from water and muscle. Never skip a meal, especially breakfast, and eat healthy snacks between meals. Eating frequently prevents hunger pangs and the binges that follow, provides consistent energy, and may be the single most effective way to maintain metabolism efficiency. Eating slowly gives our bodies time to tell us they are full before we've eaten more than we need.
Ask yourself if you really tasted and enjoyed that last bite of food. If your answer is no, it’s time to slow down.
Let fruits & vegetables as your favorite snacks.
Eat only when you are feel hungry.
Opt for lighter choices once in a while at restaurants. Many restaurants have lighter options on their menus these days, some have low-fat options and some have even jumped on the low-carb band wagon and offer low-carb options. Whenever you're sitting in a restaurant looking through the menu, ask yourself if a lighter option would be a better choice. Where possible choose steamed, poached, boiled or baked foods rather than those that have been fried or deep fried.
Take advantage of family holidays by making sure they are "active breaks" and not just excuses for laying around and eating too much.
Eat more soup. The noncreamy ones are filling but low-cal.
People who eat healthy, mostly unprocessed foods, including fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and limited amounts of lean animal protein, often find that they can eat as much as they want without gaining weight. If they are switching from a diet containing lots of processed foods, they find that they can eat more yet consume fewer calories -- and they lose weight.
To help downsize your portions, use a smaller plate. Instead of a dinner plate, use a salad plate for your entire meal.
Eat a healthy salad first before a meal.
Weightlifting is important because it helps you add muscles and increase your weight loss process.
Try to reduce the Fat, Sugar and Salt in your diet. Diets high in fat and sugar are typically also very high in kilojoules or calories which when combined with low levels of exercise or activity can contribute greatly to us being overweight. In addition, excessive levels of fat, sugar and salt in our diets have been shown to contribute to a variety of serious health conditions. Foods that are 'low in fat' have 3g or less fat per 100g. Drinks low in fat have 1.5ml or less per 100ml. Foods 'low in sugar' have 5g or less per 100g and drinks low in sugar have 2.5g or less per 100ml. Foods 'low in salt' have 120mg or less per 100g. While all the foods we eat won't have levels of fat, sugar and salt as low as this, these measures can be useful when we are comparing food options.
Try to help your child get at least thirty to sixty minutes of "exercise" broken down into ten or fifteen minute segments.
Take your lunch to work.
Stock your home with healthy foods, like fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals and bread, lean meats, poultry and seafood, and low-fat dairy products.
When eating in a restaurant ask for a child’s portion or ask to have the entrée split and have the second half packaged as takeout.
If possible, count the calories as you eat.
You must limit your alcohol intake.
Join a gym or hire a personal trainer with a friend. Joining a gym or hiring a personal trainer with a friend has many advantages. Foremost among these advantages are that you'll have a workout buddy, who can keep you motivated and keep you company while you get used to the gym environment and exercising regularly, and you'll save money because most gyms and personal trainers offer discounts when you join or train with a friend. Just be careful to make sure that both of you are as committed to exercise as each other and be prepared for the time when your workout buddy isn't able, or doesn't want to, workout any more or as regularly as you do. Hopefully by the time this happens (if it happens at all), you'll have made new friends at the gym or enjoy exercising so much that you are motivated and happy enough to do it on your own or find a new workout buddy.
Spend the extra few dollars to buy vegetables that are already washed and cut up.
As an assist to making certain you are getting the right nutrition from your vegetables, alternate the colors from day to day. One day eat fresh yellow and orange vegetables like squash, pumpkin, and carrots then switch to green the next day, like spinach, or dark leafy lettuces.
Limiting your sugar intake is important!
Try to take a short walk or run in the morning is a good habit.
Choose eating fresh fruit and avoid eating processed fruits.
Participate in a weight loss challenge. Getting yourself a diet buddy or buddies and setting yourself a 12 week weight loss goal is a great way to lose weight. Losing weight when you've got someone else to compete against will give you extra motivation and help you to stay on track. The members of the Weightloss Forum currently have such challenges which you can participate in simply by registering as a member of the forum, which is totally free.
Really hate veggies? Relax. If you love fruits, eat plenty of them; they are just as healthy (especially colorful ones such as oranges, mangoes, and melons).
