Dieting And Will Power- Strange Bed Fellow?

By Mark Kimathi

It is never clear to many whether they need will power to diet or not. Depending on your source of information, you will probably be either way. But for many, the lack of will power in a dieting endeavor could be the reason they are never able to lose weight. Yet the question remains is dieting and will power unrelated?

You likely have come across information like you cannot depend on will power to lose weight. The question to retort back would then be what then should you depend on?

Will power is the ability to control ones action, emotions and impulses. The famous American motivational speaker Phil McGraw refers to being overweight as "loss of control" And this rings true because you grow fat to the extent that you lose control of your food choices, food portions and similar calorie related decisions.

To tell you the truth, there is probably no thing as powerful as the backing of will-power to lose weight. And this will power exists in everyone. And like all other major achievements in life it is a central requirement in losing weight.

And just to prove this point in case of weight loss surgery where the individual doesn't comply or is not willing to take up the after weight loss surgery lifestyle; they will still regain the dramatic weight loss achieved by the surgery. This is inspite of the fact that their stomach is 5% its original size and the intestines are re-routed to reduce calorie intake.

Indeed the concept that permanent weight loss is a change of lifestyle is exactly about will power. Changing lifestyle means changing your everyday decisions to agree with the desire to have a healthy weight.

The real problem with will power is not that it does not exist in the individual, rather is that there is no good reason to use it. Will power when deployed is a major resource in the human arsenal of performance. But it needs a reason to get activated.

Take the case of the Governor of Arkansas who lost 100 pounds and has literally ripped muscles all without surgery. He had tried several other diets before becoming successful. But a realization that he was following on the path of a parent who had suffered greatly due to diabetes caused by obesity scared him skinny.

To deploy will power you need motivation and to get motives you need desires - strong desires like the desire not to die young.

You need to want to lose weight. You need to have a good reason deep down within you of why you need to lose weight. This desire will kick in the will power you need to make the lifestyle change. From there you can depend on plain old discipline and routine to reinforce your dietary and lifestyle habits for a permanent weight loss. Indeed dieting and will power are not strange bedfellow they are just a distance apart in the continuum of permanent weight loss.

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Living With Your Diet

Recently, I was reading about a diet plan where you throw everything out of your pantry. Although this sounds like great news for the supermarkets, over the short-term, this leaves very few choices for you to actually eat.

Can you exist on salad, topped with Flax seed oil dressing, for the rest of your life?

People believe that they must pay penance for their eating sins. Dietary and exercise torture seems to be good for the conscience and the prescription of the day. How else can we explain “off the wall” diets and “extreme” exercise programs?

Whatever happened to eating in moderation and using common sense? Even if you are eating a “diet cookie,” you can’t have all you want.

If you travel, or eat in restaurants frequently, you have to eat in moderation, space your meals out, carry healthy snacks, or visit the salad bar at your local supermarket. There are plenty of good choices, and it won’t cost you an “arm and a leg.”

When you eat, you shouldn’t feel stuffed after a meal. This slows down your digestive system, similar to the principle of a “log jam,” and you may not eat for six hours or more, depending upon the amount of food consumed. This is a time when your body is crying to go for a walk.

You should feel comfortably full every time you leave the table, and you should eat five or six times a day; three moderately-sized meals and at least two healthy snacks.

Sorry to say, diet cookies are rarely healthy. If they were of nutritional value, I would live on the Chocolate Chip Cookie Diet.

Now back to reality, if you love dessert, you can’t give it up for life.
Depending on the state your health, you may have to seriously cut back.
Therefore, consult with your family doctor, get a diet that makes sense, and please walk, swim, or exercise regularly.

By: Paul M. Jerard Jr.

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Fast And Simple Ways To Drop One Dress Size In A Week

Weight loss is one of the most important ideas in American society today. People are constantly searching for a way to lose weight very quickly. Whether you want to fit into that dress for your date on Saturday night, or you just want to look good for your upcoming class reunion, there are a number of ways that you can lose weight rather quickly.

