Diet Tips for Successful Weight Loss
Everybody has a love hate relationship with dieting. We all want to look and feel our best, but no one wants to suffer and be miserable to get there (even though some courageous ones join groups and diets trends and athletic clubs to achieve their ends). And no one should be crabby and hateful to their spouse, partners and children because of the reason of dieting. Hence, bring on the diet tips for successful – and peaceful – weight loss.
In truth, there are times when it is necessary to diet. After a prolonged convalescence or after an accident when you’ve put on 30 pounds because you found benefit in using chocolates as pain killers. When you are beginning to stretch open the seams of those $700 business suits. When you are on an extended vacation to visit your widowed aunt who says, “Your uncle just loved to eat my spaghetti four nights a week. Want another helping of creme pie?”
We all know that there are vital reasons to diet. An article posted recently on MSN Homepage in the news briefs pointed out that, as Andreas von Bubnoff and Joanna Lloyd suggest in “25 things you can do take off 10 years or more.” (published in MSN Health and Fitness Anti-Aging Guide), maintaining the weight you had before turning 25 takes years off the aging process. (Actually, they say at age 18. But, really now, I’d still weigh 90 pounds and stand 5′ 8″. That would be just wrong, morally, physically and visually.) Another example of a vital reason to diet is that parents take better care of and are more tenderly loving toward their children when not overweight and able to move around with ease and comfort. Chronic illness, like diabetes, and chronic back pain are better controlled when a person is not overweight. These are just some examples of vital reasons to diet.
So what are the diet tips?
What helps a person to reach the goal and reduce the discomfort, pain and struggle of weight loss?
Diet Tips on the basic principles of weight loss are these that follow.
Eat less. Rats. There is no way around it. You are what you eat. That goes for quantity and quality. Eat less of what adds weight. Period.
Don’t damage your health. No extremes. Be reasonable and rational. Your health is sancrosanct.
Don’t damage your temperament by creating cravings and over-pressing the point of your diet, the point being weight loss.
Don’t be in such a rush. Take it slow. Adjust to your new weights as necessary. Your physiological mechanism – outside the bounds of your control – can take several weeks to several months to become accustomed to a new weight. Be patient and loving with yourself.
Don’t seek to look – or be – anorexic. It isn’t pretty. It isn’t healthy. It isn’t logical.
Be sensible. Be reasonable.
Diet Tips on Basic Guidelines of weight loss are these that follow.
Identify what causes your weight problems. Huge helpings? Bedtime snacks? Bad food choices like candy, potato chips, etc?
Desserts? The same size breakfast you ate when you were 18 and rowing crew at 5 AM?
Well, then – stop doing the things that cause you weight problems. Rats, again. Yeah, but stop.
Eat meals and snacks at regularly scheduled times. Tame yourself and your hunger with predictability, just the way the Fox taught the Little Prince to tame him (the Fox) in The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).
Don’t eat after 7 or 8 o’clock at night. Give your physiological system some Empty time, some Processing time, some Quiet time.
Don’t eat bedtime snacks. Drink a cup of organic herbal tea, especially organic Yogi Teas, instead.
Force yourself to buy organic foods, including organic juices. They have more food value per bite – no chemical-contaminant competition.
Diet Tips on Food Choices for weight loss are these that follow.
Eat fish. Lots of fish. Watch out for tuna, though, because of the mercury contamination content. Eat tuna no more than two or three times a week, at most.
Eat homemade, organic ingredient, soups. The broth contains the nutrients, so you get more nutritional boost to each bite. And the broth fills the empty space yet packs a low weight-gaining impact. Double indemnity.
Eat organic corn meal. Use it to replace some of the whole grain wheat flour in breads, muffins, pancakes, scones, etc. You can even make yourself a weird little corn pancake of organic cornmeal, oil, a pinch of salt and water to eat with meals instead of pasta, breads or potatoes. It is surprisingly filling and nutritious.
