Food Portion Sizes Critical To Successful Diet

Dec | Leave a Comment

Dieting And Food Portion Sizes

if you have been trying to lose weight lately, you are probably familiar with some of the obstacles that we all face. Sometimes, it can be difficult or impossible to figure out why a weight-loss program isn’t working. Are you eating too much fatty food? Are you not eating enough grains or vegetables? What about protein – how much of that should you eat, and what should it come from? Is it all right to eat animal products, or should you switch to tofu? All of these are questions that most dieters have to struggle with on a daily basis.

One of the most important questions, however, is one that many dieters neglect to think about enough – food portion sizes. No matter how healthy you eat, research shows that if you eat too much you simply won’t lose weight. The old myth that you can eat as much vegetables and grains as you want is rapidly losing credibility, and many weight-loss experts and gurus put food portion size as the most important factor in how much weight you can manage to take off.

The problem is that there is no one guide to portion sizes of food. There is the USDA food portion sizes guideline to look at, but this isn’t universally accepted. The government is often bureaucratic, and it can take years to update food guidelines to the latest thinking. As a matter of fact, each diet plan seems to have its own guidelines for food portion sizes.

The important thing is to find a standard and stick with it. Too many people make the mistake of trying to eyeballs food portion sizes, but this neglect some of the problems that we face in our culture. Most of us are raised in an atmosphere where more is better. Restaurants, cafeterias, and even households tend to serve up huge portions of food, so what looks normal to us might actually be except excessive.

One of my friends – a dieting expert himself – recommends this rule thumb for determining food portion sizes. If you are just starting to diet, try out a basic type of food – a plain vegetable dish, a breast of chicken, or whatever – and see how much you need to feel like you have had your fill. Roughly two thirds of that is the appropriate food portion size. When you are first starting dieting, you want to be hungry all the time. If you aren’t, you are probably eating a little too much.

Low Carb Recipes

Dec | 2 Comments

I was surprised when I first found out how many low carb recipes that were. You see, I have been having a huge amount of trouble losing weight. I have tried cooking with low calorie recipes, but they never filled me up. I hated being hungry of the time. You see, I grew up without enough to eat all the time. As a result, I was pretty addicted to food. I munched whenever I felt uncomfortable. A low calorie diet just wasn’t going to work for me. That is why I started looking at a low carb diet recipe book.

If you are not familiar with low carbohydrate recipes, you probably should be. After all, believe it or not you cook them every day! A steak and onions? Perfectly reasonable low carb recipe. What about eggs and bacon? Just the same! There are low carb meals everywhere if you just look for them. Unfortunately, healthy low carb recipes are little more difficult. You see, eating steaks, eggs, and bacon every day isn’t exactly the best thing for your health. Fortunately, there are plenty of low carb recipes that are healthy for you.

My favorite low carb recipe is salad. It is easy to make a low carbohydrate salad. As a matter of fact, as long as you don’t add potatoes or other starchy vegetables to it, you are almost guaranteed that it is low in carbohydrates. You can add anything you want to it – meat, avocados, nuts, vegetables – and it will stay low in carbohydrates. Adding a little bit of fat on to your salad isn’t so bad for you as long as it isn’t combined with high carbohydrate food.

We even tried doing low carb recipes for the wedding. We had a wedding planner who was skilled in putting together alternative sorts of weddings. They could cater for vegetarian recipes, vegans, Kosher dining, and everything else. We talked about doing low carb recipes, but in the end we decided against it. After all, a wedding is such a special day. You only have it once – at least you hope you will only have it once – so there is no point in wasting that day eating healthy food. Bring on the steak and wedding cake! You can start dieting again after the honeymoon. In the mean time, it is better to just enjoy yourself. After all, you only live once.

Post Thanksgiving Weightloss Tips

Nov | Leave a Comment

Even the most seasoned weight loss expert can use some weightloss tips every so often. Our eating habits are tied very closely with our behavior and using a behavioral approach to dieting can be beneficial to certain types of people who have bad eating habits that can be overcome with a little behavioral intervention.

