By Michael Rapson
Exercise is only a small part of the equation of losing weight. Nutrition plays the biggest role. But dieting doesn’t work, and this is why;
♦ Dieting, by definition, is a "temporary and highly restrictive program of eating in order to lose weight". As a weight loss program, diets don’t work! While you may lose weight while doing the diet, about 95% of people who lose weight will gain it back within 1 to 5 years. The restrictive diet may lead to a diet and overeating, or diet and binging cycle. And since your body doesn’t want you to starve, it responds to those restricting diets by slowing your metabolism. That makes it harder to lose weight.
♦ Diets can also be harmful. They may lack essential nutrients, and teaches you nothing about eating healthy in way that works best for you. Let’s say you completed your diet, then what? Often times you will just go back to the habits you had before that made you gain weight in the first place. This is why yo-yo dieting is so common. And that can even lead to other health problems.
♦ Along with all of this, overly restrictive diets take the pleasure out of eating. You have to cut back on foods you enjoy, and then added stress is there because you can’t have what you want. And what happens when you can’t have something? Most of us then want it even more than before, and often times the diet is abandoned or you cheat anyway. And then the cheating becomes a problem because you feel like you failed.
Nobody wants to feel deprived, and that can lead to not even starting at all. The fear of failure, or even the fear of success can be debilitating. What if you can't lose weight? Or what happens when you do reach your goal, and how is that going to make you feel about the attention you get? Fear can play a number of tricks with you. Understand these are fears, and not anything that is real. These are projections of what you think could happen. The important thing is to work toward your goals, and you can decide the outcome of how you feel because you have the control over what you do and how you let those feelings affect you.
So instead of dieting, here are some tips of what you can do:
♦ Give up the idea of dieting. Choose a program that will teach you how to eat healthy in a way that works best for you.
♦ If you want to lose weight, adopt habits that will get you there. Start by eating slowly. Pay attention to how the food tastes, and the texture. Enjoy what you are eating. It should take about 15-20 minutes to complete a meal.
♦ Pay attention to your hunger cues. On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being not hungry at all, 3 being you are hungry enough to eat a meal, and 5 being that you are starving. The idea here is not to eat when you aren’t hungry, and not wait until you are starving because you’ll most likely tend to overeat. So eat when you are on a level of 3 or 4 in hunger. If you are trying to lose weight, eat until your about 80% full. You should feel satisfied, but not full.
♦ Include lean protein sources and vegetables in every meal, and plan your carbs around your workouts. Having your carbs after your workouts will replenish your energy stores that you used during your workout, and helps with recovery.
♦ Eat healthy fats. Stay away from Trans fats and focus more on the healthy fats. If your meal has fats in them, reduce your carbs. If your meal has carbs, reduce your fats.
♦ Forget Calorie counting. Not only is it time consuming, it’s also inaccurate. Calories on food labels can vary by up to 25% higher or lower, meaning that there is up to a 50% chance of inaccuracy. Also, what you actually absorb can have an effect, depending on what your body chooses to do with what you eat.
♦ Instead, use your hand as a guide. A serving of protein is a palm size. A serving of vegetables is a fist size. A serving of carbs is cupped handful. And a serving of fats is a thumb size. So as a start, women can start at 1 serving of proteins, vegetables, carbs, and fats per meal. And for men, it would be 2 servings per meal. Adjust accordingly depending on hunger cues and fullness.
*To download a full PDF version of the Portion Control Guide, plus The Cost of Getting Lean, and the Problem with Calorie Counting click here.
Another solution is to get some coaching. People who have a coach have higher success rates, and it takes the guess work out of eating healthy and eliminates the frustration of dieting. As a coach, I have seen the struggle of people trying to do it on their own, and I understand how hard it can be while living a busy life.
The point here is - Nutrition is the key to losing weight, and exercise is your way to keep your body strong, moving, and helps keep it healthy, with a side effect of calories burned. You should mix up your routine for the week (strength, high and low-intensity exercise depending on goals) and eat accordingly to what your activity levels are going to be. Eating a healthy well balanced diet and portioned to your needs, will get you to the ideal body and health you want.
sources: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/changepower/201010/why-diets-workand-what-does
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