Overweight Americans and childhood obesity have become a huge problem in recent years. With this awareness, many people are looking for ways on how to lose weight. A few important things to remember:
Writing down what you eat is one basic principle to weight loss and maintaining a diet. A second principle to healthy weight loss is to read the food labels. Make sure your grocery items include a lot of fiber and little fat, in other words stock up on lots of vegetables, fruits, peas, beans and low fat dairy products.
Steps
- Eat a snack if you're starting to get hungry but have a few hours till dinner / lunch - especially important around 4pm, when you're between lunch and dinner. If you wait and starve yourself you will be more likely to overeat or eat too fast at dinner.
- Supply your kitchen with healthy food only. If you need a treat and have earned it (by eating well or exercising) go out and buy one cookie. Don't keep a bag of special treat cookies in the house, they only convince you that you deserve one when you don't. And yes, when you deserve one, have one. Or better yet, think of a way you can treat yourself that has nothing to do with food!
- Understand that if you are engaging in an activity that you usually snack during, find something to do with your hands instead of eating. Take up knitting, learn to sew, write those thank-you cards, anything to keep you from munching mindlessly while you watch TV, etc.
- Exercise to lose weight. Join a cool gym that has fun classes, enroll in a dance class with friends, go somewhere beautiful to walk. Get friends to do it with you so that you have company and moral support and someone to hold you accountable.
- Know that if you are really craving something, like M&M's, just eat a few. Don't try to satisfy the urge by eating everything else in the house. You will never feel as satisfied and will probably overeat. If you are compulsive, have a trusted friend dole out two to you and stick to it!
- Eat more dense foods like carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. These foods will curb your cravings and are very healthy for you. They help to speed up your metabolism, fight obesity and will help you get to your ideal weight. Do not eat them cooked, eat them raw (cooking vegetables removes the density of it.)
- Make sure to drink plenty of water! 8 glasses a day! Sometimes when you are dehydrated you compensate by eating when really your body just needs water. Drinking plenty of water will also help to maintain you metabolism.
Tips
- Think about how much junk you're eating on a daily basis; if you eat 5 bars of chocolate a day, cut down to four the first day, then 3 the next, etc... then replace your unhealthy snacks with fruit!
- Stay AWAY from the unhealthy sections in the supermarket. Check fitness websites for a checklist http://www.the-master-diet.com/balancedlyfe).
- Believe in your self! You're doing this for YOU.
- There is no tip that works for everyone. Experiment with what works best for you and then work within that system.
- Watch the portion size. Your potato, pasta and rice should be about the size of your computer mouse.
- For portion size, cereal should be the size of your dad's fist, meat a deck of cards and peanut butter a golf ball.
