The term “dieting” is one that people are generally a little afraid of. Grand, sweeping changes to a person’s diet seem extremely difficult and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get the results you’re looking for.
Losing weight is important to a lot of people, though, especially when they’re trying to reduce potential health risks of being overweight. So, do you have to stop eating the foods you love and suffer just to lose weight?
We’re going to talk about how to maximize weight loss through food in this article, hopefully showing you that losing weight doesn’t require as much pain and suffering as we’re lead to believe.
How to Maximize Weight Loss Through Food
It should be noted that in order to truly maximize your weight-loss potential, it’s important to combine dietary changes and exercise. That said, the food you eat can have a huge effect on every function of your body, and losing weight through changes to your diet is entirely possible.
Your initial weight loss will be more prominent if your diet is particularly poor and you make the change to healthier alternatives quickly.
If you’re worried about managing to truly change what you eat, we recommend using meal planning software to aid you. Once you’re ready to get started, utilize some of the following healthy eating hacks.
Cook for Yourself
Our first and most important suggestion is that you make as much time as possible to cook for yourself. The more you make your own food, the better.
That means waking a little early to make breakfast, preparing lunch, and cooking yourself dinner. This habit attacks weight loss from two angles:
1. You Choose What You Eat
When you buy the groceries, prepare the ingredients, and cook a meal yourself, you know exactly what’s going into your body. In fact, you’re making decisions through the whole process.
You can examine the quality of the ingredients you buy at the store and make conscious decisions to add or subtract unhealthy elements while you’re cooking.
After a little research and a trip to the grocery store, you should be able to equip your pantries with almost entirely healthy foods that are delicious and much better for you than any food from a restaurant or gas station.
Generally speaking, any item that you cook at home will be more nutritious than the same item purchased at a fast-food restaurant.
2. You’re Eliminating Unhealthy Foods
This process will eliminate most of the severely unhealthy foods that you have in your diet and replace them with ingredients that promote metabolism and weight loss.
You don’t have to look far to find research on how bad fast food and gas station is for you when you eat it regularly. Not only do unhealthy options like those contribute directly to weight gain and other health issues, but they have a negative impact on our communities and the health of our nation at large.
Drink an Appropriate Amount of Water
Generally speaking, people are supposed to drink half of their weight in pounds, in ounces.
That is a confusing statement, we know. Let’s say you weigh 190 pounds, for example. Your weight divided by two is 95 pounds.
That means that you should drink 95 ounces of water per day. At least, that’s the volume of water that’s suggested to have the most positive effect on your health. While it seems like a lot of water to consume, spreading your consumption out through the day will make it a lot easier to achieve.
Drinking more water helps you burn more calories, increase metabolism, and lose weight.
Cut Out or Cut Down Refined Carbs
Refine carbs are those that have been altered and stripped of nutritious parts of the grain. Without getting too scientific, you can make the choice to buy “whole grain” or “whole wheat” products instead of white bread and many kinds of pasta.
Refined carbs are known to spike blood sugar and cause a person to become hungry much quicker than they would if they had eaten whole grains. This is an issue because much of the food that’s readily available to us is made from refined carbs.
If your still not convinced, note that refined carbs are linked closely with obesity.
Control the Volume of Food You Eat
Portion control is an increasingly abstract idea in our culture. It’s always interesting to see what was considered a “large” cup at restaurants only thirty or forty years ago.
What was large then is much smaller than a “small” now, and that speaks volumes to how much we consume.
You can consider tricking your brain by using smaller plates to eat off of at home. More importantly, be mindful of the portion sizes that are recommended on the back of the boxes to your ingredients.
You’ll find, as many of us do, that the recommended portion is much smaller than you would have normally used. Depending on your approach to eating better and the nature of the food that you’re portioning, it might be wise to follow the portion guidelines.
If that’s just not enough food to get you through the day, simply be aware of the portions and the quality of the food you’re eating. Try cutting down portions of foods that are high in carbs and compensate with ingredients that are rich in fiber, protein, and other nutrients that contribute to weight loss.
Give Yourself Time to Digest
Many of us eat our food and head straight out the door. Either that or we eat our food and aren’t immediately satisfied, causing us to eat another helping.
Eating constantly throughout the day is a sign of a couple of prominent things. First, it shows that you’re always hungry and aren’t getting the nutrients your body needs to be actually satisfied.
Second, it might mean that you aren’t giving yourself time to get full. When you eat nutritious foods, you might have to give them twenty to thirty minutes to satiate your hunger.
Want to Start Losing Weight?
If you’re still curious for more information on how to maximize weight loss, we’re here to help. You can attack this issue from a number of angles, all of which leading you to a better, healthier life.
Explore our site for more information on weight loss and other ways to get healthy.
