Dieting Under Pressure

Dieting Under Pressure

These days we lead such busy lives that our efforts to eat in a regulated, healthy way are constantly under pressure. Sometimes there seems to be no time to eat; other times, stress or boredom make a quick unhealthy snack seem irresistible.

Thats why its important to plan your eating and find a solution that fits with your lifestyle. If dieting is difficult, it is much harder to continue.

Take a moment right now to think about how you could make your diet easier.

Often, preparing food ahead of time helps a lot. Lunches especially can be prepared and packed the evening before, or in the morning. When you cook, make extra and freeze it.

Figure out all of your options for healthy snacks – things that you could buy from the store local to your office, for example. Keep a list in your desk so that if you have to work late or forget your lunch, you know exactly what you can grab from the store.

Shop the outside aisles in the store where the fresh foods are, and ignore all of the processed stuff. Its not real food.

Open up your options to include all of the possible foods that you can eat, not only the most familiar. Look for ideas online for quick meals and snacks.

Its better not to even think about being on a diet. Certainly dont talk about it. Dont be concerned with what you are giving up. Focus on the positive: you are expanding your options in life by eating healthy.

Changing Your Routine

Changing Your Routine

If you are finding it hard to incorporate exercise into your routine, have you thought about changing the routine?

Often times it is easier to restructure our day than to fit another thing into a program that was already full. Plus, this gets you out of all of those habits and routines that led to overeating in the first place.

Exercise is easy if it is a regular habit like anything else. But keep in mind that to create a new habit, we usually have to do it for around 30 days.

Your routine does not have to be exactly the same every single day. Most of us have a different routine on the weekend to a working day.

Thats fine, but be sure to consider both of them. Dont focus on creating a routine for the week days and assume you can take the whole of the weekend off. Just create a different routine for the weekend, that still involves some exercise.

Often, just changing our routine in quite a simple way can make it much easier to introduce exercise into our day.

It may also show up some of the habits that we have formed over the years without even realizing it.

For example, you may find that you are now taking a different route to work because you go to the gym first. Youre not walking past the donut shop every morning any more. You may feel stress levels rising as you approach your office, and you realize that you were using a daily donut to try to deal with this stress. Now you see what is going on, you can find a better way to handle stress, using relaxation methods or positive thinking.

Most of us have some foods that we think we cannot do without, but usually they are just a habit. On vacation in a foreign country you would probably eat completely different foods without ever missing those foods that seem essential at home. Its all about changing the routine.

Your Weight Loss Expectations

Your Weight Loss Expectations

It is important to have goals on a diet, but it is also important not to have too many expectations.

Often when we start a diet we start expecting huge success. Often this is because the advertising focuses on the big success stories and not on the average persons results.

It is important to keep this in mind when we are considering a new diet. If we are disappointed we can easily use this as an excuse to give up.

Always remember that slow weight loss is better than fast, because it is more likely to give a good final outcome.

Something else that can cause us to have unrealistic expectations is our memories about diets that we have followed in the past.

We might remember losing a lot of weight in a short time, or being very successful following a particular plan. Then when the same thing does not happen this time around, we can be discouraged.

It may be that our memory was at fault, or it may be that the circumstances were different. Or maybe we did lose a lot of weight, but then put it right back on again. Our memories can be very selective when it comes to this kind of thing.

So it is important to come to a diet fresh each time, without having expectations that are based on either our past experiences or other peoples experiences.

What matters is what is happening right now and how we can use our weight loss program to change our lives for the better – permanently.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

As you get deeper into your new way of eating and of life, its important to make sure that you still have variety. Of course you dont want to fall back into old habits, but dont be too restrictive either.

Expand your food choices as much as you can now. This would be a great time to try new foods from your approved list, or experiment with new recipes. Why not buy a recipe book designed for the diet that you are following?

Its also important to make sure that you are getting all of the vitamins and minerals that you need. There are two ways of doing this. Either you can spend a lot of time at a site like fitday.com entering everything that you plan to eat in a day and juggling with your menus so that you cover all of the requirements; or you can simply take a good multi vitamin and mineral tablet.

Some diets such as Atkins specifically recommend that you take a multi vitamin tablet every day. This is not because the diet is lacking in vitamins and minerals: even on Atkins induction, it is possible to plan a days meals so that all of the RDAs are covered. (Its much harder to do this if you are eating a standard American diet full of refined flour and sugar!)