One good way to drop that dress size by next week is to add some water to your diet. This is a fairly good tip for any dieters, but losing weight fast means you should drink more water than you ever thought you could handle. The body retains four to six pounds of water on any given day. The body is, essentially, hoarding the water for some future use.

Should you ever become incapacitated and not give your body the water it needs to survive, your body would have some reserves to live on. If, however, you give your body the water it needs on a regular basis, you will lose your water weight quite quickly. This will give you at least four pounds less on the scale when you get up to put your new dress on.

Another good way to lose that dress size by next Saturday night is to be sure to take in enough protein. Your body needs protein so it does not feel like it is starving. If your body feels like it is starving, it will begin hoarding pounds. All of these pounds will be converted into fat, no matter what you are eating. As a result, if you allow your body enough protein, you will not have that problem.

You should consume protein every three hours. You should certainly try to get several ounces of protein before you go to sleep each night. There are several ways you can get the protein you need. Meat is an excellent source of protein. You should try to only purchase and eat lean cuts of meat. Poultry works well too. Beans and legumes are another great source of protein to add to your diet. Eggs are also a good source of protein.

The chances of you getting sick of the traditional protein sources, though, are quite good during your week of intensive weight loss. As a result, it might be necessary to visit a nutritional supplement store or the supplement aisle of your local mega mart. A protein supplement of any kind, whether it be in bar, pill, or powder form, will help you out.

Another important quick weight loss tip is to eat lots of smaller meals during the day. If your normal day is structured around three meals each day, you should try to refocus it around five to six much smaller meals during the day. This will help you to take in fewer calories during the course of the day. Moreover, taking in fewer calories at any given time will help to stimulate your metabolism and help you burn off the calories you actually consume.

Be sure to exercise for at least thirty minutes each day. If you want to lose weight quickly, you should increase your time to a minimum of two hours each day. The only real way to lose weight is to burn the calories you take in. As a result, two hours of hard exercise each day should help to nullify the calories you have consumed during the course of the day.

One final way to lose weight quickly is to cut your carbs as much as possible. Carbohydrates are empty calories. You have to consume far more calories in carbohydrates than you do in other sources of nutrition like proteins to help your body feel full. As a result, you simply cannot process the calories you take in when your diet is based around carbohydrates. Change your diet to a protein base, and you will lose weight rather quickly.

You should be cautious with each of these methods listed here. It is important to remember that long lasting weight loss can only be achieved through hard work and true changes to your diet and lifestyle. The chances are quite good that if you lose a dress size within a single week, you will regain your weight within three weeks. As a result, if you truly want to keep the weight off, you have some serious changes to make in your life.

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The Basics For Raw Food Recipes

In this day and age, everybody wants to improve their looks with a thinner waist line. For that, people may need some directions for finding healthy solutions to lose weight. The best choice someone can make in order to lose weight and gain health, energy and vitality is switching to a raw food diet.

People discover each day the benefits of raw food recipes. When switching to a raw food diet you will see improvements to your daily behavior like improved sleep, some anti-aging benefits, increased vitality and health. Owing to such advantages, the popularity of raw food diets is bound to increase, because we all want to improve the way we look and the way we feel about ourselves, don’t we?

In the beginning people didn’t cook their food and they consumed it raw. Eating like this helped them keep very healthy. Our bodies are built so that we can consume raw foods. The only thing we need to do is to rediscover the way we were in the beginning and enjoy all that nature has to give us. Consuming raw foods helps our bodies because they contain enzymes that help digestion. These enzymes are destroyed if the fruits and vegetables are cooked. Our body digests the foods through its own enzymes, but the enzymes in our body also give us energy. Therefore, when we use the enzymes in our bodies for digestion and not the ones in fruits and vegetables, it means that our energy levels and vitality are decreased.

Basic guidelines for planning your healthy raw food recipes recommend that you should include in your diet mostly fruit and vegetables, which are our most biologically conducive meals. Something that can help you in planning your raw food recipes is the categories in which fruits and vegetables are divided.

