Dieting To Lose Weight
Finally, if you need to lose weight, you need to minimize the amount of calories that you are taking in by monitoring how many you are consuming.
The average person should consume about 1800 to 2000 calories per day. If you are dieting and need to lose weight, you need to reduce this amount to at 1500 to 1600 calories per day. Go with the reductions that your doctor recommends here so that you have enough fuel for the day but are not allowing your body to store the extra fuel as fat throughout your body.
Where Are You Now?
When it comes to improving your diet fitness, you need to take into consideration the location that you are right now.
What do you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner? How many calories are you consuming per day?
To help you to see the clear picture of what's happening to your health in the foods that you eat, take note of how a normal day or week goes for you. Here are some steps to follow to find out how healthy your diet actually is and how healthy it isn't!
- Spend one or two days recording the foods that you eat in an average day on a piece of paper. All foods and drinks should be noted!
- Figure out how many calories you are consuming in an average day.
- Look at your list of foods and see how many of them are high in saturated fats, sugars and calories in general.
- How many servings of vegetables and fruits are you getting? How many servings of protein has been lean protein? Did you get in any whole grains? How much soda did you drink (which puts pounds on your waist each time?)
- How often did you eat without actually being hungry but being instead bored, anxious, stressed or otherwise emotionally impaired?
When you look at these facts you may clearly see where the problems lie. Being honest with yourself is important, though. For most people this is as simple as tracking what they eat over the period of a few days to a week.
Seeing just how much in calories as well as in unhealthiness can really cause them to see what reality really is rather than to assume they are doing okay.
I Can Not Give It Up!
If you are one of the many that feel that they can't give up the foods that they love no matter what, there are several key things for you to address. Don't worry, they aren't all bad!
First, find out why it is that you can't give them up. For example, are you connected with that big slice of apple pie because it was your favorite growing up, you may have an emotional attachment to the foods. If you love your mashed potatoes loaded with gravy, sour cream and butter just because you love the taste, that's a different story.
Identifying why you have to have a specific food is important so that you can actually see the benefits of eating those foods. If you need apple pie to feel safe, you need to address this emotional problem. If you just love the taste, you can find ways to get much of the same taste without a lot of the calories.
Next, determine if there is a better way for you to get the foods that you like. For example, will sweetened sweet potatoes that are mashed still give you the same texture and creaminess that you are craving?
By making small changes to the recipe you can get all of the flavor and texture that you want without causing yourself to become a victim of high fats and sugars that really do a number on your entire system.
Indeed you may want that slice of apple pie. But, use it in a different way. For example, instead of eating it every few days make it the reward that you get for a week of good eating. Limiting how often you get the treats means that you don't have to give them up but that you don't consume nearly as much of it, and therefore you can improve your health overall.
One limit to this is when the food itself is detrimental to your health condition. If you are a diabetic, you simply should not eat foods that are overall sweet because they can cause your blood sugar level to rise so fast that you can cause serious damage to your brain and your heart through the consumption of just some foods.
You should know what types of foods you can not eat. If you don't know you should talk to your doctor about this. There are certain times in life that foods become prime suspects to leading to health risks. Food isn't worth the risk of your life, is it?
Codant Wright is an author writing on Fitness and Exercise. Visit my website and get my Free Brand New 5 Part Fitness Ecourse at http://www.best-fitness.info
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