Historically, the Chinese ate mostly rice and vegetables with a little lean meat for protein and flavor, nothing like the American Chinese restaurant dishes of deep fried sweet and sour pork. A step back to more natural foods would improve our health and waistlines.
Pass up peanuts for snacking. Two ounces of salted peanuts has 328 calories. Nibble on pretzels instead. 20 of the small ones have as little as 80 calories and most are fat free.
Increasing your metabolism by doing cardio like running, swimming, jumping, etc.
Eat fresh foods and avoid package (processed) and convenient foods.
Walk for a ½ hour instead of watching TV. Some people believe that watching TV is a great way to wind-down after a hard day and doing exercise is often the last thing on their minds. But going for a half-hour or hours walk instead of plonking down in front of the TV can help you de-stress, clear your mind and set you up for a relaxing evening and a great night's sleep. You can make the walk even better if you take your partner, children or dog with you.
Encourage your children to drink water and limit their opportunities to drink soft-drinks, fruit drinks and the like which are usually packed with sugar and calories.
Share an entree or dessert with a friend. Many of us put on weight because we make careless or unconscious eating decisions, like automatically ordering an entree or dessert while at a restaurant. Most restaurants main meals are already too big and as well as eating them, many of us eat entrees and/or desserts as well. If this sounds like you, start sharing your entree or dessert with a friend and your waist-line will thank you.
Skip fried shrimp. A three ounce serving has 206 calories while the same size boiled are only 84 calories.
You'd better change from table butter to cholesterol free butter.
It is necessary to record your weight loss progress.
Keep seven bags of your favorite frozen vegetables on hand. Mix any combination, microwave, and top with your favorite low-fat dressing. Enjoy 3 to 4 cups a day. Makes a great quick dinner.
Eat More Fiber. Fiber makes us feel full sooner and stays in our stomach longer than other substances we eat, slowing down our rate of digestion and keeping us feeling full longer. Due to its greater fiber content, a single serving of whole grain bread can be more filling than two servings of white bread. Fiber also moves fat through our digestive system faster so that less of it is absorbed. Refined grains like white rice and those used to make white bread and sugary breakfast cereals have had most of their fiber and nutrients stripped away. They turn into blood sugar (glucose) so fast that, like sugar itself, they can cause a spike in our insulin level. This tells our body that plenty of energy is readily available and that it should stop burning fat and start storing it. Eating foods with plenty of fiber will help keep our blood sugar at a more consistent level.
If you love pie, stick with the fruit pies. Pumpkin and other fruit pies are lower in calories. Pecan pie has about 430 calories while the same slice of pumpkin pie is only 240. You can drop another 100 calories if you don’t eat the crust!
Vary your exercise. In addition to helping us avoid boredom, adding variety to our exercise program actually helps us lose more weight and become fitter. When we perform the same exercises at the same intensity, our bodies get used to our routine and stops responding. Muscles only get stronger when they need to adapt. By changing exercises and the order in which we do them, we keep our body guessing and force it to respond and adapt.
The best portion of high-calorie foods is the smallest one. The best portion of vegetables is the largest one. Period.
Sit when you eat.
To burn calories and promote weight loss and optimum nutrition in your diet, eat foods that work with other foods thereby breaking them down at a faster burn rate. This trick of the Diet Trade is known as Food Combining.
Try Canadian bacon instead of regular bacon. One ounce of regular bacon is about four medium cooked slices and carries 163 calories. A one ounce slice of Canadian bacon is much leaner and only has about 57 calories.
To get a an idea of your fitness level before starting a new exercise program, try running or walking for 12 minutes and see how far you get. If you can walk or run 1.6 kilometres in 12 minutes or less, then you're in decent shape. Most beginners won't make it this far in under 12 minutes, so don't be too hard on yourself if you don't. Beginners should start out at a comfortable pace and increase their speed as their fitness improves.
Don't force children to finish their food if they are full, they'll eat more than they need to and will adopt the 'clean plate' eating philosophy for life.
Add just one fruit or veggie serving daily. Get comfortable with that, then add an extra serving until you reach 8 to 10 a day.
Sliced mushrooms and onions make an awesome dish when sauteed in a bit of no calorie, non-stick butter spray. Add salt and cracked pepper - and any herbs that you happen to fancy. Take note that raw mushrooms are very hard to digest and may cause stomach upset in some individuals.
