Losing weight is as simple as eating less and exercising more, right?
If only it were that simple! As most of us know losing weight can be very challenging, both mentally and physically.
There are many things that influence overeating. Stress
(stress hormones, like cortisol), environment are major contributors. A
basic understanding of when, where can help explain why you may be
overeating. Once you know the why, you can than devise a plan to
increase your odds of losing weight and keeping it off for good!!
First tip: right down everything you eat...and I mean
everything, in a food log. Note time, and any contributory factor you
can identify (running late, ate fast food, stressed at work, grabbed
some junk food, etc.)
Next, determine how many calories you need to maintain your current weight.
This can be done using one of the tools available to you at www.mybesthealthportal.com, or you can do a few simple calculations.
For the simple calculation you do not need to be a math
wiz. Here is a simple way to find out how many calories your body
requires to maintain your current weight.
Multiply your current weight by 15. This is roughly the
number of calories per pound of body weight needed to maintain your
current weight if you are moderately active. Moderately active means
getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day in the form of
exercise (walking at a brisk pace, climbing stairs, or active
gardening). Let's say you're a man who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and
weighs 200 pounds, and you need to lose about 20 pounds to put you in a
healthy weight range. If you multiply 200 by 15, you will get 3,000,
which is the number of calories per day that you need in order to
maintain your current weight (weight-maintenance calories). To lose a 2
pounds of body weight per week, you will need to lose 7000 calories
less, or 1000 per day.
If you are sedentary, you will also need to build more
activity into your day. In order to lose at least a pound a week, try to
do at least 45 minutes of physical activity on most days, and reduce
your daily calorie intake by at least 500 calories.
Because your body will soon adapt to restricted calories
as a survival mechanism it is important that you average and cycle your
calories to reach the desired deficit (7000 per week in the example
above). That would mean decreasing your calories in a manner such as
this:
1500
2000
2500
1500
3000
1500
2000
Using the example above you have reduced your caloric
intake from an average of 3000 calories a day to an average of 2000
calories a day. That would be 7000 calories less a week for a loss of 2
pounds per week.
Meeting your calorie target
How can you meet your daily calorie target? The best
approach iis to add up the number of calories per serving of all the
foods that you eat, using a food log like a menu. You can buy books at
a book store or find information on the web that lists calories per
serving for many foods. You can also find some of this information at
mybesthealthportal.com under the tools/resources tab in the tool bar.
Also take heed to the nutrition labels on all packaged
foods and beverages. They will provide calories per serving information,
and often also provide grams of carbs, fats, protein and more.
Ingredients listed are usually in the orderf of amounts as well.
Reading Before Eating
Always read the labels before eating. This will not only
start to educate you about what you are putting into your body, but it
will also help prevent you from eating the wrong things in error.
Do Not Forget Counting the Drinks
Drinks can have calories as well, and are often not
tacked by dieters, and these same dieters often wonder why they are not
losing weight!!
When tracking your calories always noteg the number of calories and the serving sizes.
Hate Counting?
If you hate counting calories, there are different
approaches where you choose certain meals, foods and eat at specific
times using specific portions (like the Weight Watcher points system).
The Sensible Approach
Whichever method you choose, research shows that a
regular eating schedule - with meals and snacks planned for certain
times each day - makes for the most successful approach.
This is also important for your long term success in
keeping the weight off for good. Sticking with an eating schedule
increases your chance of maintaining your new weight.
If you decide to not count calories (which personally I
believe is the best way), and plan on trying a common sense approach it
is important that you follow a few simple guidelines which will help
increase your chances and success in losing and keeping off the weight.
1. Minimize the bad fats. Fats are 9 calories a gram more than double that of protein and carbohydrates.
2. Minimize empty calories such as gravies and other toppings.
3. Eat foods that are filling and low in calories.
That means meals and snacks made with whole grains, such as brown rice,
whole-wheat bread, and oatmeal, as well as legumes, such as lentils and
other beans.
4. Consider fish and poultry over meat.
5. When you eat meat, choose lean cuts of meat and modest amounts - about 3½ or 4 ounces per serving.
6. Avoid fried foods. For stovetop
cooking, it's better either to stir-fry foods in nonstick pans lightly
coated with a cooking-oil spray or to braise them in broth or wine.
Baking, broiling, and roasting add no extra fat to your meals.
7. Use low-fat or nonfat dairy foods. Milk,
yogurt, and cheese are good sources of protein and calcium, but the
whole-milk versions of these dairy products are very high in fat, so
substitute them for the low fat or fat free varieties whenever possible.
8. Eat slowly. For more than 30 years,
dieters have been told to eat slowly to reduce their intake of food.
This idea "It started in about 1972 as a hypothesis that eating slowly
would allow the body time for the development of satiety [fullness] and
we would eat less," according to Kathleen Melanson, assistant professor
of nutrition and food science at the University of Rhode Island. "Since
then we've heard it everywhere and it has become common knowledge. But
no studies had been conducted to prove it." Not until recently!!! In a
laboratory study of college-age women over the past year led by Melanson
confirmed the long-held belief. In the study, 30 women made two visits
to Melanson's lab, and each time they were given a large plate of pasta
and told to eat as much as they wanted. When they were told to eat
quickly, they consumed 646 calories in nine minutes, but when they were
encouraged to pause between bites and chew each mouthful 15 to 20 times,
they ate just 579 calories in 29 minutes. The study demonstrated that
satiety signals need time to develop. The women took in fewer calories
when they ate more slowly, and they had a greater feeling of satiety at
meal completion and 60 minutes afterwards!!! This data strongly suggests
benefits to eating more slowly. The study also interviewed the
participants who stated that they enjoyed the meal more when they ate
slowly than when they ate quickly. Of important note, One potentially
confounding factor in the study was that the volunteers were provided
water to drink with their meal, and when eating slowly they had
considerably more time to drink before completing their meal. The
greater consumption of water might have contributed to satiety under the
slow condition. However, Melanson said that this factor reflects the
real-world situation, since eating slowly allows more time for water
consumption.
9. Drink lots of water. Water can help
you lose weight and feel full (see above) while also being very good for
the body as well. Drinking cold water is best. Studies show that
drinking cold water rather than tepid water can burn calories; drinking
about 8 ounces of ice-cold water (1 degree Celsius) would cause the body
to expend about 9 calories. Although this is not a huge deal, if you
drank 100 ounces a day this way you could lose a pound a month, besides
the calories you might not eat while drinking the water which would also
help you feel fuller. You can read more about it at : How Stuff Works:
"Does drinking ice water burn calories?"
10. Avoid fast foods. Hamburgers,
tacos, fried chicken, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, French fries, and other
fast-food meals and snacks tend to promote weight gain for two reasons.
First, they are high in fat, calories, or both. Second, the "value
meals" are often excessively large and tempt you to overeat.
11. Minimize beverages that contain calories. Why? because they can add up quickly and often leave you feeling hungry.
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