Healthy Eating-- Easy Tips for Planning a Healthy Diet & Sticking to It (Tip #2)

Healthy Eating Tip #2: Moderation is Key

People often think of healthy eating as an all or nothing proposition, but a key foundation for any healthy diet is moderation. But what is moderation? How much is a moderate amount? That really depends on you and your overall eating habits. The goal of healthy eating is to develop a diet that you can maintain for life, not just a few weeks or months, or until you've hit your ideal weight. So try to think of moderation in terms of balance. Despite what certain fad diets would have you believe, we all need a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, fiber, vitamins, and minerals to sustain a healthy body.

For most of us, moderation or balance means eating less than we do now. More specifically, it means eating far less of the unhealthy stuff (refined sugar, saturated fat, for example) and more of the healthy (such as fresh fruit and vegetables). But it doesn't mean eliminating the foods you love. Eating bacon for breakfast once a week, for example, could be considered moderation if you follow it with a healthy lunch and dinner—but not if you follow it with a box of donuts and a sausage pizza. If you eat 100 calories of chocolate one afternoon, balance it out by deducting 100 calories from your evening meal. If you're still hungry, fill up with an extra serving of fresh vegetables.

• Try not to think of certain foods as “off-limits.” When you ban certain foods or food groups, it is natural to want those foods more, and then feel like a failure if you give in to temptation. If you are drawn towards sweet, salty, or unhealthy foods, start by reducing portion sizes and not eating them as often. Later you may find yourself craving them less or thinking of them as only occasional indulgences.
• Think smaller portions. Serving sizes have ballooned recently, particularly in restaurants. When dining out, choose a starter instead of an entree, split a dish with a friend, and don't order supersized anything. At home, use smaller plates, think about serving sizes in realistic terms, and start small. If you don't feel satisfied at the end of a meal, try adding more leafy green vegetables or rounding off the meal with fresh fruit. Visual cues can help with portion sizes–your serving of meat, fish, or chicken should be the size of a deck of cards, a slice of bread should be the size of a CD case, and half a cup of mashed potato, rice, or pasta is about the size of a traditional light bulb.

Healthy Eating-- Easy Tips for Planning a Healthy Diet & Sticking to It (Tip #1)

Healthy eating is not about strict nutrition philosophies, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, stabilizing your mood, and keeping yourself as healthy as possible—all of which can be achieved by learning some nutrition basics and using them in a way that works for you. You can expand your range of healthy food choices and learn how to plan ahead to create and maintain a tasty, healthy diet.

Healthy Eating Tip #1: Set Yourself Up For Success

To set yourself up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable steps rather than one big drastic change. If you approach the changes gradually and with commitment, you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think.

• Simplify. Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories or measuring portion sizes, think of your diet in terms of color, variety, and freshness. This way it should be easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and easy recipes that incorporate a few fresh ingredients. Gradually, your diet will become healthier and more delicious.
• Start slow and make changes to your eating habits over time. Trying to make your diet healthy overnight isn’t realistic or smart. Changing everything at once usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, like adding a salad (full of different color vegetables) to your diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking.  As your small changes become habit, you can continue to add more healthy choices to your diet.
• Every change you make to improve your diet matters. You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to completely eliminate foods you enjoy to have a healthy diet. The long term goal is to feel good, have more energy, and reduce the risk of cancer and disease. Don’t let your missteps derail you—every healthy food choice you make counts.

Think of water and exercise as food groups in your diet.

Water Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated—causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.

Exercise Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day, just like you would add healthy greens, blueberries, or salmon. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.

6 Easy Ways To Burn MORE Fat

But your body CAN be a fat burning machine.

Decisions you made throughout your life may have started your weight gain.

Changing unhealthy behaviors, watching what you eat and recording what you eat, are some possible ways for helping you to lose weight.

Here are six tips you can implement RIGHT NOW which might help you lose weight and keep your metabolism rolling!

Top Six Tips For Weight Loss:

1. Increase Your Protein Intake

Protein is a very important nutrient to incorporate if you want to lose weight.

It provides your body with the building blocks it needs to increase muscle mass, and it can act as an appetite suppressant.

In fact, increasing your protein intake may make you feel fuller for longer, possibly helping control your appetite.

Also, there is a little known fact about eating protein:  the body BURNS calories by eating it.

