How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 12:11PM From television commercials to magazine articles, from talking with friends and co-workers and to grocery stores marketing their diet foods, everywhere you look and go, you hear about some new diet out there to try. If you look at the millions of diets available in the world today, how is it that people still struggle with weight loss? Obviously, some aren’t the real deal. Below are some tried and true strategies that will help you lose the right way, and keep it off.
Diet Ditching
Fad diets have a 95% rate of failing. In most cases, weight lost is gained back within five years of a fad diet. Some people gain more weight than they did before they even started a diet. People that believe in diets have often tried several different diets, and are now convincing themselves that the new diet will work, unlike the past diet. This cycle continues on and on, with no significant value at all. This is because dieting focuses far too heavily on things like counting carbohydrates or calories, or eating a special kind of food and nothing else. You become too obsessed with the diet and food and then eventually binge to satisfy a taste you have been missing. Think about it – do you really think you’ll NEVER eat carbs EVER again?
Well, unless you can keep that promise, you’ll gain back every pound you lose. Furthermore, diets slow down your metabolism, because you’re often eating less (another reason you lose weight to begin with), and therefore can make you gain weight down the road. In order to really lose weight, you must focus on how to enjoy foods that are good for you, cut back on foods that are bad for you (without going cold turkey) and how to eat only when we are truly hungry. As you might guess, these are all lifestyle changes. There’s no point in only doing these for a month or two. These should be permanent changes. Now, let’s get started!
Hungry or Full
Learning how to recognize when you are truly hungry and full will really help you to keep weight off. Train yourself to only eat when really hungry, and stop when you are truly full. Keep a book or journal of the foods you eat and this will help you lose more weight. Writing down your levels of hunger, what you eat to curb that hunger, and how much you ate until you were full will help you figure out what works best, to make you feel best. When we journal information such as this, we begin to see patterns for what is working and what is not.
Eat Slowly
Eating slowly allows time for the body to know when it’s full. If you eat too fast, you’re body does not have the proper time to send the signal to your brain that you’re full. It usually takes about 20 minutes to begin feeling full, so slowing down the time it takes to eat will help you lose weight and keep it off.
Portion Control
To lose weight and keep it off, try to lower the calories you eat while limiting your portions as well. Never have more than ¾ of your plate covered in food. Drink lots of water with your meal. Often, the problem is simply having too much food in front of you. So, remember that you can always take food home or get a second helping. Perhaps it’s best to split large meals with a friend, or put half of the food you ordered away for later before you begin to eat. If you’re still hungry, you can always take it out!
Don’t Deny Foods
When you take away a specific food you love, you are depriving yourself and will probably fail. The best way to lose weight and keep it off is by balancing what you eat. If you love cookies, have one smaller cookie after a meal and enjoy it. Stay away from eating three or four, but savor the one you eat. Or, help yourself to quite a few every few days. If you’re trying to cut out pop, allow yourself an indulgence Friday and Saturday nights, but stick with water the rest of the week.
Give up the dieting and change your way of eating altogether for a new, healthy you!
Victoria Richards writes about health, finance & saving money at www.flowerdelivery.net.
Reader Comments (4)
It always feels great to stop by and read the information. Liked reading the information.
Might suggest that something vital for weight loss is "yearning to lose weight", it all starts with desire, among the most important things is to have the right mindset to achieve our goal, if we combine 85% and 15% correct mindset exercise , food, hydration, I'm sure we'll be losing weight in a "my God!".
your tips for losing weight is very effective thank you
What a great article, it could also be said to add to all this, a positive attitude and desire to lose weight, we could achieve amazing results, since most people do not lose weight by holding 85% of information and only 15% attitude, when it really should be 85% attitude and only 15% of information, I hope this advice would serve up soon, thanks for the article.