Fruits can be divided in sweet fruits (tropical fruits, persimmons, sweet grapes), acid fruits (lemons, citrus), sub-acid fruits (apples, pears, tart grapes) and fatty fruits (avocadoes, durian). Melons constitute a separate category of fruits. Some of the vegetable categories are non-starchy greens (spinach, cabbage), fruit vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes) and root vegetables (carrots, celeriac). Another category of vegetables includes lettuce and celery. The vegetables named here can be found as items on a list of raw low carbohydrate foods. All these fruits and vegetables are the common components of raw food recipes.

Now that the categories have been established, here are some rules of combining them in order for you to avoid fermentation in the intestines, indigestion, water retention and toxicity. Sweet fruits are to be eaten with other varieties of sweet fruits only or with sub-acid fruits. Don’t eat acid fruit with anything other than celery and lettuce. Avocadoes and olives should be eaten with non-starchy vegetables. Melons should be eaten alone or not eaten at all. These are combinations that you should try. But there are a few combinations that you should try to avoid like starch and acid (tomato and potato), protein and protein (avocadoes and nuts), sweets and starch (maple syrup and rice). Think about these combinations when you are developing your own raw food recipes.

Raw food diets are not all about fruits and vegetables. Organic foods can also be included in the diet. Organic cheese is very nutritious and can be included in raw food diets because it does not involve a cooking process that destroys enzymes. You should make sure that the organic cheese you buy is organic, and not a scam. The process that is followed by farmers to obtain organic cheese consists of letting nature take its natural course, from harvesting the milk from the cows and letting it coagulate with no help from additional catalytic agents. Incredible products made from raw ingredients and that may include organic cheese can be found here, on rawbakery.com.

By: Ckint Jhonson

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Low Calories Diets – The Healthiest Way To Your Ideal Weight

Having the ideal diet means not exceeding the appropriate weight for your height and build. How important is it to have the ideal weight? You cannot even begin to imagine that. Let’s just say that a lot of health hazards are related to obesity, and this condition is unfortunately way too frequent all over the world. Bad eating habits and complete lack of physical exercises are just two of the factors that lead to being overweight. This in its turn can lead to serious medical conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, arthritis, and so on.

The good news is that you have to be seriously over your ideal weight before you can begin worrying about health issues. Even so, as long as your are not obsessed about it, there is nothing wrong in try to lose weight in order to look good.

You’ll probably ask yourselves what is your ideal weight. This is a rather complex subject, and what you should think of first and foremost is the ratio of fat to muscle. No body weight calculator can take into account the amount of body fat you are carrying. It’s up to you to determine whether you are pleased with your body, in terms of how strong and toned or how flabby you are. Due to the fact that muscle weighs more per square inch than fat does, you may find yourself at the higher end of the ideal weight range, which is provided by a height and weight chart. The point is that two persons with the same height and weight can look completely different, meaning that if one of them is muscular, he or she will look rather slim, whereas the other can look quite plump.

Even if you have the ideal body weight, you may still need to tone up, because an inappropriate fat-muscle ratio may eventually lead to some health problems. What most health professionals recommend in order to get the ideal weight is to become more active and have healthy eating principles. In other words, weight loss does not require a punishing exercise routine or going on a strict diet. All it takes is that you follow some low calories diets and exercise regularly.

Healthy and successful weight loss can definitely be attained through good habits and moderation. Weight fluctuations are extremely dangerous to your health, and submitting your body to repeated strict diets will eventually prove damaging to your physical and mental well-being. Health professionals recommend that you resort to low calories diets and turn calorie counting into a lifetime habit.