But not just protein, ALL food has this effect!

Your body burns calories BREAKING down food, possibly leading to increased calories burned.

How can you incorporate more protein?

Easy!

There are plenty of high-quality food sources which provide plenty of protein, and other essential vitamins and minerals your body needs to function optimally.

Sources such as lean meats, fish, poultry, and nuts are great sources of protein. And don't forget the protein cookies!

2. Increase Essential Fat Intake

Essential fats are different than your everyday fats.

These are fats that are not produced by the body but are ESSENTIAL for your body to function at optimal levels.

Fats like DHA, EPA and CLA are important fats your body needs.

Incorporating fatty fish like salmon, shellfish, and tuna, and nuts like walnuts, flaxseed, and almonds, will help increase your DHA and EPA levels in your blood.

Certain vegetables are loaded with CLA, which once in the body is broken down into DHA and EPA.

Not a big fish fan?  Try a high quality Krill oil supplement to satisfy your essential fatty acid needs.

3. Drink Plenty of Water

Water hydrates you and it can be beneficial for weight loss.

Water fills you up, making you less likely to be hungry later.

It also may help burn more fat by keeping your body hydrated.

Dehydration makes your body work harder at burning fat.

Be sure to drink six to eight glasses per day to help burn fat and keep you hydrated all day long.

4. Stay Away From High Glycemic Foods

Carbohydrates ARE NOT the enemy in weight loss.

A plan which includes carbohydrates may help you burn fat.

But be careful, high glycemic foods may raise blood sugar, creating an insulin spike.

High glycemic foods may lead to weight gain.

You see, once you ingest higher glycemic foods, your body releases insulin, possibly resulting in sugar being stored as fat.

Turn to lower glycemic foods like vegetables, fiber-rich whole wheat products, and oatmeal.

These lower glycemic foods take longer to process due to the high fiber content.

Result:  a much slower release of sugar into your bloodstream.

5. Get Rid Of The Scale

Losing fat is different than losing weight.

When you lose weight, you may be losing water and muscle mass, but less fat than you might think.

So, get rid of the scale.

Try to pay less attention to WEIGHT LOSS, and put your focus on your BODY FAT STORES.

Have your body fat taken and measurements done.  This will give you a starting point for fat loss.

Burning 500 extra calories per day may help you lose 1 pound of fat per week.

This may use fat stores as an energy source, resulting in a leaner, fitter you.

6. Exercise

Exercising is a great way to burn extra calories and keep you sane.

Varying your workout routine and intensity may burn more calories and give a much needed boost to your metabolism.

Incorporating strength training and cardiovascular work may help burn extra calories, and strengthen and tone your body.

Be careful though, exercising may INCREASE your appetite.

So try to eat a meal with a mix of carbohydrates and protein at least two to three hours before you workout to supply plenty of energy for your workout.

After you workout, be sure to replace lost nutrients IMMEDIATELY after, to boost healing and stimulate muscle recovery and growth.

YOU Can Lose Weight...

Your Body CAN Be a Fat Burning Machine.

By implementing proper eating habits, proper hydration levels, increasing protein at every meal, and eating lower glycemic foods, you will keep your body primed for fat burning.

6 Ways to Rev Up Your Metabolism NOW!

A super-charged metabolism is the holy grail of weight loss. It pretty much guarantees that your efforts to hit your target weight will pay off. Yet, it has a way of constantly slipping out of your reach. 

Aging inevitably causes a slow-down of our metabolism. It usually begins once a person hits thirty and continues as the years roll on.  Other reasons include hormonal changes, such as menopause, and metabolic illnesses, such as hypothyroidism.

But hope is not lost! You can combat those factors and kick your metabolism into high-gear by incorporating a handful of lifestyle changes. Read on and prepare for a metabolism primed to melt pounds away.

Pump Iron to Pump up Your Metabolism.

Strength training to build muscle tone is the most effective method of ramping up a sluggish metabolism. The more muscle you’ve got on your frame, the higher your metabolism goes.

If you lack the time to tone and work every muscle in your body, concentrate on the largest muscles: your butt, thighs, chest, and back. Try compound exercises that incorporate at least two of those and engage your core. Remember: you don’t need bigger muscles, just stronger ones.

