The bottom line for people who want to lose weight is making a commitment to yourself. Unfortunately, commitments to ourselves are the easiest ones to break! There is no magic pill, 70% of how you look and feel is based on what you eat. All you have to do is take inventory. How do you look and feel right now? If the answer isn't "great" then it's time to get back to simple basics and common sense.
Here's my secret behind the "anti-diet". Eat whole foods, control portion sizes, and track it! Diets are rarely successful long term, good habits last a lifetime. After trying every single type of diet out there, I became one of those people in analysis paralysis. One person's ideal diet seemed to be another person's worst nightmare. For every pro there was a con. Some books suggested to eat less, be a vegetarian, eat meat, eat raw, eat right for your particular body type, rotate it, weigh it, count it, and the list of what not to eat went on and on. I felt so much deprivation that I would live and die for "cheat days." There is no perfect diet for people who want to lose weight but there are healthy habits that can make a big difference. So let me save you the agony of defeat and distill this down for you.
First of all, eat whole food. In other words, if it comes from mother nature, eat it. Whole foods are as close to nature as you can get and are nutrient dense If it comes in a box, throw it away. Eat low on the glycemic index. You can find this list on line. In general, vegetables and beans are low, breads and starches are high. In your grocery store, color is king, so load your shopping cart with colorful food from the produce section of the supermarket. This is where the majority of food you should be consuming comes from. Stick with sprouted whole grains, and, if possible, buy organic free range meat. When our cells receive nutrition delivered to our bodies through the micronutrients in food from mother nature, it sets a whole chain reaction of activity that helps stabilize our cravings, build our immune systems, aid in digestion, make us feel better, and give us energy. Processed food and pasteurized food is dead food. Your body needs live enzymes to function optimally! By the way, most vitamins and supplements are processed and are dead, this includes pasteurized organic juice and dairy. Save your money!
For people who want to lose weight eating five or six small meals a day will help manage portion control and hunger pangs. Pay attention! Your body can only process about 30 to 40 grams of protein every two and a half hours. This is about the size of your hand and the thickness of your palm. Likewise, your body can only process about 300 calories or 75 grams of carbs every one a half hours. That is about the size of a medium baked potato. What the body doesn't process, it stores as fat! When our body can't use something that has been consumed, it saves it for another day! It doesn't matter if it's lean, clean, low fat, or low carb - too much is too much and your body will store it! If you eat every three hours, you will never really allow yourself to get so hungry that a small portion of food won't satisfy you.
It takes 3500 calories to gain or lose one pound of fat. So, if you want to lose 1 pound of fat per week, you must reduce your intake or burn 500 calories per day. The only way to truly know how much you are consuming is to track it. Most people who want to lose weight underestimate the number of calories they consume per day, so using a good calorie tracker will raise your awareness. There is a wonderful app called MyFitnessPal or you can go to http://www.myfitnesspal.com. It's a free calorie tracker. This tool is very effective - if you use it consistently. After you answer a few profile questions, MyFitnessPal will tell you how many calories per day you should consume. Then it starts a countdown as you enter your food consumption. It also takes into account what you burn from doing exercise. Becoming aware of what you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat will help you make good choices.
Meal planning and preparation takes time and thought. Snacks should be around 200 calories each. These are really important to keep your blood sugar balanced and control your hunger. If you get in the habit of planning, this will get easier for you over time. There are tons of books you can buy on healthy snacks to give you a multitude of ideas.
Basically, for people who want to lose weight eat lean, clean, fresh, and every three hours! If you eat like a king for breakfast, a prince at lunch and a pauper at dinner, you will be on the right track to creating a permanent lifestyle change that takes the word diet out of your vocabulary!