No fitness apparels, wonder belts, magic pills or diets will get you to your ideal weight if you keep eating irregularly and unhealthy. Many people prefer hamburgers, chips, pizzas or snacks with many calories to a healthy vegetable and fruit meal, because the former don’t require any effort to prepare and are readily available. Those who argue that they simply cannot live without their daily snacks and sweets should know that in much a similar way as quitting smoking, getting used to eating low-fat food is just a matter of time. Low calories diets are very helpful because they allow you to eat tasty food in a moderate way. You don’t have to starve in order to look good. All it takes is that you pay a little more attention to number of calories for your meals.

Remember that there is no better way to lose weight and get your ideal weight that combining low calories diets with regular exercise, and making a habit out of being active and eating healthy.

By: Groshan Fabiola

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Weight Loss Motivation Guidelines (Part 2)

A Better Way of Thinking

Now let me show you some better alternatives. Please compare them with the above example.

Example 1

"Hmm, my diet isn't going so good. But I'm not going to make excuses. I've wasted enough time making excuses to myself. From now on, no matter what happens, I'm going to be honest with myself. So what do I want? I want to lose weight and get myself into shape. Why? Because I really want that beach holiday (or other very selfish goal) which I promised myself. I want it so bad I can touch it! Okay, so I need to learn how to eat properly - big deal! I can easily do this if I put my mind to it. Heck! Eating good food isn't difficult. What's difficult is seeing myself being overweight for the rest of my life. I want something better. Something a lot better than a fistful of nachos or a dollop of fatty dessert."

Example 2

"Hmm, my diet isn't going so good. So let me remind myself why I'm dieting. All my life I've been eating to please other people. My mom said "eat this", so I ate it. My school friends said "have some of this", so I had lots. My work colleagues now say "have a slice of this", so I have two! And my kids say "you must try this", so I try it. And every time I make an effort to lose weight, everyone says "forget about your diet, eat some of this" so I do. Well that's enough! No more eating to please other people. Today I'm going to start eating to please me. And what pleases me is the idea of wearing a size (?) dress to my daughter's wedding (or other very selfish goal). I realise I need to eat properly, but this is a ridiculously tiny price to pay for achieving my goal. Heck! Eating good food isn't difficult. What's difficult is carrying my excess weight around all day. I want something better. Something a lot better than a 4-cheese pizza or a box of cookies."

Example 3

"Hmm, my diet isn't going as smoothly as I thought it would. Never mind, I'm sure this is quite normal. I can't expect to change my regular eating habits without a few hiccups along the way. Besides, I'm looking for more than the few minutes of pleasure I get from filling my stomach with junk. I want a lifetime of pleasure - real pleasure from looking good and being taken seriously and who knows, maybe finding a great partner. I know other people see me as a fat person - goodness, at times I do too! - but this is exactly WHY I want to change. I'm tired of being fat. Real tired. And if this means learning how to eat good food, then let's do it! And when it gets tough I'm going to login to Anne Collins forum and get help. All I know is, I want to make it happen!"

Example 4

"Hmm, my diet isn't going as smoothly as I thought it would. This morning I watched my colleagues eat a whole birthday cake - it looked delicious - and I sat there feeling miserable and deprived. Then I went for lunch with a friend and chose a tuna salad while she ate half a pizza followed by two slices of cheesecake. It was torture! But then I started thinking to myself "what's more important - a few slices of cheesecake, or a really lean shape?" And I decided that looking good was what I really wanted. I know that it's not going to happen overnight, but if I can persevere and learn good eating habits along the way, I know I'm gonna make it..."

Example 5

"Hmm, my diet isn't going as smoothly as I thought it would. But at least it's not a race. So who cares if I have a few wobbly moments, as long as I get where I want to go. At 26 I'm in the prime of my life, and I want to make the most of it. I'm tired of my slim friends getting all the best guys. I want to turn a few heads myself. I want the attention and I want to be taken seriously, and if I have to spend 12 months dieting - heck! I'm gonna do it. Last week I saw a friend of mine in hospital who lost a leg in a car crash. The doctors say it's going to take her 12 months to relearn how to walk. Now that is tough. By comparison, my journey is easy. And as long as I keep reminding myself of this, I'll be fine."