Eat strawberries, oranges, spinach, tomatoes, cantaloupes. These are high is nutrition and antioxidants which are both integral to successful weight loss.
Eat spinach salads. Use a light lemon and oil dressing (e.g., organic sunflower seed oil, organic lemon juice, water, salt and pepper, herbs and shake well…yummy).
Eat Salsa. Antioxidants and nutrients are in salsa in abundance. And, like with soups, the nutrients are retained in the salsa sauce enriching the food value and benefit to weight loss.
Use evaporated organic cane juice as a sweetener.
Drink organic juices. Especially drink cranberry, pomegranate, orange and lemon juices. These, too, are loaded with antioxidants and nutrients. A serving of a good organic juice is equivalent to many pieces of the actual fruit, so again, you get more goodness from each gulp.
Drink juice shakes made with organic cranberry, pomegranate or orange juice and organic, non-GMO soy protein/nutrient powder. For a juice shake that reaches the level of dessert, add a dollop of organic whipping cream and stir or in-glass beat well. Yum.
Drink organic herbal teas. Especially good are organic Yogi Teas. These come in wonderful, potent and delicious blends.
Diet Tips for your Dieting and Eating Rituals.
Eat a plentiful appetizer of strawberries or cantaloupe, papaya, (several) kiwis and orange juice before every meal. Eat more – weigh less.
Don’t eat bedtime snacks. If you must have a bedtime snack, make it 2 or 3 oz. of organic cranberry or pomegranate juice and organic, non-GMO soy protein/nutrient powder. It provides nutrients to quell desire, few calories, and helps you sleep deeply and restfully. Make this your bedtime snack.
Cut way down on desserts. Have smaller servings less often. If you must have dessert, take only half and add fruit, lots of fresh organic fruit.
Use serving dishes. When you fill your plate straight from the cooking utensils, you inevitably serve more so as not to “leave it sitting in the pot.”
Serve yourself – from the serving dish – a polite helping for firsts. Serve yourself seconds only if you are actually still hungry. Enjoy the thought of having the leftovers for lunch or a snack – and then leave and save the leftovers.
Use small plates and forks and spoons. It helps prevent over-serving yourself.
Eat slowly, calmly and leisurely. Enjoy the tastes of the foods and the act of eating. Slowly, leisurely and calmly. Small forks and spoons help develop this slow leisure.
Stop. Take a bite, then stop. Put everything down. Breath. In the pause, your stomach acknowledges having received food and nutrients and can register the benefit, thus regulating your hunger more appropriately.
Brush your teeth after every meal or snack. As odd as this may sound, brushing your teeth cuts out the aftertaste of that charbroiled steak and half a baked potato with one dollop of sour cream and plentiful sprinkling of chives or of your half of the Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Macadamia Cookie. Cutting out the aftertaste helps quell the desire for “Just one more…”
Become a regular customer at your local organic health food store. This is where to buy organic fruits and vegetables, juices, steaks, non-GMO soy protein/nutrient powder.
Do Yoga. If you don’t want to go to a class; if you don’t want to or can’t spend an hour at a time on yoga, one alternative is to do yoga off the tea-box tops of organic Yogi Teas. Pick the exercises, atop the tea boxes, best suited to you, drink the teas and do as many of the yoga exercises for as long a time as you like. (My favorite: Cocoa Spice, Realizing Your Greatness.)
Lift weights. Start, if you wish, with 1 and 2 lb. weights. Even 5 minutes of light training gets oxygen flowing to your brain, your blood and through your limbs. Oxygenation helps advance any health or thought endeavor or process.
Strength and tone muscle with “rubber band” type exercise implements. Strengthen and tone your muscle while engaging in weight loss. Great combination.
Walk. Go out. Move about. Relax a little. Get sunshine. Breath. Enjoy the scenery, even if the scene is only your neighbor’s garden.
Enjoy life. Enjoy yourself. Enjoy your goals and ambitions. Enjoy your achievements as they come, as they surely will come.