HIIT It with Your Best Shot.

You should immediately add High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT, to your workouts. The idea is to alternate short bouts of all out, go-for-broke exercise at your maximum intensity with recovery periods where you’re either resting or working at a lighter intensity. HIIT cardio sessions – be they running, biking, elliptical training, or even jumping rope – seriously boost your resting metabolic rate above its norm for a full 24-48 hours after your workout.

Never Go Hungry.

Starvation is the ultimate catalyst for slowing your metabolism until it’s like wet cement running uphill. To keep that from happening, abandon the idea of three huge meals a day, and spread out your caloric intake with several smaller meals and healthy snacks. The goal is to eat every 3-4 hours so that your metabolism never gets the chance to idle.

Make Protein Your Pal.

Avoiding starvation mode is also a matter of selecting the right foods. Protein takes more time to be metabolized in your body than carbohydrates or fats. That slow breakdown keeps your blood sugar and energy at a more constant level. It assures your system that food is plentiful, so there’s no need to slow down or cache stores of energy as fat.

Count Those Sheep.

Sleep is vital to your general health and to your metabolic function. The quantity and quality of your REM cycles have a deep impact on your body’s production of the hormones that regulate metabolism and appetite. If you don’t sleep enough, your metabolism slows and the hormones that signal when you’ve had enough to eat go completely haywire. The result is that you’ll pack on pounds and won’t have the metabolism to shed them.

Water, Water, Water.

Like every other system in your body, your metabolism requires the proper energy to run at full capacity and efficiency. When you’re sufficiently hydrated, your blood is better able to carry nutrients and oxygen to your cells, making them capable of their highest metabolic function.

Just as your body weight determines your daily calories; it should be used to figure out exactly how much water you need. Take what you weigh in pounds, divide that number in half and you will have the ounces of water you should be drinking daily. For example, a man weighing 160 lbs should drink 80 ounces of water every day to reach his full metabolic potential.

Keep your slowing metabolism at bay, and try these 6 strategies  to rev it up into a higher gear!

Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.

You know, there's still a LOT of folks out there who don't know that this stuff is pure poison.

I'm talking about:  Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.

This ingredient is the code name for "trans-fats" and it runs rampant in fried foods and packaged goods...it also has been closely linked to these conditions:

Heart Disease...

High Cholesterol...

Alzheimer Disease...

High Blood Pressure...

Stroke... 

And how about this one? DEATH.

And that's even by consuming just a small amount daily.

What foods most commonly contain trans fats? Here are some of the most common:

French Fries - 14.5 grams of trans fat in the average medium sized order of french fries! Eat that every day and you won't be living long. Go with baked sweet potato fries instead.

Margarine and Vegetable Shortening - Anywhere from 30 - 40% trans fat...no thank you! Go with organic butter instead.

Fast Food - An original chicken dinner at KFC will reward you with 7 grams of trans fat, but it's not just the fried foods...it's even in the desserts! You'll find trans fat in almost all heavily processed foods, and there's very few foods more processed than fast food!

If you want a quick meal on the go that isn't full of trans fats, go with this "quick service" joint as of late, Chipotle. A full meal including hormone free meats, fiber rich legumes, and a bunch of tasty, low-calorie topping choices...all for less than $7. Can't go wrong with that!

Donuts and other baked goods - BAD. Trans fat often in the batter and dough and then many times fried on top of it! This includes cookies, pastries, muffins, brownies, and just about every other baked good you can think of. Instead, go with true "baked" baked goods (not fried) and try some of the gluten-free varieties to avoid the wheat on top of it. Try a gluten free brownie mix made with rice flour and a pretty healthy ingredient profile...not bad for a sweet treat every so often!

Cereal (even most "healthy" varieties) - For example, Post Selects "Great Grains" contains 2 grams of trans fat per cup. NOT so healthy. Go with old fashioned oatmeal instead, or a true sprouted grain cereal that doesn't contain processed wheat.

Salad Dressings - Notorious for containing loads of partially hydrogenated oils and trans fat, steer clear of most store-bought salad dressings. Instead go with a homemade recipe that calls for extra virgin olive oil at the base.

And there are a bunch of others, but those are some of the biggest culprits. Again, read your labels and make sure you avoid partially hydrogenated and hydrogenated oils like the plague.