What Does Calorie Counting Have to do With Weight Loss?

All calories are not the same.

Many people believe just counting calories is the best way to lose weight. With Eating less calories the body will have to burn more calories thus losing the weight. The problem with this is the quality of food calories you will restrict. If you eating fruits and vegetables or lean protein then you are getting many important vitamins and minerals but if you are instead drinking sodas instead of the fruits and vegetables, you are doing your body more harm than good. Instead you have wasted your calorie intake because soda has empty calories.Also another draw back of empty calories you will feel more hungry and thus eat more. This defeats the purpose of losing the weight. With eating fruits and vegetables or a lean protein meat you will not crave the nutrients and you will not feel as hunger. So if you are counting calories look to the quality of the food instead of the total calorie intake.This is an important secret to weight loss.

Not all exercise is the same.

Another important option is exercise plus calorie counting. If you want to lose the weight a life style management change is in order. Once you attain your ideal weight the best way to maintain it is through exercise otherwise you might gain it all back.There are two types of exercise, cardio and resistance. For example jogging is cardio and push-ups and sit ups are resistance. When starting an exercise program constant your doctor first for health reasons. With cardio your heart will beat faster and you will burn the calories faster. With exercise you will build your stamina and feel much better. So in closing count your calories wisely and do get out there and exercise.

Counting Calories is Important in a Good Healthy Diet!

Before we can begin today, we need to grasp an understanding of an important
problem of weight loss.

Two out of three Americans are overweight. The primary cause
is that we eat more and exercise less. There is no doubt that the more
advances we make that enhance our lifestyle the heavier we become.
Wait a minute! What about all those low-fat foods that we eat
now? How come I reduced fat in my diet but I’m still gaining weight?
It’s a simple answer. A few years ago we all became aware of
the detrimental effects of fat in our diet. What did we do? We began
to concentrate on lowering cholesterol and taking fat out of our diets.

This is a good thing. However, The National Center for Health
Statistics studied eating habits of 8,260 adult American between 1988
and 1991. Their research showed that Americans had significantly
reduced their fat intake but still packed on the pounds.
How can this happen? There is no mystery. In the process of
counting fat grams, we stopped counting calories! Many of us bought
in to the theory that if it is “low-fat” it won’t make us fat.

WRONG!
You can’t forget about counting calories. If you eat more
calories than you need the body will store them as fat. It doesn’t
matter whether the calories are from fat or carbohydrates
that eating small amounts of fat.

One school of thought believes that eating small amounts of fat
can actually keep you from over indulging on total calories. The
theory is that dietary fat causes our bodies to produce a hormone that
tells the intestines to slow down the emptying process. You feel full
and therefore are less likely to overeat.
Adding a little peanut butter to your rice cake may satisfy your
hunger for a longer period of time, thus preventing you from eating
more than you need.

Again counting calories, eating small amounts of fat and with steady exercise will help
you lose the weight.

Fighting the Weight- 7 Good Foods to Eat

Here are some of the best foods to eat to fight the weight.

1. Eggs- no longer considered bad for your heart they actually help you lose the weight.

2. Leafy greens include kale, spinach, collards, and swiss chard are good because  they are low in both calories and carbohydrates, but loaded with fiber. They are also low energy density which make people eat fewer calories overall.

3. Salmon which is a oily fish is rich in iodine which helps regulate the thyroid which also controls your metabolism running optimally. Mackerel, trout, sardines, herring and other types of oily fish are also excellent.

4. Broccoli,cauliflower, cabbage and brussels sprouts are high in fiber and protein. They will also fill you up so that you will tend to eat less. These vegetables contain cancer fighting substances also.

5. Lean Beef and Chicken Breast are good for weight loss because of the protein. Try to eat unprocessed meat as processed meat is unhealthy. Protein is also more filling and eating a high protein diet can make you burn up to 80 more calories per day. Studies show increasing your protein intake to 25-30% of calories can cut cravings by 60%.

6. Boiled Potatoes,sweet potatoes, turnips and other root vegetables are also excellent for weight loss. White potatoes have just about every mineral in them and despite the bad rap they are good for us.

7. Tuna is another low-calorie, high protein food.

These foods are excellent candidates to help you lose the weight.

How To Stick To Your Healthy Eating Plan

Starting a healthy eating plan of sorts may look easy at the start, but wait till you drop by the grocery or pass through the local fast food joint. Once the temptation to binge sets in, you could be in for a tough mental battle. However, once you get in the swing of things, and conveniently settle in your healthy meal plan, things will certainly get much easier. Here’s how to faithfully adhere to your healthy eating plan. 

Write Your Plan In Paper

Start by writing your healthy eating plan on a piece of paper. However, writing it down on paper is so different from having lots of tasty but fattening food in front of you. To formalize your eating plan, grab a meal planning guide from your dietitian, or get a free meal planning guide from health and wellness sites online. 

A Healthy Eating Plan Isn’t Hard, Provided You Don’t Fall Into A Trap

Finding healthy foods, and crafting a healthy eating plan with the help of your dietitian or doctor can be done, as long as you steer clear of the many traps that most people get into. The key to sticking to your healthy eating routine lies in ensuring that you eat foods that are good for you, until it becomes a habit, and is ingrained into your system. To ensure your success, let your friends and family or your co-workers know about your plan, and ask them to check in with you once in a while. It helps if you constantly get positive encouragement from your loved ones, as well a sin knowing that they will truly hold you accountable if you fail.  

