Healthy Eating Habits to Lose Weight

With the untold amount of so called “diet books’’- on the market, the average person has been bombarded with hundreds of different ways to lose weight. When people go on a strict diet, they are forced to change their lifestyle completely. All this does is increase the likelihood of giving up on the diet, and putting all the weight back on. The solution is to change your life one step at a time; this is the only way to guarantee permanent weight loss. The objective of these 5 tips is to help you adopt healthy eating habits to lose weight.

1. Eat Small Meals throughout the Day

There is clear evidence that eating small, regular meals throughout the day, compared with one or two large meals, will help to keep your metabolism ticking over.

Only 10% of the calories we use each day will be spent on digesting and absorbing food – so the more times you eat, the higher that percentage will be, and more importantly your metabolism will be working overtime.

Eating small meals throughout the day also helps curb hunger, it is better to have a gap of 2 hours during meals rather than a 4-5 hour gap.

Eating regularly throughout the day also helps regulate your blood sugar which will keep your appetite under control. The result: You’re less likely to overeat.

Think of it as throwing small logs onto the fire.

2. Consume Protein-rich Foods

Research has shown that your body burns far more calories digesting protein than fat or carbs. This is due to the body working harder to digest, metabolize and use, which means you will burn more calories processing them. Protein also takes longer to leave the stomach, so you will feel fuller for longer.

If you exercise on a regular basis, the extra protein you take will help build muscle, which in turn will increase your metabolism, which means a win-win situation.

Your main sources of protein should come from lean protein such as;

Turkey
Chicken
Eggs
Low-fat dairy products
Fish
Tofu
Nuts
Beans

For vegetarians try complete proteins such as;

Tofu
Hemp seed
Buckwheat
Quinoa

If you want to lose weight fast, just substitute some of your carbs with extra protein during your evening meal.

3. Make Ready to Eat Foods in Advanced

Have you ever come home late from work and found yourself with no time to cook a meal? I guarantee the majority of people that answered yes, ordered a take away i.e. Pizza, Chinese, McDonalds etc.

Try to make ready to eat meals in advance, they can be prepared and put in the freezer for these types of situations.

Having these foods on hand will reduce the chance of you ordering a take away when you have not got enough time to cook.

When you are out and about, have readymade snacks available. These can be fruit, nuts or raw vegetables e.g. carrot or celery sticks.

In addition to saving you unwanted calories, this will also save you money.

4. Change your Plate Size

We are all told as children to finish the food on our plates before we can leave the table; This thought process stays with us throughout our adult life, and many of us still believe it is rude to leave food on the plate.

Rather than throwing away unwanted food, one of the best methods for achieving the correct portion size is to use smaller plates. This will also enable us to avoid “accidentally” eating too many calories.

When the food is on smaller plates it will make the portion size look larger than it is; also if your mind is satisfied then your stomach will be too.

Change your spoon size as well, when you next have a bowl of ice-cream (or see Paleo Ice Cream Recipe). Use a smaller spoon, not only will the pleasure last longer, but you will give your body more time to digest the food.

5. Link Calories with Exercise

Another very important tip to lose weight is to link calories with exercise.

One example is 30 minutes of stationary cycle burns 300 calories at a steady pace. So next time you pick up a candy bar, turn to the nutritional content and look at the calories, if it says 200 calories, then you will have to do 20 minutes of stationary cycle to burn that off, And that is exercise on top of your daily exercise routine.