Get out a pencil and notebook, and begin your diet by recording everything you eat; when; and how much. No, this is not a substitute for weight watchers or any other diet plan. There are no rules to follow; no special menus; just you and your daily caloric intake. This is a user friendly diet which enables you to determine why you eat certain foods and how you can tweak it into a more healthy, reasonable and realistic regimen.
For the first week, eat your normal meals, snacks and desserts. Write down every little morsel you have put into your mouth; note the day, time, and amount ingested. Add notes on what you were doing at the time you began eating late night snacks, or consuming slices of cake or morsels of chocolate in between meals. At the end of the week, read the journal. Identify the areas in which you can improve your eating habits, and write them down in red. Lets continue on to week two; or what will be known as substitution week.
The first time you reach for a snack, stop! Grab a piece of fruit instead. If you absolutely must have it; take one bite and throw the rest away.
Eat it slowly; savoring every bit of it. Remember, there are no rules here; you are just readjusting your eating habits. Before going out to the supermarket, eat a healthy breakfast or lunch.
Instead of bacon and eggs, have a bowl of high fiber cereal with blueberries. If its lunch, have a turkey sandwich on rye. Drink water with every meal; in fact, drink two plus two before bedtime.
As you prepare dinner, check the journal. What did you substitute for the red meat, bread, potatoes and creamy salad dressing? Fish, leafy green vegetables, rice and low fat dressing; excellent!
After washing and drying the dishes, go out for a walk for about 20 minutes. Settling in for the night, you turn on the TV and begin to crave something sweet. Take out the box of crackers you bought earlier in the day; have a few. Perhaps another bowl of cereal with skim milk would suffice.
Cravings gone? Good.
Continue this monitoring process for the entire week; substituting all of the suggestions you wrote down in the journal in red. Week three; weigh yourself.
Did you lose pounds? If you did; then congratulations. If you did not; go back to the journal and begin again. Did you understand the point of this exercise? There was no obsessing over what to eat; you made the choices; and you either stuck with them or did not.
Eventually, you will. Why? Because you are not a quitter; you never have been. This is just one more challenge you invite openly and realistically. You will succeed because you wont accept anything less.
Dieting shouldn't be hard. For fast and easy diet and fitness tips visit Patricia's site at http://The-Weightloss-Guide.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patricia_Zelkovsky |
DVT Awareness Survey Findings For Respondents In High-Risk Groups: Obese Individuals
Up to two million Americans are affected each year by DVT, with up to 600,000 hospitalized. Its primary complication, pulmonary embolism (PE), claims up to 300,000 lives annually -- more than breast cancer and AIDS combined. The Coalition to Prevent Deep-Vein Thrombosis (DVT) recently sponsored an online survey of a nationally representative sample of consumers and physicians. [click link for full article]
News Roundup and Quick Links
The Carrot Diet A woman eats carrots every 15 minutes for 3 months in order to cure her infertility. The solution seemed to work as she became pregnant. A tabloid special Active kids say slim "Children who did 15 minutes a day of moderate exercise -- equivalent to a brisk walk -- were 50 percent less likely than inactive...
Corn: How Much Do You Eat?
When I think of corn - I think of a tasty cob - freshly picked at the height of summer. If only it was really like that. Corn (Zea Mays) is actually a major ingredient in a phenomenal number of processed foods (corn syrup in particular). A new feature-length documentary - King Corn - explores the whole corn industry...
Obesity's Connection To Cardiovascular Disease Remains Poorly Understood
Obesity rates have escalated dramatically in the last several decades and the condition negatively affects health, but its connection to conditions such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) is complex and not fully understood. In the March issue of the Journal of Investigative Medicine experts say more research is needed to discover the links between obesity and CVD, with particular attention to biological differences between women and men. [click link for full article]
Potential Link Between Obesity And Environmental Chemicals
A team of researchers at the University of New Hampshire is investigating whether the increasing ubiquity of chemical flame retardants found in foam furniture, carpeting, microwaves and computers might be related to the climbing rate of obesity in the United States. [click link for full article]
How to Display a Picture in Your Comments
I've finally enabled avatars / pictures for commenters. Here's how you do it. Go to a site called Gravatar. Follow the instructions by entering your email (make sure it is the same email address that you use for your diet-blog.com comments!). Once registered you can upload a picture. From then on your picture will display next to your comment (see...