No, the reason that Dr Atkins recommends taking supplements is simply so that you dont have to spend time thinking about this. All of the bases are covered without us having to do the kind of analysis that can lead to food obsessions.

The definition of a vitamin is an organic compound that is essential to human health, that the human body cannot produce for itself. Minerals are the same but they are inorganic compounds.

Some experts have suggested that the reason that so many people on a standard American diet are overweight is simply because they are not getting the vitamins and minerals that they need. Products like white bread and refined sugar have been stripped of most of their nutrients. So no matter how much we eat, our body knows that it has not got all that it needs … and we want more.

So covering the bases with vitamins and minerals actually helps us to lose weight. We can be satisfied with less food if we have all of the essential nutrients.

Understanding Resistance Training

Understanding Resistance Training

Adding resistance training to your program is a simple way to lose weight faster, but most people dont do it. This is usually because they dont understand the benefits of resistance training.

Resistance training is where we exercise the muscles against resistance. Lifting weights is one example. Some gym machines that have you pushing or pulling something, would be another.

Most people think that they will lose more weight from aerobic exercise like running. This is a mistake.

It is true that if you take the calories used over one hour of aerobic exercise or resistance training, the aerobic exercise is usually higher.

However, resistance training goes on using more calories after the end of the exercise period. This happens because the muscles use energy to repair and recover from the workout. So in total, the calories used from the resistance workout can be higher.

Another advantage of resistance training is that it builds muscle mass. Muscle is heavier than fat so one pound of muscle is smaller than one pound of fat. This means that toned body looks better and fits into clothes more easily than a flabby body of the same weight.

Muscle also uses more energy even when the body is at rest. So if you increase your muscle mass, you can lose more weight even while you sleep.

Some women do not like the idea of resistance training because they think they will end up looking like a female body builder which for most people is not an attractive look. But there is no need to worry.

It takes years of dedication to develop the physique of a body builder. It will not happen by accident, you can be sure of that.

The kind of weight lifting that we are talking about here, will simply firm up your body and help you to avoid that empty sack look that some people get as they lose weight.

Move That Body

Move That Body

If you are settled on a weight loss program, you have probably been losing weight more or less steadily for a while now. Even if there have been a lot of ups and downs and you still have a long way to go, think back to the day you started and congratulate yourself on all of your progress since that day.

Now would be a good time to read your main diet book over. And take a look through your daily exercise diary to see how far you have come in improving your fitness.

Remember, its not just about weight loss. Youre probably a lot fitter and healthier too. But theres still room for improvement.

As Jefferson said, walking is great exercise. Its a simple form of cardiovascular training that strengthens the heart as well as most of the major muscle groups.

Along with other weight bearing exercises like running or playing sports, walking is also good for strengthening the bones and increasing bone density.

If you are still significantly overweight, you may want to continue with walking as your main form of fitness training. Or you may be ready for a change.

The only disadvantage to walking is that it takes a lot of time. Walking one mile and running one mile will bring approximately the same benefits in terms of fitness, but walking takes maybe twice as long. So 10 minutes of running is about equal to 20 minutes of walking.

This means that as we become fitter, we are likely to look for other types of exercise that are more intensive. This helps us to use the time available for fitness training in the most efficient way.

We can also start to think about resistance training using weights or machines. This will help to sculpt the body, making us look slimmer. It also develops muscles that will speed up our metabolism.

Weight loss is bound to slow down after a while. Concentrating on fitness now will help you maintain interest and keep you focused on the benefits of your new lifestyle.

Avoid Yoyo Dieting

Avoid Yoyo Dieting

Yoyo dieting is responsible for a lot of misery. Avoid it at all costs.

Weve all done it. Crash diet one week or one month, binge the next. We regain all the weight we lost and then some. It never solves anybodys weight problem, it makes it worse.

In some cases, it even causes a weight problem in somebody who was never overweight at all … until they started dieting.

Yoyo dieting can cause many health problems. It also slows down the metabolism so that it becomes harder and harder for us to lose weight.

To understand this, you need to remember that the body was not built for our modern way of life. It expects our food supply to depend on climate and seasons, not on which diet we are following this month.

If the body is subjected to periods of severe food restriction followed by feasting, its going to think that we are living in very unpredictable conditions. Sometimes there is plenty of food, but there are many sudden famines when we have very little to eat.

