Weight Loss Made Easy

Should we be banning fast food from our diet completely? Banning fast food is a good idea if you absolutely can’t control yourself when you go to a fast food restaurant, but if you can order healthy alternatives instead of the greasy stuff then there’s really not need to completely start banning fast food.

Believe it or not there are healthy alternatives at fast food restaurants,  therefore banning fast food altogether in not necessary. The salads at fast food restaurants are quite good, just leave out the crutons and try a low fat dressing.

If salad’s not your thing, try a grilled chicken sandwich instead. Eat it without the sauce to save caloried and without the bun to save even more calories. Banning fast food can be fun if you do it right.

You know that little feeling you get in your gut that you think means you’re hungry? You know you just ate an hour ago, so you know you shouldn’t be hungry, but there it is, teasing you and making you think that you must me. Suddenly all you can think about is how to make this feeling go away.

Stop! It’s not hunger. It’s a trick you’re body’s playing on you. Some how, some way, your body has gotten another body function mixed up with hunger.

What is Hunger?

If it really was hunger your stomach would be making that growling noise and would be rumbling around. Is it doing that? Can you actually hear it? Can other people hear it? If the answer is no, then you’re not really hungry.

Then What Is It?

That feeling that you’re mistaking for hunger is actually your stomach digesting the food you just ate. That feeling means that there’s still food in your stomach, so you don’t need to go adding more food.

What Should I Do?

You still want to make that feeling go away. I know, it’s really annoying. Here are some things you can try:

• Drink some water, tea or something else
• Go for a walk or bike ride
• Play with your kids or pets
• Do a puzzle or other activity
• Work in your garden
•  Something, anything to keep your mind off food

This is my own personal diet. I’m going to lose weight and gain control of my bad eating habits once and for all with this little trick. So far so good. The first few days are hard, but once you get the hang of it, it really starts getting quite easy.

The main goals of the diet are:

• keep from getting hungry
• keep blood sugar level
• keep calories low
• cut out cravings

Here are the main rules of the diet:

• eat every 2 hours
• eat between 150 calories at each most meals
• breakfast, lunch and dinner can from 150-400 calories
• you can eat whatever you want at these meals, but you’ll feel better and have more energy if you eat healthy foods.

Some of my favorite foods for this diet:

• cheese (low fat)
• yogurt (low fat, sharp)
• cereal (high fiber, low fat milk)
• half sandwich (turkey, chicken)
•  fruit or veggies
• oatmeal or cream of rice

Iron is essential to a healthy diet. Make sure you eat iron rich foods every day to keep your body running on track. Without enough iron in your diet you will feel tiered all the time and your body just won’t want to do anything you want it to do.  Anemia is a condition sometimes caused by not eating enough iron rich foods. If your iron gets this low your doctor may put you on iron supplements. Don’t let this happen, eat your iron.

Here’s a list of iron rich foods you need to add to your diet:

- tofu
- baked potato
- pasta
- certain cereals
- lentils
- kidney beans
- black beans
- spinach
- liver
- clams, mussels, oysters
- beef
- shrimp
- sardines
- turkey

I don’t know about you, but if I go shopping without a shopping list I’ll end up buying everything that looks good, whether it’s good for me or not. I can’t possibly eat that much in one week, but my eyes think I can.

To stop this from happening, create a meal plan. Plan out your meals, decide what you really need to buy. Then create a shopping list. Everything should be included, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, even desserts.

If an item is not on your shopping list, don’t buy it. That’s final. This will not only help you stick to a diet better, it’ll also help you save money. A lot of people buy too much, then they end eating too much. They also end up throwing a lot out, wasting money.

Fiber makes you feel full, so try to find ways to eat the 30 recommended grams a day. Fiber doesn’t digest. So it goes through your system in it’s whole form. Since it doesn’t digest, it doesn’t have calories. Drink water with your high fiber diet. This will make you feel fuller longer.

Here are some high fiber foods that can add to your diet to help you lose weight.

- Whole Grain Bread 2-4g
- Baked Potato, small 3g
- Chickpeas, 1/2C 5g
- Raspberries, 1/2C 4g
- Pear, medium 4g
- Fiber One cereal, 1/2C 5g
- Dried Figs, 2 medium 3.5g
- Apple, medium with skin 4.5g
- Spaghetti, whole-wheat, 1C 6.3g
- Bran Flakes, 3/4C 5g
- Oatmeal, 1C 4g
- Lentils, 1C 15.6g
- Black Beans, 1C 15g
- Lima Beans, 1C 13.2g
- Baked Beans, canned, 1C 10.4g
- Peas, 1C 8.8g
- Brussel Sprouts, 1C 6.4g
- Popcorn, 3C 3.6g

If you want to lose weight, make sure you eat breakfast every day. Studies have shown that people who thin eat breakfast and are less likely to gain weight. This is mainly because eating breakfast ensures that you’re not starving come lunch time. If you’re starving at lunch then you’re more likely to overeat or binge.

