The easiest and most painless way to lose weight is to start eating healthy. There is no need to deprive or torture yourself of many of your favorite foods. Between portion control, paying attention to cooking methods, and added contents you can take in fewer calories. So a Healthy Diet is the best long term path for weight loss success.
There’s no need to go into a starvation mode to loose weight. The key to weight loss is very basic, take in less calories than you burn. People who tend to eat healthy food can limit their calories per day to 1500 or 1600 with no problem. People who don’t, may take in up to 2500 calories. Now if you’re a long distance runner or serious bicycle rider who burns an extra 1500 calories a day, that 2500 calories is no problem. But if you work at a desk all day, do little exercise of any type, and only burn about 1500 calories a day or less and take in 2500, you’re going to be needing some new clothes often.
The next best thing to exercise is lowering your daily intake of calories. And you can do that by changing your eating habits. Exercise is still a good thing for keeping your heart and body in shape. Everyone should find some type of exercise from just walking to sports activities. But not all of us have a lot of time, so reducing the calories is some times a lot easier and it’s something that anyone can do even if they can’t always exercise as much as they should.
I’m not a big fan of artificial sweeteners but they can help in keeping the amount of sugar down to a reasonable amount. Trying to avoid sugar in pre-packaged foods is a challenge. Sugar is added to just about anything (that includes the corn syrup varieties too) to make it taste better. So if you can control or even eliminate the sugar you add, it’s a good thing.
Fat added in the frying process enhances the flavor and gives you that satisfying crunch. But that taste and crunch can add a whole lot of calories. Most often this frying has the bad kind of calories that are from saturated and Trans fat. These fats are high in cholesterol, clog arteries, and can put you at risk for heart disease. Saturated and Trans fats are bad for your heart and your weight loss efforts.
The good fats are monounsaturated fats from olive, corn, or peanut oils. Polyunsaturated fats called Omega-3 fatty acids that come from fish like Salmon or Lake Trout are also a much healthier choice. Flaxseed and Flaxseed oil are also beneficial. We all need a little fat in our daily diet to stay healthy, so any food items with Omega-3 fat is a good way to add some fat that is much less damaging to our health.
There is a huge difference in the amount of calories in grilled or broiled fish and fried fish. Just changing to grilled or broiled fish, chicken, meat, or other fried items can save you a bunch of calories. Use olive oil for cooking instead of butter, mix olive oil and seasoning on any bread instead of butter, look at products such as mayonnaise that have canola oil instead of saturated fats. That can help you both in weight loss and health.
Small changes in your preparation can change a high calorie meal into a healthier one that is lower in calories too. You can reduce the number of calories by up to a third each day if you just change your eating habits.
Portion control can help you reduce calories too. Many restaurants serve way too much food these days to compensate for higher prices. A good way around this is to share a meal with a friend, or save ½ of the meal and take it home to eat later. Eating a little slower helps too since it gives your stomach time to signal when it’s full. I think we all have experience an uncomfortable feeling when we eat too quickly and by the time we feel full, we also feel bloated.
Trying to stay within the healthy eating habits is often a challenge. And we all get that urge every once in awhile for French fries, fried fish, or a hot fudge sundae. And that’s ok, don’t worry about it and go ahead. But make up for it in another meal that day. Cut back on the other two meals to compensate, or walk an extra 30 minutes that day.
If you intake extra calories for what ever reason, don’t panic, just try and find a way to burn them or cut back somewhere else. Be reasonable in your expectations on weight loss too. If you drop 3-400 calories a day, add a little exercise, and watch what and how you eat you’ll slowly lose weight. Maybe only 3-4 pounds a month, but in no time you’ll see some progress.
And if you adopt the healthy eating methods mentioned above, the weight won’t come back. If you can find that balance of calories in and calories out, it will last the rest of your life. Small gradual changes are much easier to maintain than going from starving to binging every other month.
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