Our body does not know that these famines are self-imposed. It thinks it should be prepared, because a much longer famine might be right around the corner. So lets slow down the metabolism, it thinks. Lets make the most of these feasts by storing as much energy as we can in the form of fat.

This is why yoyo dieting actually makes us fatter. It also makes it harder and harder for us to lose weight.

What do we do then? Usually, we look for stricter and stricter diets. The diets are followed by bigger and longer binges, and the problem gets worse and worse.

If you are a victim of yoyo dieting, there is only one way to break the pattern. That is, to get into a routine of healthy eating at regular times with the aim of stabilizing your weight – not losing.

Eat little and often, planning either a meal or a healthy snack every 2-3 hours. At the same time, increase your physical activity levels.

If you do this, your body will slowly come to trust that your food supply is now much more predictable. It will allow your metabolism to increase, and it will realize that you will probably not need all of the extra fat that it has been storing.

Result? You finally start to lose weight – for good.

Are You On The Right Diet

Are You On The Right Diet?

There are so many diet programs out there, it can be hard to know which will be the best.

Some diets are so restrictive that they cannot be followed for more than a week or two. While it is possible to use these to jump start your weight loss, you need to have a solid plan for what you will do at the end of two weeks. Without that, most people put all of the weight right back on, and sometimes even gain.

Other diets work fine for some people but not for others. Usually, this is a question of whether they suit your tastes and lifestyle. A vegan who eats no meat, eggs or dairy will find it hard to follow a low carb diet. A person who needs to eat and run during the working day will have trouble with food that requires a lot of preparation.

So do not be discouraged by memories of past diets that have not worked. Maybe they were not right for you.

Also, do not be swayed by other people telling you about some great diet that is not what you are doing right now. Maybe it worked for them but not for you. Maybe it only works short term. You are in this for the long haul, to lose your weight permanently. Dont be pushed around and distracted by other peoples ideas.

If the people around you are supportive, thats great. Theres nothing better than a couple or a family following the same eating plan and having it work for everybody. But we have to accept that this doesnt always happen. Family members may not be motivated to lose their weight, or they may not like the plan that you have chosen. Everybody should be free to follow the eating plan that is right for them, and leave you free to follow yours.

Is Your Diet Easy

Is Your Diet Easy?

Is your diet easy? It should be.

You are much more likely to stick to an easy diet. Difficult diets that involve hours of meal planning, calorie calculations or complicated food rules are doomed to fail for most people.

There are two problems with difficult diets.

First, they lead to food obsession. This is the situation where a persons whole life revolves around what they can and cannot eat.

This is not a natural or healthy state to be in. The more we think about food, the more we will focus on what we cannot have. That leads to cravings and finally to cheating.

The second problem is that complicated diets are not flexible enough to cope with all the situations that we find ourselves in.

Some diets make it virtually impossible to eat in a restaurant. So what do we do on vacation, or when we have to take a client out to lunch?

That is why it is important to have a diet that introduces more foods and more flexibility into the plan pretty soon.

We may be able to deal with a lot of rules and restrictions for a week or two, but thats about all. After that, the diet needs to be flexible enough to handle a meal with friends, a wedding, a vacation, or whatever life throws at us.

So make sure that your diet is easy, and you will have a lot more success with it.

First Steps For Weight Loss

First Steps For Weight Loss

Most people start on a weight loss program by making big changes. This can give a fast pay off with a lot of weight lost in the first couple weeks.

On the other hand, this can be a very stressful way to start losing weight. The diet becomes the center of our lives and almost every moment seems to be spent buying, preparing or planning our food. If we eat something that was not on the plan, we panic. Sometimes we make this an excuse for dropping out completely.

If this has often happened to you in the past, why not try a different method? Instead of starting with a two-week crash diet or induction period, try changing one thing at a time. This will slowly ease you into your new way of eating.

If you choose this method, you could start the first 3-4 days by simply drinking enough water. Aim for at least two liters (approx 64 oz, or 8 x 8 oz glasses). Thats not including other drinks – just pure water.

Then plan your breakfast in line with your eating plan. So at the end of two weeks, you are having enough water plus a healthy breakfast each day.

After that, look at your snacks. Its good to eat little and often when losing weight, so plan 2 or 3 snacks in a day and make sure that you have healthy food available for those snacks.

Then you can move on to lunch, and finally dinner.

This way, you dont make a big deal out of the fact that you are trying to lose weight. Your friends and family will probably not even notice. The weight loss could creep up on you without you hardly noticing yourself!

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