Smart Weight Loss
There are many ways to drop excess weight, but the key to keeping it off is to take a long-term approach that becomes a lifestyle rather than a temporary diet. A smart weight loss plan will reward you with a sleek silhouette while enhancing your health.
You needn’t walk around with a diet journal, jotting down every carbohydrate you consume and noting every gram of sugar you ingest. It may sound too easy to be true, but simply making wise food choices each day and carving out some time for physical activity throughout the week will quickly make a noticeable impact on your body’s shape and health.
Just Say NO to Diet Pills
Diet pills are often dangerous and sometimes packed with life-threatening levels of legal or even illegal prescription medicines. Even when they’re relatively safe, pills, like fad diets and popular lap-band surgeries, only temporarily address the symptoms of weight gain. They don’t deal with the underlying behaviors that ultimately result in the return of the bulge.
Shun artificial sweeteners, too. Research has indicated that using certain artificial sweeteners may cause people to eat more, not less, and gain rather than lose weight, partially due to potential upsets in metabolism as a side effect of the substitutes. If your sweet tooth demands some attention, first try to satisfy it with fruits or fruit juice, or try stevia. This safe, all-natural, zero-calorie sweetener is readily available in grocery stores.
If need be, go ahead and use a little sugar. It’s far better to allow yourself a modicum of sweet delight than to deny yourself completely, only to gorge yourself on triple chocolate cupcakes later in the day to make up for the deprivation. “In all things, moderation,” as the Greek poet Hesiod advised.
Read Your Way Thin
There is great wisdom in wielding a discerning eye at the grocery store. Read the ingredients of every label before placing food items into your cart. Leave anything with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) on the shelf, as HFCS has been largely fingered as contributing to obesity. You may be surprised just how many food items contain that ingredient!
Bottoms Up
To slim down, be sure to drink up. You'll need to get your hands on as much dihydroxy monoxide as possible, and drink it all day long. Cheap and readily available, it's just good old H₂O, your best friend in your weight loss efforts. Many toxins are trapped within fat cells, and as the fat dissolves, the toxins need to be washed out of your system to improve health. Water is the key beverage that will rehydrate your cells and help rid toxins from your body. It also helps to clear the complexion and drive away some cravings for sugar. Many people find that the more water they drink, the more water they want to drink. So even if you're not a big fan of water right now, start drinking and get ready to discover a new favorite beverage.
Drinking water also helps you to feel fuller, particularly when a glass is consumed about a half hour prior to a meal, making you less likely to overeat at the table. Another bonus!
Eat Up to Drop Pounds
There’s a reason why mom always told you to start your day with a healthy breakfast. Not only does it supply you with much needed energy for your daily activities, breakfast is also instrumental in setting your metabolism for the day. When you skip the morning meal, your body shifts into reserve mode and burns fewer calories throughout the day as a result. It’s the body’s way of protecting itself when a food supply is cut back. Rev up your metabolism by eating a smart breakfast every morning. Choose sensible, nutrition-packed foods with a good amount of fiber to keep you feeling full, and balance the meal by including selections from the various food groups.
Balanced Breakfast
Treat Yourself to Fine Dining
When dining is solely about putting food in your gullet to fill yourself up, then all of the focus is on consuming something, anything, so long as it satisfies that gnawing hunger. This forces a perspective of need rather than desire, and has an underlying current of fear attached to it. Of course, everyone must eat to survive, but when food is viewed as nothing more a means to fill a hole, then the only pleasure to be derived from the dining experience is achieving that sense of fullness.
When you go out to a fine restaurant, the waiters don’t hurriedly glance in the kitchen to choose “whatever’s easiest to fix” and slop that onto a plate for you. Successful restaurateurs know that it’s more than the food; it’s a package formula, combining cuisine with presentation. Smart dieters can benefit from adopting that concept.
When packing meals for on-the-go, don’t throw together the same tired sandwich and call that “lunch.” Consider instead crafting an entire meal to please all the senses. Incorporate various tastes (salty, sweet, savory) and textures (grainy, crunchy, creamy) into the meal to provide your palate with a potpourri of pleasure. Brighten up the presentation with invigorating colors, pairing cheery yellow squash with bright red tomatoes on a bed of deep green spinach. Add a grilled chicken breast with a light glaze of fruit juice and a side of crispy baked sweet potato strips to complete the entrée.
Compare that image with a plate of mashed potatoes and gravy beside a slab of meat and a side of cauliflower. Meals consisting of similar textures and colors are not only almost guaranteed to be lacking in well-rounded nutritional content, they are depressing to the spirit. Depressed people are more likely to overeat and feel deserving of a little treat to cheer themselves up a bit. That’s when the quart of ice cream disappears! So go ahead and have a little fun with your meals to make dining a more enjoyable experience.
It's Not About Denial. It's About Freedom.
Attitude makes all the difference in working towards a slimmer you. Come from a perspective of denial, and you’ll resent the experience, gritting your teeth until you reach your goal, only to go right back to familiar old habits. But when viewed from a perspective of freedom, smart weight loss can be easy and even fun. Explore new fruits and vegetables; try different methods of food preparation; and challenge yourself to create the loveliest dining presentations for yourself. Embrace the freedom that comes with the ability to choose from a wider variety of foods and activities to enjoy. Keep making smart choices and before long, your body will enjoy the freedom that comes with being thin.
© M.S. Ross - All Rights Reserved
Diet Disasters
Have you used diet pills, followed a crazy fad diet or taken other extreme measures to drop some excess pounds? How successful were those methods, long-term? How long did it take for you to abandon those methods and return to your old eating behaviors? If you've got a diet disaster story to tell, share it with us in the comments section below.
More Healthy Weight Loss Tips
- Healthy Diet for Weight Loss
If you eat healthy, you will never need to count calories to lose weight. Besides looking slim you will also have good health as the more important benefit. - Healthy Cooking Tips For Weight Loss
Healthy cooking for weight loss is something that is easily attainable if you just follow a few simple tips for healthy cooking.
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