Diet & Nutrition
Lose Weight Naturally: No Diet Necessary
Before you pledge allegiance to a particular diet plan, take heed. More often than not, weight lost through dieting finds its way back into your body.
But the news is not all bad: While prevailing lore states that 95 percent of people who lose weight regain it within a few months or years, recent research shows that roughly 20 percent of overweight people successfully manage to keep the pounds from coming back on.
Still, that's a low success rate, and it underscores the inherent flaw of the dieting mentality — which seeks a quick, often drastic fix for habits that were years in the making.
So, what is the best approach to long-term weight loss? Rather than counting every calorie or scratching entire food groups from your diet, make healthful eating — along with fitness and stress reduction — a part of your daily lifestyle.
By thinking of weight loss not as a primary goal but rather as a by-product of making important health choices, you are on your way to addressing the underlying causes of weight gain — not merely the symptoms.
Healthful diet
Food journalist Michael Pollan succinctly advised in a recent New York Times article: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
These three points form the basis of a healthful diet:
- Eat food. "If it’s something your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize," says Mark Hyman, MD, author of "UltraMetabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss" (Scribner, 2006), "you probably shouldn't eat it." Choose whole, fresh foods rather than processed food products. In other words, don't just avoid processed and refined white bread, but also limit enriched whole-wheat bread, which is loaded with processed nutrients and preservatives. Fresh whole-grain bread straight from the bakery would be better, while a dish of cooked wheat berries would be even more nutritious. The greater amount of food you eat that is whole and unmodified (rather than being a food product), the more healthful (and — believe it or not — satisfying) your diet will be.
- Not too much. There's no getting around the fact that one of the most healthful and effective techniques for weight loss is moderate calorie restriction. Since weight loss boils down to consuming fewer calories than you burn, portion control is a non-negotiable element. To safely lose weight, shoot for a deficit of 250 to 500 calories per day — anything greater could leave you very hungry and more vulnerable to impulsive indulgences with bad-for-you food. Tip: Restricting the number of calories is one of the most difficult requirements to weight loss. Try substituting quality for quantity. You may find that by choosing organic whole foods, you'll need less to feel satiated.
- Mostly plants. Vegetables should make up the largest portion of your diet, as the antioxidants in fresh produce have a powerful effect against the free radicals in our bodies. Also, since vegetables (especially leafy ones) are low in carbohydrates, eating a plant-based diet translates into fewer calories overall. Remember, variety not only adds spice but longevity, too. As omnivores, we require a certain amount of complexity in our diet in order to stay healthy. Include as many different colors and varieties of fruits and vegetables in your diet as you can.
Sweepstakes
comments
Begin by NOT EATING ANYTHING AFTER 8 pm. Make your last meal of the day before that!
Avoid white flour and sugar! You should eat bread, but make it wheat bread. If you must eat sweets, buy some cookies sweetened with Splenda. Also, please, avoid soda and fruit juices... Drink water instead!
You don't need to break the bank to eat healthier: Sweet potatoes are highly nutritious, packed with antioxidants and very affordable. Buy some, stick them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400, and you'll have a healthy satisfying delicious food available even for snaking. Tomatoes, corn, mixed vegetables from the frozen section, most of them you just microwave. Buy wheat tortillas, stuff them with veggies, and grill them for a filling, nutritious meal!
Please, try to avoid red meat, which is not healthy at all. If you must eat meat, try more of the white meats, or fish, and grilled them or bake them.
Finally, don't miss any meals! You should have breakfast, a midmorning sanck, lunch, a midafternoon snack, and dinner. just mind the portions, make them not big!
And if you dont see any weight loss at first, dont get discouraged, that is normal, and it takes time. If you stick to your plan, you'll see the pounds beginning to disappear, and most important of all , you'll loose the feeling of helplesness, when you realize that YOU ARE ACTUALLY IN CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE, and that's the real and only truth, Deborah!