Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Inside Secret to Calories Loss and a Healthier Body

By Rowena French

To enjoy successful, long term weight loss you need to change your perspective on how to lose weight and consider how to modify your lifestyle rather than how to go on (another) diet. This can be easier said than done for many 'dieters' who have carried excess weight for years and tried varied approaches, including a calories loss food program. To regain their body shape and good health they need to modify their lives not just the food they eat and see their body as a friend that needs to well cared for.

For the likelihood of a longer life and happier disposition, you will do well to spend time and effort now, developing a healthier body. The best foods to eat come from each of the major food categories and are there is enough variety across these to make your new meals and snacks sufficiently different and interesting. The benefits of eating well from a calories loss menu are many but some of the shorter term benefits include better sleep, more energy and a boost to your metabolism where the calories you eat are processed more efficiently.

The role of exercise in the development of a healthy, strong body should not be underestimated. Exercise to develop muscle assists with the burning of calories and additionally boosts your metabolic rate. You may enjoy swimming as a regular form of exercise rather than pumping weights but because either will benefit your body through muscle development choose the most appealing exercise that will challenge you over the long term.

You can start your new lifestyle now without requiring special meals by ordering a salad for your next lunch, or having a healthy glass of water instead of that soda. When you are at the grocery store, think about the best choice for eating healthily and creating a calories loss in meals across the next week. Instead of reaching for a frozen pizza, select a bag of frozen vegetables for dinner and cook up those vegetables with some white rice and a chicken breast instead of making macaroni and cheese.

The size of our food servings is a key to successful weight loss and often misunderstood by many. As a general rule we do not understand the significance of this and eat around double the amount of food we should at each meal time and then more in between. One way to gauge accurately the portion size we should eat is to look at the size of our closed fist as this is the size of our stomach.

Visualize your stomach by looking at your closed fist. Then remember the size of the last meal you ate and imagine how it would have fit into your stomach. The only way your stomach can fit the large amounts food we eat, is by stretching and this means that we are often unaware of the excess food we consume.

At your next meal scale down the amount of food you eat so that it only fits into your closed fist. You will find that this limits the food you eat and means that you will need to eat another smaller meal sooner than you generally would. Eating smaller meals of this size, 4-5 times a day is a more successful way to bring about weight loss than eating the traditionally larger meals three times each day.

This small but essential aspect of a successful weight loss food program is important to understand and act upon. Although foods that bring about calories loss is a core aspect of long term weight loss, just knowing the size of your stomach and ensuring that it is not unnecessarily stretched and then refilled to the same extent will assist you determine not only what you eat but how much and how often. Smaller and more frequent meals are well worth factoring into your new and healthier lifestyle.

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