When you’re trying to lose weight, be it for health reasons or to fit into a pair of pants, it can take a lot of work to know exactly what foods are best for your body. While both are important, your diet has a much more significant impact on your weight loss program than exercise. Therefore it is important to eat right.
You might feel jealous watching movie stars go from dad bod to god bod within months. But that is hardly possible for a regular Joe. If you are trying to get in shape, know that it is going to take some time. Maybe a year or maybe more. But with the right combination of diet and exercise, you can do it without a doubt.
The World Health Organization(WHO) estimates 1 billion people around the world are suffering from obesity. But that number doesn’t have to stay that way. Neither does it mean that losing weight will be all joyless suffering. With the right plan in place, you can make weight loss fun. That is exactly what this article will help you to do.
Find A Diet You Can Stick To
When you’re trying to lose weight and get in shape, it’s important to find a diet that you can stick to. The best way to do this is by finding a flexible diet that allows you to have fun.
Diet books often say it’s all about picking the right one and sticking with it, but other factors are involved when looking for a diet that’ll work for your life. If you are someone who loves eating, you will probably fail to stick to a diet that has you eating boiled vegetables and broiled chicken for days.
Try researching healthier alternatives for the things you like to eat. Scour the internet to find out how you can make healthy meals tasty and shuffle your diet every once in a while.
Remember that you might be able to shed a few kilos off your body weight by following a high-intensity diet for a month, but you can achieve a lot more by sticking to a lower-intensity diet over a long time.
Eat Whole Foods
As a general rule, whole foods are more nutritious than processed foods. Whole foods have fewer additives, preservatives, and chemical residues than their processed counterparts. This means that your body has to do less work to process them and extract the nutrients you need while reducing the risk of harmful substances.
The National Library of Medicine notes that a whole grain-rich diet, as opposed to a refined grain-rich diet, is much more effective at reducing your weight and systemic low-grade inflammation while also keeping your gut healthy.
Whole foods can be filling and satisfying without causing weight gain. They’re typically much cheaper per calorie than their packaged counterparts because they don’t contain too much sugar or salt to make up for the lack of flavor.
Consider Taking Supplements
Supplements are not a substitute for whole foods but can help you get the nutrients you need. For example, if your diet is low in vitamin C, it would make sense to supplement with vitamin C capsules or tablets, which are usually cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables.
It can be difficult to decide whether or not to take additional supplements and, if yes, then which supplements to take. You can always seek help from websites like MyHDiet, which ask you a few basic questions about your health and fitness to make personalized recommendations that will work for you. They are a great tool for laymen to use to get started.
But remember that taking additional supplements with your diet will have impacts on your health, so you can consult a trained professional, such as a dietitian, before you start doing so. Certain supplements also interact with certain medications. Therefore, check with your doctor before taking any supplements if you are on heavy medication.
Notice The GI of Your Food
The Glycemic Index (GI) of food is a measure of how quickly food is digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. The lower the GI, the slower the digestion process occurs, which means that you’ll feel full for longer and have more energy throughout the day. So choose low-GI foods at breakfast, lunch, and dinner before your workouts.
But remember that the GI alone doesn’t indicate the healthiness of a food item. According to Harvard Health Publishing, Chocolate (40) has a lower GI than dates (42). Understand the problem? It is the overall nutritional value mixed in with the GI that indicates how healthy a food item is.
Plan Ahead
Planning is one of the best ways to ensure your success. The more you think about what needs to get done and how you’re going to do it, the better chances you have at attaining your goals on time. This will also help avoid unnecessary stress, which can lead people off track when they are trying so hard to stick with their diet and fitness plan.
Planning ahead means planning your meals, making the necessary preparations, making the necessary adjustments based on your lifestyle, and setting achievable goals so you can measure your progress, but it doesn’t end there. On the slightly ‘naughtier’ side of things, planning ahead also means allowing yourself the occasional indulgences.
If you find ice cream irresistible and cookies ‘not bad’, then planning will help you skip the cookie because you know you will be having some ice cream at a later date.
Cheat meals or cheat days can help you stay motivated during your diet. After all, the goal isn’t just to be healthy, it is to be happy as well. If you feel cheat meals aren’t for you, then you don’t need to have them. But if you do, Registered Dietician Kate Patton says that a simple rule you can follow is to eat healthy 90% of the time and allow yourself 10% wiggle room to improve your health.
Eating right isn’t the only thing you need to do to live a fit and healthy life, but it is certainly the most important. A lot of science goes into designing a successful diet, but the basic principles are pretty simple. Find a diet that suits your lifestyle, look for healthier substitutes for things you like to eat, and give yourself a break every once in a while. Follow these, and you will be fit as a fiddle in no time.