Points To Remember

1. A diet is a journey from A to B.

2. Feeling bored is a sign we are losing our direction.

3. When we lose direction we need to regain it, fast!

4. The way to regain direction is to remind yourself why you are dieting.

5. You are dieting because you want something better than a plate of fattening food.

Getting Help To Lose Weight

Changing our eating habits is much easier when we get support from other people. So make sure your online weight management plan includes membership of a forum. Because only people can offer you the sort of encouragement you need to achieve your personal weight loss goals.

By: Anne Collins

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Weight Loss Motivation Guidelines (Part 1)

By: Anne Collins

Introduction

If there is one thing that all dietitians and obesity experts agree on, it is that personal motivation is the foundation of all weight loss success. No matter how healthy the diet-plan, or what combination of calories and nutrition it contains, it won't help anyone lose weight unless they follow it for long enough. Their willingness to do so depends entirely on how motivated they are to change their eating and exercise habits in order to achieve their weight loss goals.

Motivation Advice Hard To Find

The Internet offers a bewildering array of diets and weight loss eating plans, but advice on motivation when dieting is in extremely short supply. Given the strong link between diet-compliance and motivation, this lack of motivational help is surprising to say the least. It may stem from the fact that many diets are created by people who lack hands-on experience of helping people to manage their weight. Perhaps they see weight loss as a biological rather than a human process. If so, I think it's a mistake.

Motivating Yourself To Lose Weight

I tell all my clients that starting a weight loss diet is like starting a journey. And like any journey it requires preparation. We need to look ahead and plan how to overcome problems that occur along the way. By doing this we take control of the process and greatly increase our chances of success.

Unfortunately, many dieters don't plan ahead. Instead, they take things as they come, and rely upon two things: their initial enthusiasm, and (when this wears off) their willpower. But enthusiasm and willpower aren't enough to overcome the temptations and difficulties which we face when we try to change our eating habits and lifestyle.

Stop for a moment and imagine taking your family on a camping trip. Do you rely on your enthusiasm and willpower for food and shelter? Of course not. In all probability you spend hours beforehand carefully packing and preparing for every eventuality, and the whole trip is carefully planned out in advance.

Yet when you start a diet-journey, many of you set off without any kind of planning or preparation. It's as if you are convinced that everything will go smoothly. But let's face it, what diet ever runs smoothly? Answer: none! So what happens when we encounter a big problem? Answer: we wobble, and often quit.

We Need To Plan New Thinking Habits

Planning a diet-journey doesn't involve packing equipment, it involves packing "new thoughts". We need to rehearse and adopt new ways of thinking in order to overcome problems during our journey. This isn't psycho-babble - this is plain common sense. After all, successful dieting is largely a matter of motivation and attitude. It's about what goes on between our ears!

The Most Common Dieting Problem

The most common problem we face when dieting is boredom. This typically occurs when our initial enthusiasm for losing weight wears off, and we become tired of watching what we eat. We become dispirited, and slightly depressed at the idea of having to maintain our "sensible eating habits" while everyone else seems to be having a good time.

Losing Direction Leads To Boredom

We get bored when we lose our sense of direction. So to overcome it, we need to reestablish exactly where we are going. Remember, dieting is not an aimless process, it's a journey from A to B. Here's how we think when we lose direction:

"I'm really bored with dieting, it's such a pain. I don't have any freedom any more. I can't eat this, I can't eat that... I'm fed up. I can't share food with the girls at work, I can't eat at my favorite restaurants, I have to keep saying No to food when I visit friends, I have to watch my family eating in front of me, I don't have time to exercise properly, I'm never going to lose weight and I'm feeling really miserable. Heck! Life is too short for this..."

This kind of thinking is totally demotivating. It focuses exclusively on the negative aspects of dieting and signals complete aimlessness. No weight loss goal is achievable when we think like this.

A Better Way of Thinking- continued in the next post

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Why Do We Cheat On Our Diets?

