To Lose Weight: Control Your Meal Planning
Last Updated on by Sophie
To Lose Weight: Control Your Meal Planning
Balanced diet is important for losing weight or maintaining healthy weight. What put most of us off is hunger while on diet program and if you don’t plan your meal properly you might end up fighting hunger and it is a battle difficult to win.
Eating less than what your body need will keep you hungry and hunger makes it difficult to continue with diet plan and that is why some dieters give up and stop without reaching their weight loss target.
Eating more than what your body need and burn will bring your weight up on weighing scale and you will end up storing fat and becoming fat.
To avoid hunger and over eating you need to start knowing your daily calorie need. It sounds difficult to some, but what I mean is simple.
We all need food to survive and nutrition help us maintain our health and keep us going every day. But generally we eat more than what we need and the fat that is not burned will be stored and this is how we gain weight.
We all know how we spend our day and based on that you can determine how much food you should consume, simply if your lifestyle is sedentary than you need to watch what you eat otherwise you will end up gaining weight.
Women need around 1200 Calories daily and men 1400 Calories and eating more than that is what makes you gain weight. Adding fitness regime to your lifestyle will help you burn excess calories.
Remember meal planning has to be easy, making it strict and less enjoyable will not motivate you to continue, meal planning is not about restricting yourself to certain type of diet. It is about balance, variety and moderation and to achieve that I have these tips for you:
Be adventurous and try new food.
Limiting yourself to certain type of food will make it boring and less enjoyable, if you Indian vegetarian food is not appealing to you try Chinese or try your own style of cooking. I discovered baked broccoli tastes better than steamed after watching a cooking show on TV.
Make it simple and easy.
Too many rules will make you give up. I suggest also that you have one day in a week that is free for you to enjoy what you like. If you are concerned with how to control your calorie intake here is a simple and easy way to do it. Use small plates instead of large one and thin long glasses instead of short and wide.
Don’t avoid your favorite food.
It is all about balance and all foods come with calories and eating in moderation is what you should aim for and not deprivation. Do not make it boring by forcing yourself into something you don’t like.
Eat out but not often.
Eating out is social activity and most meetings take place in cafes and restaurants and you don’t need to avoid eating out and having fun. Choose healthy food and eat slowly to eat less and choose water over any other drink that has sugar.
Our lifestyle has become less active and more sedentary, high-calorie food contributes to obesity problem that our society is facing. Nutritionist suggests following eating habits to make sure you are eating healthy.
Eat four or more cups (1 cup = 1 serving) of vegetables every day.
Eat three or more cups (1 cup = 1 serving) of fruits every day.
Eat fish two or more times in a week.
Buy whole meal bread pasta & bread always.
Eat pizza and burgers once a week.
Go for fat-free or soy milk.
Go for water instead of juice.
Snack on nuts, fruits and vegetable sticks (carrots & celery).