Many times an individual eats without thinking. This means that the person’s habitual behavior has overrun his cognitive functioning. In a nutshell, we basically shove food into our mouths just because it is there. Among the many weightloss tips offered, thinking before snacking is the prime tip as far as the behavioral approach goes. When we act on impulse, we rarely make good choices.

The behaviorist will look at the problem in a number of ways. The best approach would be to get into the habit of slowing down a little bit. Some good weightloss tips include waiting ten minutes before grabbing that snack that is calling you from the pantry. You may discover that you are not really hungry. If you wait ten minutes the craving will most likely go away on its own.

You can also opt to go for a brisk walk when the urge to cheat on your diet arises. This is a great way to get much needed exercise along with self-control. You will be less likely to run to the pantry upon entering the home after a jaunt around the neighborhood. You will be more likely to go for a big glass of cold water instead.

Some people laugh at these two weightloss tips but they do work if you take a behavioral approach. You have to focus on your actions. The best way to look at it is making priorities. Do you want the chocolate cake or do you want to fit into those jeans tucked away in your closet? There are times that the chocolate cake will win but not often if you focus on your behavior.

Weightloss tips that involve a behavioral approach also include portions. We often need to train ourselves to understand how much is enough. Getting into the habit of buying single-sized servings or taking the time to measure will increase your chances of success.

You also may find that there are certain “triggers” that cause you to eat. This is a simple stimulus-response cycle that the behaviorists claim can be broken with a little effort. Weightloss tips in the trigger realm include avoiding the kitchen right after a stressful situation, eating only at the dinner table and keeping a diary of what happens right before you get a craving.

Atkins Dieters Only – Do You Make These Common Mistakes?

Nov | Leave a Comment

The Atkins diet is one of the simplest weight loss plans to follow. Although the principles are clearly set out in the books, there are some common misconceptions that occur for dieters. These mistakes can make a big difference in the amount of weight you lose and effectiveness of the diet overall. If Atkins isn’t working for you, or you find yourself suddenly gaining weight after weeks of effective dieting, make sure you aren’t making any of these common mistakes.

First, make sure to be patient with your weight loss. If you lose 8 lbs per week on the Induction phase and then slow down once you enter ongoing weight loss phase, this is perfectly normal. The level of carbohydrate grams that are acceptable on the Induction portion of the diet are not meant to carry you through the rest of your dieting experience. Induction is meant to break you of carbohydrate cravings and detoxify your body from sugar. Starting with the ongoing weight loss phase, you will begin introducing small levels of carbohydrate grams each week. This may slow down weight loss a bit from the level it was at during Induction, but this is completely normal.

Also, people are different and react differently to the diet. Some people lose weight in spurts, and other lose weight more steadily. A plateau can last for a few weeks and then voila, you’ve lost five pounds in a matter of a few days.

Make sure you are avoiding caffeine in all of its forms as well as aspartame, a common artificial sweetener. Both of these chemicals can impact blood sugar levels negatively. Look out for caffeine in coffee and diet sodas. Watch out for aspartame in diet sodas and sugar-free gelatin. These can cause cravings for sugar and take your body out of ketosis after just one serving.

Watch your daily intake of cheese. Although cheese is on the acceptable foods list, it does have small amount of carbohydrates. Your best bet is to limit your cheese intake to 4 oz per day. You can have more on special occasions, but it should not be used as your mainstay for protein. Meats, eggs and tofu are much better choices and don’t contain carbohydrate grams.

Remember to emphasize vegetables during Induction and beyond. Your carbohydrate grams should be primarily derived from leafy, green vegetables and other acceptable vegetable choices. Vegetables fill you up without spiking your blood sugar. They provide essential fiber and nutrients that help your weight loss efforts and overall health. After induction, you should have 3-4 cups of salad and 1 cup of cooked vegetables each day. Make sure the vegetables you are using are on the acceptable foods list. Eliminating vegetables from your diet can shut down your metabolism and cause your weight loss to stall.