If only we could solve this question, the world (for many) would be a better place! Well, the reality is that there are real answers to this question that will apply to many people. It will take a good dose of reality and a brave heart to stop denying what really happens. Read on to discover some answers that may change your life forever and give you the impetus to lose weight and keep it off!

Justification?

Being overweight can be used as an excuse for being unhappy, especially when you do not do anything to help yourself. Subconsciously, over-eating is a comfort for many people and this then allows them to hide behind their weight problem and helps them to justify rejection and avoid being hurt. They can then shift the blame of rejection on their weight-problem, without addressing other aspects of their fears. Sometimes it seems easier to hide behind your “weight problem”, than address other matters where you may have a greater fear of failure.

Eating Without Thinking?

If you are concentrating on another activity while you are eating you are more likely to overeat because you are not fully aware of how full you are feeling. This factor can be difficult to change because it is not a conscious action. Try to only eat when you don’t have a lot of other distractions. Sit down, eat slowly and enjoy the food you are eating, and remember that it is not always necessary to go back for seconds. It takes 20 minutes for food to reach your stomach and for your brain to register that you are full.

Cravings?

The famous “Pavlov’s dogs” were conditioned to eat at the sound of a bell, and we human are much the same when it comes to habitual cravings. If you wonder why you always feel like a chocolate when you sit down to watch a movie, or you have to have a box of popcorn….think again. You are not necessarily craving these foods because you are hungry, but rather consider force of habit. During the time when you have a craving, try to ask yourself whether you are really hungry or not. If you are hungry, reach for a low fat snack rather than a chocolate bar or bag of crisps.

Indulging?

Eating or thinking about food can be a distraction from your troubles and you may therefore be unnecessarily over-eating. Emotions and hormones can trigger certain cravings, for example, if you are feeling low, chocolate and carbohydrates assist the production of serotonin in your brain. Serotonin helps you feel happier. This is why we might crave sweet or starchy foods during times of sadness or stress.

If you identify with any of the above factors, you could be on your way towards discovering what is triggering you to overeat.


By: Kim Beardsmore

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Do Fad Diets Work?

Fad diets are weight loss plans that promise amazingly fast results. They do not offer any sort of long-term plan for success and they are usually very unhealthy, sometimes actually dangerous, for your body.

Some of the more popular fad diets are listed below:

LIQUID DIETS: You drink a nutrient-rich liquid twice a day in place of your regular meals and eat a well-balanced meal as the third meal of the day.

LOW FAT HIGH CARB DIET: This diet severely limits the fat in your diet and encourages the intake of carbohydrates.

DIET PILLS AND SUPPLEMENTS: Diet pills and/or supplements are supposed to decrease your appetite, resulting in weight loss.

FOOD RESTRICTIVE DIETS: There are many of these types of diets that require you to severely restrict your calorie intake.

Unfortunately, the claims of fad diets prey on people who are usually so desperate to lose weight, they will try anything. Most people would rather try a quick fix instead of making the effort to lose weight with healthy long-term changes to their diet and lifestyle.

The companies who promote fad diets know this and use it to their advantage. When they promise weight loss that is quick and easy, they know people will be anxious to try it out.

Some fad diets do work for a short time if you faithfully follow the directions. The reason they work is when you stop eating certain foods, you are getting less calories, which naturally results in weight loss.

The downside to this is you are probably losing water and lean muscle, not fat. Additionally, most people cannot stick to food deprivation or eating the same foods for a very long time.

Once you go off of the fad diet, the result is gaining your weight back. This puts you back to where you were before, feeling frustrated, angry, and discouraged.

FAD DIET CLAIMS

If a diet product makes any of the following claims, stay away from them:

*Lose weight very quickly. Common sense should tell you since it took time for you to gain the weight, it will take time to lose it. (You DO NOT want to lose muscle tissue or water!)

*Severely limits your food choices. Anything that discourages balanced nutrition is not healthy.

*Requires you to spend money on pre-packaged meals. The expense for this requires you to continue purchasing these so-called NUTRITIONALLY BALANCED MEALS. Beware!