If you eat about 200 - 300 calories for breakfast, it’s likely that you’ll eat about 100 calories less during the day. Skipping breakfast is not an excuse for eating a lot the rest of the day. No longer will you need to use that excuse either. You’ll feel more in control of your diet if you don’t allow yourself to become famished.

Cheese may seem like a necessity on your sandwich, but it’s really  not. It’s just something extra you add to your sandwich that you don’t really need to have there. The cheese you add to your sandwich adds on an extra 100 calories or so. Leave it out and save 100 calories a day.

The same goes for that mayonnaise you add.  Mayonnaise adds about 100 calories per tablespoon to your sandwich. You probably add more than that. Instead use mustard. It adds flavor without the calories.

Then add some lettuce and a slice of tomato to the top of your sandwich. You won’t regret it. Adding lettuce and tomato really adds another layer of taste without the calories.

Yogurt has carbs, protein and fat, the three building blocks of food, all in one little package. It also has calcium which, some studies have shown, helps burn fat. If you eat fat free yogurt your cutting out the fat and calories cut you’re still keeping the protein and calcium, which you need to help you lose fat and burn calories faster.

A study published in the April 2005 International Journal of Obesity took two groups of people and put them on a diet. Both diets had everyone cut 500 calories a day from their diets. One group had to eat one yogurt a day, the other group had to eat three yogurts a day. The three a day group lost 22% more weight, 61% more body fat, and 81% more stomach fat than the other group.

If that doesn’t convince you that yogurt is good for weight loss than nothing will. Give it a try, have at least one yogurt a day as a snack. If nothing else, it makes you feel full longer and that’s a good thing too.

Some weight loss bars or diet drinks are low in calories but also low in everything else. Then you’re hungry again in an hour, what good is that? When choosing weight loss bars, drinks or meals look for something with substance. Read the label.

Does that weight loss product have fiber in it? How about protein? Fiber and protein are two things that help you feel full longer. You don’t want a weight loss product that has a lot of carbs but nothing else.

If you’re going to use the weight loss product to replace a meal then it’s even more important that it have fiber and protein in it. Look for meal replacement products to have a minimum of 10g of protein and 3g of fiber, more if possible. Otherwise you’ll just be hungry again and want to eat more.

If you make a pizza yourself you can make it a healthy part of your diet. Any pizza has three basic ingredients: crust, sauce and cheese. We’re going to modify it a little to make it healthier.

First start with a pizza crust, you can buy them at the store pre-baked or you can just get some pizza dough. Pizza sauce is pretty low in calories, it’s basically just tomato, so we can stay with that. For the cheese you’re going to want to make sure to get low fat or fat free mozzarella. To add some flavor you can mix the mozzarella with another low fat or fat free cheese and sprinkle some Parmesan over the top.

Now for the fun part. Time to add some toppings. What do you like? Skip the pepperoni, we’re trying to be healthy here. Use anything that’s a veggie or a fruit: mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, olives, spinach, mandarin oranges. Nuts are a good choice too and add some extra protein. Add some herbs and spices on top and you have yourself a healthy, delicious pizza.

They say that if you want to loose weight, you should eat salad. It’s true, to a point. Lettuce, any kind, is extremely low in calories, almost non-existent. Some say that green veggies like lettuce have negative calories, that means that your body used more calories to burn it then it actually has. That sounds good, right?

Imagine this though. You take your lettuce and your ready to turn it into a healthy salad. What are you going to do next?

You want it to taste good so you add grated cheese, bacon bits, croutons, chopped eggs and some nice rich Thousand Island dressing to top it off. Do you know what you just did? You created a meal, not a low calorie salad. Your salad now weighs in at about 300 calories. That’s not going to help you lose weight.

Let’s try again. How about adding some grated carrots, tomato, sunflower seeds, sliced onion, peppers, slivered almonds, celery, walnuts and top it with a low calorie dressing. Now you have a healthy, low calorie salad and you’ve saved yourself a couple hundred calories. You’ll be full and satisfied, believe me.

Don’t overdo it on the red meat. Studies have shown that people who eat more than 18 oz of red meat a week are at a higher risk for colon cancer. No one likes that. If you like your meat, eat in moderation. Red meat includes things like beef, pork and lamb, not to mention hot dogs, lunch meat and bacon.

Don’t think you’re safer if you eat a lot of tofu to replace the red meat in your diet. It’s recommended that you don’t eat more than one serving (6 oz of tofu) a day of soy products. Soy is very good for you and a great alternative to meat protein, but too much of anything can be bad.