Maintaining a healthy weight without effort requires rethinking the way you approach weight loss. Instead of punishing yourself with diets that only work until you get tired of following them, your goal is to add healthy habits to your life, one at a time, until they are completely painless and unconscious. With less effort than you might imagine, you can get off the dieting treadmill forever. All of these changes will seem difficult at first, but if you persist they will become easy and will pay dividends for a lifetime. Remember you're trying to change lifelong habits, so take them one at a time and be patient with yourself.
Unconscious Eating and Weight Gain
The most important thing you can do to lose weight and keep it off is to stop reading, watching television, talking on the phone, and otherwise distracting yourself when you're eating. Invariably, you will overeat if you don't pay attention to what you're eating. Eat slowly, savor your food, and quit the minute you're full. Don't eat again until you're really hungry. Exception: We would not want to give up eating during social gatherings, since this is a source of joyful interaction. Manage these events by eating lightly before attending, so you're not ravenous, and focusing on the lighter snacks. Drink unsweetened beverages if you need something to drink during non-meal times.
Cutting Sugar
According to healingdaily's website, sugar makes you hungrier in the long run, by causing your blood sugar to surge and then plummet. Dessert should be a rare treat, not a mealtime habit. Avoid sugar in packaged foods as much as possible and learn to live without sugar in your coffee and tea, and you'll be astonished to find that you eventually prefer it that way. (Artificial sweeteners will not work and may be worse than sugar, according to ABC news, quoting a Purdue University study which suggests that artificial sweeteners cause overeating.)
Our taste buds have been conditioned by an excess of sugar in our foods, to the point where we crave the wrong things. The first month or so will be tough if you're used to eating a lot of sugar, but after 2 or 3 months of avoiding sugar and other sweeteners, you'll find that most desserts taste too sweet to you. Don't try to cut calories while you're cutting sugar, and do eat fresh fruit if you must have something sweet. (It may be impossible to avoid extra sugar in all packaged foods, but if you cut out desserts and sweetened beverages, and choose the unsweetened version whenever possible, it will be a vast improvement.)
White flour and its byproducts have many of the same negative effects as sugar. Switch to whole grain bread, pasta, and flour for cooking. Once again, you'll find that you eventually come to prefer its richer taste.
Eating for Weight Control
Start your day with a high protein breakfast. This will leave you feeling less hungry all day long. If you're not used to eating breakfast, start small and build up to a more substantial meal. Peanut butter on toast, lean meats, eggs, yogurt flavored with a bit of unsweetened fruit preserves, and cheese are all good choices. Include protein with every meal for its hunger-abating qualities. Don't overdose on fat, but don't eliminate fat from your diet because it helps you to feel full for long periods of time. Nuts and avocados are two very healthy sources of dietary fat. With the exception of sugared foods and desserts, which really need to be cut to maintain a healthy weight, don't deprive yourself. Eat the things you love, but eat them slowly and stop the minute you're full. Try to include fruits and vegetables with every meal, and use them for snacks as well.
Easy Ways to Add Exercise to Your Life
If you're overweight and sedentary, forget going for the burn. Exercise you hate is exercise you'll quit. Your goal is to find pleasant ways to add exercise to your life that you can maintain for a lifetime. If you enjoy going for a walk, make it a daily habit. Love to splash in a pool? Do it more often. Waiting for your coffee to come out of the microwave? Do some stretches. Cleaning your house? Crank up the music and dance your way through it. Play ball with your kids, cut your own grass, or go hiking in the woods. Forget ambitious aerobics and painful calisthenics, and just focus on moving more. Aim to do one thing every day to add more movement to your life. It's essential that you enjoy your choice. This will make you want to repeat it, and will reinforce the habit.
That's it--four simple changes that will help almost everyone lose weight and keep it off, without having to go hungry. Think of all of the things you can do with the time and energy you used to waste on dieting!
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