Dieting and Weight Loss
Gaining weight is a natural process that occurs in the human body from the extra ingestion of calories and not working those calories off in a normal daily routine. If you want to lose weight you have to work those calories off and not eat more calories than you use in a day. It is not as hard as it is often made out to sound.
There are so many fad diets and gadgets and gizmos to lose weight, diet and exercise that a whole industry is out there for it. You don’t need to go to all the trouble of dieting with some special program or fancy kit full of cards and count calories. You don’t need to buy any special foods or go with one particular type, such as low carb or no carb.
These are all ways to lose money, not weight. Sure some people have lost weight and kept it off this way but the most successful way to lose weight is to change your life, not the things you eat. Yes you will change some of what you eat but not all of it and not to the degree that some would say you should.
In order to successfully lose weight takes some common sense, not a some fancy diet plan. What you need to do is get your butt off the couch and out for some exercise. And you need to do this a few times a day to lose weight. Not just for ten minutes a day, try an hour a day to start. You need to look at what you do and change that.
The whole thing with weight lose is not that whatever diet you are trying is not working, it’s that the diet does not conform to your life. If you do not follow a diet, what good is it. Diets are not so much eating the small amounts of only healthy foods, as eating the right amounts of all the things your supposed to be eating and exercising.
I have learned to hate the word diet, as when I hear it, the first thing that occurs to me is what do I have to pay for now, some special plan, or a book, or special food only available at certain stores. That’s the problem with diets, people think the wrong things about them. If you just look at what you eat and alter it to fit your lifestyle and how much you exercise, you will not have to “DIET”. You can do the things like eat ice cream with chocolate syrup, or pig out at a buffet once in a while and not have to worry about starving later.
The major problem with people today is they live a sedentary life, that means that we drive everywhere, walk only when needed and get no exercise unless it’s absolutely necessary. If we walked more, biked to work and went out for a walk or jog every day we could take the weight off and keep it off. It’s not hard to do, just get out and do it. If you need incentive look down and pull up your shirt. It only takes the motivation to get out and get working. You have no excuse to not get out and get some exercise, anything someone can come up with can be countered with some other form of exercise.
Exercise can be anything that get the blood moving and the muscles working, walking, running, jogging, biking, jump roping, even walking up and down the steps of your apartment building. If some one says they have no place to run or walk, then I say walk in the mall. Any mall is open at least six days a week and has dozens of people doing the same thing. All it takes is getting out and working off the weight.
Walk to work or at least park further away and walk a few blocks there. Park at the back of the parking lot when you go shopping, so you have some walking to do to get to and from the store. Take a quiet walk in the evening, with a friend or by yourself. Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator or escalator. All it takes is some work to get some effort into your life.
When people say to me and I have heard a lot of it, they can’t lose weight becauseâÂ?¦ the first thing I think of is why are they complaining instead of doing. If they can’t work out for some health reason, then they need to see their doctor to find out what they can do. But to the ones who say they can’t get out and walk because it’s boring, than they have no incentive enough to try and diet and lose weight.
If you want to lose weight, get out and do it, don’t whine about it. Get some exercise, and eat right. It doesn’t take a book or special foods to eat right. Everyone is taught in school the four food groups and such. You eat some fruit, vegetables, meat, and breads or cereals and in the right portions and your all set. If you want to get information about portion control, go ahead and look it up on the internet, but you don’t really need to. Common sense comes into play here.
A bucket of chicken does not make a meal for one. Or two or even three. You should use your common sense and eat healthy. Use the information put out by the FDA and the government on their web site for a well balanced meal. There web site explains in pretty easy terms what I’m talking about. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/wh-nutr.html
If you don’t understand about the food groups now, it’s now a pyramid and not the four groups try the Department of Agricultures site here: http://www.mypyramid.gov/
You can get an idea of what I’m talking about if you look at what you eat and what you should be eating. Every day you should be getting about 1500 to 2500 calories a day depending on your size. If you are a woman you should be getting the lower end of this and for the bigger people you will be at the higher end. If you want to lose weight you should go for the lower end of this. It is not as hard as you might think to get less calories and still be well fed and not hungry.
Eat more vegetables and fruit, raw preferably. Eat things that are more able to fill you up like watermelon or cantaloupe. Eat healthy snacks like granola bars or popcorn with little or no butter. Use meal planning to make healthy meals like salads as the main course. Or go with things like small meat portions and large vegetable portions with a fruit for desert. You can look at some of the information at the web sites I mentioned about portion controls and use common sense to see that you are eating too much of the bad stuff.
I have been at the weight I am because of regular exercise, and eating healthy regularly. I eat what ever candy bars I want for snacks, occasionally. I have ice cream and such on occasion but I do not pig out on it. I have the ice cream once or twice a week and a small bowl, not a huge eight or ten scoop bowl. I also eat good healthy meals, I have salads for meals quite often, I always have large portions of vegetables and fruit and get plenty of exercise.
It’s not hard if you just get your mind around to having to work to get into shape instead of that quick fix that Americans seem to believe in but never happen. That is one of the problems with weight lose, people always want instant gratification and results instead of having to work for what they get.
If you work for what you want, you can get it. There is no pill, magic potion, or special diet that will transform you overnight into the shapely figure of an athlete. It takes work and patience. If you get out and exercise, and eat the right foods in the correct portions you can lose weight and keep it off.
In order to lose weight and keep the weight off, exercise and eat right.