It is also very important that you eat regularly while you are on the Atkins plan. Never go more than five waking hours without eating a combined snack of protein and fats. Two things happen when you skip meals. First, you cause a blood sugar drop that will have you craving carbohydrates like bread and sugar. Secondly, continued periods of not eating will slow down your metabolism and make it even harder to lose weight.
Finally, make sure you are drinking enough water each day. Water has a myriad of benefits for every human being, not just those on the Atkins diet. Thirst can sometimes be masked as hunger, so staying well hydrated will keep you from craving foods you shouldn’t be eating. Water also helps you avoid constipation, which is an occasional side effect of the Atkins diet. Drinking 8 eight ounce glasses of water per day will also help you flush out the toxins from your system that are produced when you burn fat.

These common mistakes can make people frustrated with the Atkins diet when there is no need to be. If you are just starting out on the diet, make sure to prepare yourself for these mistakes. If you’ve been on the diet for some time, evaluate your eating habits and make sure you are following the program correctly.

Your Diet Plan While On A Business Trip

Jun | Leave a Comment

Business travel can be a productive, enjoyable and even exciting experience. The time you spend doing business in other locations expands your business reach and scope and broadens you as a person as well. Getting skilled at business travel is a solid business goal because there are skills related to business travel and being productive on the road that are impossible to learn if you don’t get out there and travel. Having a diet plan and sticking to your diet while traveling is also an important skill.

Many of the skills associated with business travel have to do with how to live productively on the road. This is especially important if you find yourself on a lengthy business trip. The life of moving in and out of hotels, traveling by car or airplane and the stres of work can wear down even the most robust and experienced business traveler.

Maintaining a healthy diet while traveling for business is a serious challenge and one that really can only be accomplished with some serious planning. You will inevitably find yourself eating in a lot of restaurants on the road and that kind of food does not lend itself to a diet that is designed for weight loss or for a diet you must maintain for health reasons.

The first but biggest step forward to achieving diet goals while traveling is to communicate your desires to your traveling companions. In a business setting, there is often a lot of encouragement to eat and drink well. Everybody is on the expense account so it is easy to overdo it. But if you let your coworkers and clients know you have compelling reasons to maintain a disciplined diet, most of the time they will respect that and find ways to help you be successful.

Another trick of business travel is not to depend on restaurants for your meals entirely. If you can get out to a market early in the trip and purchase some fresh fruit and vegetables, you can prepare some healthy food in your room to fill you up and keep you on track. Then if you find that you must eat in a restaurant to discuss business with coworkers or build relationships with the client, your appetite will be low so you can get by on much less.

You can also be a voice for moderation in the selection of eating establishments for your meals. Obviously, fast food is not going to be a good choice for you. So if there is discussion about where to stop, you can vote for a place that serves a good variety of meal choices including some healthy choice menu options. In that way if you must eat in a restaurant, you can find items to order that can be prepared in accord with your diet needs.

You will be surprised how many allies you will find both in your travel associates and with those you are doing business with at your destination who have diet goals but have not been successful because of the temptations of the life on the road. Your open statement of intent to stick to your diet in spite of the rigors of business travel can be a tremendous inspiration to them. Moreover, by building partnerships in your intent to live healthy, it is entirely possible to take your business to a healthy restaurant or deli and allow the rest of the party to go to a place of their liking. As long as this is done without animosity, everybody wins.

Avoiding alcohol and snacks can be a huge challenge on the road as well. Very often in a seminar setting or during a long day of discussions, the host company or office will provide cookies or other snacks to help the meeting go well by keeping everybody’s blood sugar up. These snacks are going to be hard to resist. One way to help yourself in that situation is to be prepared with your own snacks in your brief case to bring out to substitute for the unhealthy food being provided.

By thinking ahead about your diet needs and how you will provide for yourself while traveling, it is possible to sustain a healthy lifestyle even during business trips. By supplementing theses steps with exercise and rest, you may find that your weather the trip much better than those who abuse their bodies and find yourself more productive as a business person as well because you made the effort to eat well on the road.

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• Diet
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