You can lose weight and feel better simply by making lifestyle changes. There’s not a bunch of stuff to memorize. There’s no calculation of portion sizes. It’s a matter of taking simple steps-over and over again, day after day. Here are some tips and ideas to help you attain a proper diet for training up your muscles faster and staying fit.
1. Keep in mind that when one of the tips below says to “give up” a certain food it does not mean to never let it touch your lips again. It means for the most part, give up that food. It you’re craving bacon find a way to have one slice, one time.
2. Never eat more than three ounces of red meat at any one meal, no matter how lean it is. If you’re at a restaurant,ask for a portion that size.
3. Always keep fresh fruits and vegetable handy. If you’ll be home a lot, have a good variety ready.
4. Never eat food in its original container. Portion it and eat it in a dish. That way, you really know what’s going in your mouth.
5. Learn to waste food. If you’re served too much, learn to throw it away. Whether you eat it or toss it has not affect on people starving in other countries. Tossing it is not “wasting money”. Overeating and then spending money on medical bills for heart disease is a waste of money.
6. Get a calorie-counting book, and sit down with pen and paper. Make a list of all the foods you’re going to give up. Start with foods you’re going to give up. Start with foods you hate. Then list other things you truly can live without. Then make a list of foods you love that you’ll target giving up. Set a deadline. There are thousands of foods. Giving up a few-even-dozens-won’t hurt you.
7. Become a vegetarian.
8. Avoid people who try to force big portion of food on you, even if it’s well meaning relatives.
9. Reduce or eliminate eating foods that contain mostly, of quite a bit of, refined sugar and mind loses the artificial desire for sweets, natural sugar (such a fruit) will taste better to you.
10. All Chinese food is not light, because it has a lot of rice. Find the Chinese take out place that is the healthiest.
Breakfast
1. Skip to skim. If you drink whole milk, switch to two percent for a month, then spend a month on one percent, then switch to skim. Don’t cheat. Soon whole milk will taste like mouthful of butter.
2. Give up bacon and sausage and whole eggs.
3. Give up syrup.
4. Don’t like the taste of fruits or yogurt with coffee? Eat your bread or cereal with coffee, wait awhile and have fruit of yogurt for a midmorning snack.
5. Don’t skip breakfast.
6. Reduce your caffeine intake, and don’t gulp caffeinated coffee on an empty stomach. It’s an appetite stimulant.
7. If you have a long car commute, take fresh fruits with you.
8. Don’t eat muffin anywhere unless you make a low-fat version yourself.
9. Love ready-to-eat cereal but stuck on choc-chums? Leave the kid stuff alone. Explore the cereal aisle a little better.
10. Don’t gobble fat free doughnuts or other pastries for breakfast. Get used to eating simpler plainer fare in the morning.
11. Tell yourself the workplace vending machines are off-limits to you.
12. Make this your mantra at your favorite coffee machine.
Lunch
1. Work out at the gym for lunch (or take a brisk walk), then eat your food at your desk while you do paperwork.
2. Try an extra light lunch, and have a protein drink and fruit in mid-afternoon. This is great if you work out after work.
3. Don’t let co-workers tease you about losing weight, even if you’re already slim and “don’t need to lose weight”.
4. Be mouthy when it comes to choosing the restaurant. Know the places that have lots of healthy choices. If co-workers can’t decide where to go, offer up your list.
5. If you by food from a vendor’s cart at work, ask if the sandwiches are low-fat. If they serve chicken and salad every day, tell the worker to tell the manager to try healthy alternatives.
Lunch and Dinner:
1. Spread your food intake throughout the day. Too many people eat most of their food at dinner-which is about four or five hours before the most sedentary time of day.
2. Fill up on non-buttered or sauced breads, rice and pasta as much as possible. It’ll give you less room for fat and less desire for dessert.
3. Most fast food places have a display holding flyers that list calorie content. Take one until you have a collection. Read them. You might be surprised.
4. It isn’t food if you have make a special order without the sauce. So do this, order the smallest chicken sandwich of the child size hamburger. Scrape off mayonnaise based sauces. But go ahead and enjoy the pickle.
5. Refuse to order a soft drink at a fast food place that does not server a diet cola.
6. Get used to eating meals with plain water.
7. Give up French fries, onion rings.
8. Remember that a salad from a salad bar is only what you make it. If you ladle on the full-fat dressing, you might as well have eaten pizza.
Dinner:
1. If a happy hour event occurs before dinner and you’re hungry arrive late and leave early. If you don’t resist, limit yourself to one type of food, such as fire crackers.
2. Don’t like to cook, or think healthy cooking takes a lot of time, spend an hour in a good, large bookstore. There are kinds of cookbooks that offer low-fat meals you can easily make easily-even with processed foods. There are even cookbooks with recipes that have no more than three
ingredients.
3. Ban butter, regular margarine and regular sour cream. They are heart stoppers you don’t need.
4. Learn to make a pizza crust. Start a tradition with family and friends where you custom make a pizza with all kinds of healthy toppings.
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