Remember, EAT before you meet. Have this small meal before you go to any parties: a hardboiled Egg, Apple, and a Thirst quencher (water, seltzer, diet soda, tea).
Avoid the high fat temptations when dining out. Call ahead. Many high quality restaurants will accommodate your needs if you give them sufficient time beforehand. Explain that you are on a low fat diet and ask if they can prepare your food without frying.
Have some healthy snacks every 3-4 hours.
To lose weight, please go easy on tea and coffee.
Eat leaner red meat & poultry. Fat contains 37 kilojoules (9 calories) per gram while protein and carbohydrates only contain around 17 kilojoules (4 calories) per gram so it makes sense to try to reduce the amount of dietary fat in our diets if we are trying to lose weight. One relatively simple way of doing this is to eat the leanest red meat and poultry available to us. As well as buying the leanest meat and poultry we can in the first place, we can also trim off any access fat from our cuts of meat and remove any skin from our poultry.
Eat at least two servings of a fruit or veggie at every meal.
The yolk is extremely high in cholesterol, containing more than two-thirds of the recommended daily limit of 300 mg. However, the yolk has many health strengths necessary for immunity, healthy skin, nerves and vision. The yolk also contains good amounts of B Vitamins, Vitamin A, iron and riboflavin.
If you frequent a specific restaurant, ask to take a menu home so you can study what they offer and learn how to plan your meals out.
Try to stick to black tea and coffee.
To achieve your goal, you should make chocolates a luxury and not a routine.
One of the reasons many of us are putting on weight year after year is that we have lost all sense of correct portion sizes. Because most meals served in restaurants and at home are much larger than we actually need to maintain a healthy body weight, some people use a very simple technique to successfully lose weight and keep it off – they only eat half of what is on their plate!
Resolve never to supersize your food portions—unless you want to supersize your clothes.
Make exercise a nonnegotiable priority.
Steer Clear of fast food restaurants. Most of their food is 40 to 50 percent fat. Many are finally wising up, however, and you can get salads, plain hamburgers or grilled chicken. You can also ask for the restaurant’s nutritional information. Many now offer that.
First, start with the big picture. Write down your goals and be specific. What do you want to change? Where do you want to be a year from now?
Remember fiber rich foods like multigrain breads are better than white breads.
Stay away from sweetened soft drinks.
Walk during your lunch break. For most of us our lunch break is an ideal time to go for a walk but many people miss this opportunity to build their fitness, relieve stress and burn precious extra calories. If you aren't motivated enough to go walking alone, organise a walking group among your colleagues, you're sure to find other people who want to get fitter and lose a little weight.
Make eating purposeful, not mindless. Whenever you put food in your mouth, peel it, unwrap it, plate it, and sit. Engage all of the senses in the pleasure of nourishing your body.
Naughty Calorie/Fat Cake: Better Than Sex Cake - Even the name is naughty and rightly so with 500 to 800 calories per decent slice. Sorry, but 1/24th of a cake isn't a serving size - and that's what you'll get for 250 calories to 400 calories. Just goes to show that when dealing with anything sex-related, one usually gets the short end of the stick....
Don’t ever give up! You are going to get bad days/weeks; it happens! Just get straight back on it and limit the damage.
Stay away from the appetizers unless you request crackers, pretzels or fresh vegetables like carrots or celery with a honey-mustard dressing (not ranch).
Next, focus on the details. Every day we make dozens of tiny decisions that can spell the difference between whether we lose weight or gain. Do you pick the muesli for breakfast or the chocolate muffin? Do you spend twenty minutes on the couch or twenty minutes on a brisk walk? Small changes can add up to huge results.
Always measure alcohol consumed at home carefully, as it is easy to fool yourself.
Stop smoking form right now!
Cut down on your useless calories intake!
Drink at least 1 glasses of water before a meal, this will help suppress your appetite.
Park your car further away from the shops and walk. Increasing the amount of incidental exercise we do each day is one of the secrets to successful weight loss. By parking further away from the shops than you normally would you'll force yourself to increase the number of steps you take in a day which will help burn off extra calories and help improve your fitness.