Try New Recipes

To make your healthy eating experience an enjoyable and interesting one, try a new vegetable recipe, salad or fruit juice mix, that you’ve never had before. However, don’t just discard the old favorites yet, because if you can’t live without having your fill of bacon and French fries, then don’t ease them out of your menu yet. Enjoy the usual stuff for like once a week or once every two weeks, and make a constant effort to eat healthy food for the rest of the day. The main idea here is that you don’t have to live without your favorite food items, but you need not eat them all the time.

Healthy eating can be summed up to say that you eat only the foods that contribute to good health. Eliminate the foods that contain empty calories, as well as the food items that contain lots of chemicals, food additives, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and preservatives. Remember to only eat foods that have natural and wholesome ingredients, which include fresh fruits and vegetables.

How To Have a Budget-Friendly Healthy Eating Plan

With food prices soaring these days, is there way for you to eat healthy, without poring more holes in your pocket? There’s a actually a way for you to eat healthy and within your budget. Before you head off to the supermarket, sit down and write out a list first, and remember to stick to it. Shop just once a week, cut out the sale coupons from the newspaper, but disregard the coupons for processed foods. Here are other helpful tips for eating healthy on a budget.

Money-Saving Basics For The Healthy Eater

Before you make the dash for the grocery, make sure you don’t go shopping on an empty stomach. Eat a light snack or meal, so that you’ll be able to resist the temptation. Once you’re in the grocery, look for sales or discount promos on fruits and vegetables, as most groceries get a bargain on these items, which they pass-on as savings to their customers. Buy a large bag of fruit instead of single, large fruit items which are priced per pound. Also go for generic brand, which are labeled as the store brands, but are relatively priced less.  

Get More Healthy Food Items From The Money You Spend

To make the most out of your budget, remember to get more healthy food items, as well as make significant changes in your food options. Here are some helpful tips for buying healthy food on a budget.

- Buy in bulk an din season. Seasonal produce will offer more nutritional value, and are priced less too. Also make a food list that’s based on sale or discounted items.  

- Eat more beans. Beans are relatively affordable sources of fiber and protein, particularly the dry beans. 

- Cut down on your purchase of alcohol and other carbonated beverages, because these offer no nutritional benefits, and also cost a lot too.

- Use meat alternative such as beans and tofu for your stir-fry, spaghetti and chili recipes, as well as use ground turkey meat in place of ground beef.

With the recession hurting our pockets, more and more people are constantly looking for ways to get more out of their money when they go to the grocery. However, health professionals worry that as the economy gets tighter, more people will be making poor food choices, and will also turn to eating unhealthy fast food fare. But eating unhealthy food should not be the case, since there’s a way for you to eat healthy without busting your budgets. All you need to do is buy smart, make more budget-friendly decisions, and change some of your shopping and food-preparation habits.

Fad Diets: Why Are They Bad?

It is not surprising that many people wonder why fad diets are bad when they seem to get results. You will find many sites on the internet claiming significant weight loss in just a few days. That type of weight loss is always temporary. It is usually 90% water which will be put straight back on as soon as your body rehydrates, which it must do if you are not going to suffer severe health problems or die.

Other fad diets are not so obviously crash diets with outrageous claims but they are over hyped diet plans that tend to be fashionable for a while and usually make a lot of money for the inventor in associated product sales. In the best cases these are good nutrition plans which will help you lose weight, but which you could probably have gotten for free from your doctor. In the worst cases they will prove so difficult to follow that you will give up after a week.

The bad of fad diets

1. Diets that promise quick and easy weight loss are usually based on eating more of one food type and none of another. These do not give the benefits that you would get from a balanced diet. They may suggest you take supplements but many supplements are not absorbed by the body unless they are taken along with the foods that the diet has banned. After a few weeks, if you stick to it that long, you may begin to develop nutritional deficiencies.

2. Fad diets are often boring and over restrictive. After the novelty of the first day or two, you will not enjoy your meals. You will then start to crave food constantly and will break the diet. You may even feel guilty, thinking it is your fault that you did not lose weight.

3. Most fad diets do not follow recommendations of the American Heart Association and similar bodies for fat levels in the diet. Often the diet will recommend high fat foods and low carbs which if taken long term, could result in heart disease. The promoters may tell you that the diet is only intended to be followed for a short time. But you probably will not reach your goal weight in that time, and then what? You either continue with a plan that is not good for your health, or stop and probably gain back what you lost.

4. Many fad diets do not help you to incorporate enough servings of fruits and vegetables in your weight loss program, or give you the variety of foods that your body needs.

5. Quick weight loss diets are just a temporary solution and do not help you to make permanent changes to your eating habits. Permanent changes are the only way to remain at your target weight once you reach it. Fad diets encourage yo-yo diet-binge cycles of fast weight loss and equally fast weight gain. This is worse for your health and your self esteem than if you had stayed overweight all the time.

Whatever the publicity materials may say, these diets will not help you in the long term. The best way to sustain weight loss is to eat a varied and healthy diet, do not overeat, exercise regularly and avoid fad diets.