How to Reach Your Weight Loss Goals
The battle of the bulge is a fight many people regardless of age or sex are all too familiar with. There are some simple tools that you can arm yourself with in order to win the fight. Often, we get so polluted with the latest gadgets and miracle pills that we forget about the basics. This article is going to take you back to the basics, the proven methods to help you shed the pounds and more importantly keep them off.
A key to losing weight is burning more calories a day than you are taking in. I suggest tracking your daily activities and food intake for a few days. Take a look at what you’re doing. Are you consuming considerably more calories than you are burning off? If so, you might want to start here with your adjustments.
Food Choices: Always start your day with breakfast, this is the most important meal. It gets your metabolism going after 8 or so hours of sleeping. This meal is very important therefore what you choose to put in your mouth is also important. If you start your day off with junk food, like a donut, your setting your self up for a sugar crash and most likely day filled with bad choices. The best breakfast choices contain protein, whole grains, and/or fruit. Try to stay away from refined sugars. Some great meals for breakfast are: eggs with whole grain toast or english muffin, oatmeal, yogurt with a piece of fruit, or a protein shake. In order to keep your blood sugar levels stable try to eat every 2-3 hours. This can be a difficult concept for some people but this does not have to be it can be a small snack between breakfast and lunch and a snack between lunch and dinner. A snack consist of a handful of almonds, string cheese, a piece of fruit, or celery and peanut butter. For lunch remember to watch your portion sizes. Choose lean meats, whole grains, and vegetables.
Try to stay away from fried foods, if you must have a fast food burger skip the cheese and the fries. Prepared meals such as lean cuisines are great for lunch. If you don’t get quite filled up on these add a salad to round it out. Dinner is similar to lunch, choose lean meats, no fried foods, choose whole grain breads and pastas, and add vegetables. Easy things that you cut out of your diet or substitute them for lower fat or reduced calorie items are: Sodas, switch to diet sodas or drink water instead, salad dressing; switch to low fat dressings, cheese; cut out cheese or switch to reduced fat cheese, ice cream; switch to frozen yogurt or low fat ice cream, milk; switch to skim milk, 1% or 2%.
Exercise: Its true the harder you work out the more calories you will burn, but that does not mean in order to lose weight you need to work out like a world class athlete. Find an activity that you like enough to do at least 30 minutes of 3 times a week, such as brisk walking, running, jogging, swimming, biking or aerobics. Next add 1-2 days of light weights or resistance training with bands to your workout plan. Be sure to stretch before and after your workouts so that you don’t get injured.
Things to remember: Drink water throughout the day, make sure your getting enough sleep, and remember to eat breakfast. Have a support group, if you don’t have anyone to buddy up with try a weight watchers meeting that way you will be held accountable. Don’t get discouraged, if your making healthier choices and watching your portions while adding moderate exercise to your regimen you will lose weight.