*Offers testimonials from people who have lost weight or from doctors who are promoting the product. Remember, these people are probably being paid to advertise the product.

The bottom line is, if a diet plan or product sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do not fall for it.

HEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS TIPS

If you want to lose weight, develop a healthy diet and exercise program for yourself. If you need help, talk to your doctor.

Use the following tips:

*Never skip meals and start everyday with a healthy breakfast.

* Eat foods from all of the food groups every day, emphasizing vegetables, fruit, and whole grains.

*Limit your daily intake of sugar and starches. High sugar foods and foods that are high in white starch have little or no nutritional value for your body.

*Drink water, lots and lots of water. Water flushes toxins out of your body and speeds up your metabolism.

*Participate in daily physical activity, at least 30 minutes a day. Aerobic exercises like walking, bicycling, jogging, and skating are the best. Try to incorporate movement into your daily schedule. Take the steps instead of the elevator, park your car at the farthest point in the parking lot, mow the yard, etc.

Fad diets are not the answer to weight loss. Only a balanced, nutritious diet and regular physical activity can put you on the road to a healthy weight and a healthy body. Make the changes and you will feel better, look better, and live longer.

By: Chris Chenoweth

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Try This Healthy Eating Diet Plan

How many times have you decided the time had come to loose a few pounds but everything you tried left you frustrated and feeling deprived. Have you ever considered a healthy eating diet plan?

If you aren’t familiar with a health eating diet plan you might be surprised at just how simple the concept is and you’ll be wondering why more aren’t using it to lose those extra pounds.

The healthy eating diet plan starts by recognizing that weight will only be lost when the number of calories burned exceeds the number of calories eaten. It also recognizes that if you drop your calorie intake too quickly your body will go into what’s called starvation mode storing fat for that rainy day.

The healthy eating diet plan goes one further stating that you can eat anything you want as long as you don’t exceed your calorie count for the day and in fact you need to reduce your calorie intake by 500 calories but no more. While at the same time increasing your calorie burn by 500 calories. That means you are going to have a 1000 calorie difference which is going to be noticeable on the diet scale.

The healthy eating diet plan also looks at the type of foods you are eating. Of course although it says you can eat anything you want it expect that you will not fill your diet with foods high in saturated fats but rather will mix your meals up with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables but it gives you the flexibility to mix it up how you like it without being restricted to certain foods.

So what would a healthy eating diet plan look like? Well it might look something like this:

Breakfast

• 1 cup Cheerios
• 1/2 cup fresh or frozen berries
• 1 cup fat-free or low-fat milk
• 1/2 whole-grain English muffin, toasted, topped with 1 teaspoon light margarine
• Coffee if desired

Mid-morning snack
• 4 pieces dried apricot
• 1 cup tea with lemon

Lunch
• Sandwich: one 6-inch whole-wheat pita, spread with 1 tablespoon light mayonnaise and stuffed with 2 ounces deli-style roast beef, 1-ounce slice of reduced-fat Cheddar cheese, 3 tomato slices and lettuce
• 4 baby carrots
• 1 banana,

Afternoon snack
• 5 ounces fat-free yogurt
• 3 vanilla wafers

Dinner
• 3 ounces grilled or broiled salmon brushed with 1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed before cooking
• 2/3 cup brown rice
• 3/4 cup sliced asparagus spears steamed
• Salad: 1 1/2 cups baby spinach leaves topped with 1 tangerine, peeled and sectioned; 1 tablespoon chopped almonds; drizzled with 1 tablespoon sesame seed vinaigrette salad dressing
• Water or other no-cal beverage

Of course this is just an example of a healthy eating diet plan for a day. There are so many options that you will never be bored and remember you can eat which ever foods you want as long as you don’t exceed your daily calorie intake. So if you love fish eat as much as you want or perhaps you hate asparagus but love baby carrots then don’t eat asparagus but do eat all the baby carrots you want.

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