How to Diet
If you don’t have time to rid your fridge of every high-calorie food and eliminate eating out from your diet, you probably think that you don’t have time to start an effective healthy regimen.
The truth is that the most effective diets are not about reducing an entire food group or type, but about a mindset change, and about knowing a few little tricks that will cut a few calories every day.
How Do Calories Work?
Calories are just units of measuring energy. Calories are your friends – they keep your body moving and enable you to function, as well as do more exerting things like mountain-climb and run a marathon. The problem is that people don’t know how to use them. If you consume more calories than you burn, your body will “store” that energy in the form of fat. This is what you don’t want.
To determine what your calorie intake should be, start with considering how much weight you want to lose. The basic formula is:
Ideal Weight × 10 = Minimal Energy Requirement
Your minimal energy requirement is what you need to function in a very basic sense. To find out how much you need to do extra things, like exercise, multiply this number by 1.5 if your lifestyle is active or 1.2 if you are moderately active.
Minimal Energy Requirement × 1.2 or 1.5 = Total Calories You Should Consume in a Day
Tips for Losing Weight
This may seem like a high number, but once you start counting calories, you will see how many you consume in a day without knowing it. Here are some easy ways that you can cut back without making huge lifestyle changes:
- Eat slowly. It takes twenty minutes for your stomach to tell your brain you are full, so you could be consuming calories your body doesn’t need in the meantime. Pick foods that take longer to eat because they require more chewing. Try bagels, apples, hard rolls and raw vegetables.
- Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water per day. This helps fill you up and also boosts your metabolism. The body is busy processing the water and prevents you from snacking.
- Consider trying a weight loss supplement that will help you suppress your appetite. This will help you feel full and reduce the amount of calories you consume.
- Eat an afternoon snack before you leave work. In general, try to eat healthy snacks as you feel hungry throughout the day rather than gorging yourself on huge meals.
- Every time you use your muscles, you are burning fat and increasing your calories-burned count. Try taking the stairs instead of taking the elevator, parking far away from the entrances, take a bike to work – anything helps.
Conclusion
This seems much more doable than only eating cabbage soup for 3 months or eliminating sugar. Those extreme diets backfire quickly, because the body craves variety and most times you will gain back more than you lost in a moment of weakness. Count calories, take the time to give your body what it needs and eliminate those extra calories that are holding you back. Don’t diet harder, just smarter.