Diet and Weight Loss Tips Collection

(Originally posted by Donn at http://www1.mhv.net/~donn/tips.html. The link is now dead)

This is a compilation of tips from various sources. Many came out of the back of my brain, others from books I’ve read along the way, others from discussions with friends. I don’t remember where they all came from originally, but they seem to work. The tips with the symbol pointing to them are probably the most important, at least for me.

These four sections are included in this page:

EATING AND NUTRITION

THE MIND GAME

MOVING/EXERCISE

TIPS FROM READERS

EATING AND NUTRITION

• Drink at least 64 ounces of water each day. Don’t eat dinner until you’ve finished drinking your daily water requirement.
• Pick one place at home and work where you will do all of your eating. Be sure that you are seated. Don’t eat anywhere but in that spot. No counter eating, couch eating, car eating, etc.
• Keep healthy foods handy like fruit or vegetables in the fridge. Eat only if hungry.
• Keep a diary of what you eat and how you feel, but keep it far away from the kitchen. Document everything that you eat before you eat it. Describe how you feel, health-wise, as you progress. Describe how you feel when you cheat yourself.
• Soups are a great meal; they are filling, tasty, and healthy.
• If you are going to a restaurant, decide ahead of time what you will be eating. Stick to it.
• Set up a schedule for when you will eat your food and snacks.
• Watch food labels. Foods with a high percentage of fat (or carbohydrates that are sugars) will slow down your weight loss program. Don’t just count grams, but count percentage of total calories that are fat or sugars.
• Never starve yourself, especially before going out to eat (or you will binge). Never skip meals; you must have some kind of nourishment regularly or your body’s starvation defenses will kick in, lower your metabolism, and store fat. Use nutritional meal replacements instead of skipping or eating very low calorie meals.
• Don’t think that just because you are eating low fat/low calorie foods that you can eat all that you want. The calories still add up and must be burned off regardless of what kind of food you eat. Balance is the key.
• Give away or throw away leftover food.
• Have the rest of your family make their own snacks.
• Trim all fats from meats and remove skin from chicken.
• Don’t put extra food in bowls and kettles on the kitchen table. Keep it in the kitchen or put it away.
• Make your shopping lists in advance, and don’t shop when you’re hungry!!!

THE MIND GAME

• Weigh in every morning. Write it down. Your weight won’t go down every day, and will go up occasionally, depending on when/how much you eat. The overall trend is important. More important is your commitment to face this problem head on, and know where you are at all times. Make a chart or graph of your weight. Think about that chart when you’re ready to eat, and more importantly, think about it when you are ready to cheat on your diet.
• Update: A recent magazine article has proven that those who weigh in often lose more weight and keep it off better. Don’t expect the weight to move quickly, though. Have patience.
• Take a picture of yourself in a few positions in skimpy clothes when you start your diet. If you are really daring, hang one inside the refrigerator. Put a picture in your wallet, near the money that you use to buy food. When you reach your target weight goal, take pictures again. Put them together and realize the considerable accomplishments that you have made.
• Watch out for people who put you down for dieting, or try to sabotage your diet by trying to get you to eat. They are jealous of your accomplishment. The better you look, the worse they do. There can be innocent sabotage as well. Maybe someone feels bad for you having to be on a diet, and they think you’ll be happier if you eat.
• Before you put a snack or extra helping in your mouth, as yourself, “am I really hungry?”
• If you get the urge to eat when not truly hungry, go do something. Go for a walk or do a small chore. Try to accomplish some small thing instead of going backwards on your diet. Try jogging in place for just 3 minutes when you think you might sneak a snack. It will give you time to think about what you’re doing.
• If a certain food store or restaurant drives you crazy with desire when you drive by, change your route.
• Don’t think of yourself as being fat. Think of yourself as you will look when you reach your target weight goal.
• If you think you can, you will. If you think you can’t, you won’t.

MOVING/EXERCISE

• Try to do at least 30 minutes of low impact, moderate exercise (walking, for example) at least 3 times per week. Start off easy, and gradually increase over time.
• The BEST exercise for losing weight is walking, plain and simple walking. You should walk briskly, but not to the point where you are short of breath. You should be able to carry on a conversation.
• Whatever exercise you do to lose weight, be sure that it is aerobic. This means that you do not run short of breath. When you run short of breath and have to breathe deeply (anerobic exercise), your body will burn sugar and not as much fat.
• You should keep track of your measurements (inches) as well as pounds. Write them down every week. Inches will come off even though weight is not coming off, or coming off slowly. This is due to muscle build-up in your body. Muscle is heavier than fat.
• Wherever you work, walk along the longest route possible to get from wherever you are to wherever you are going (but don’t be late!).
• Keep your exercise bike or equipment in plain sight. This acts as a constant reminder of the effort you have invested, so you don’t eat the wrong foods and waste those efforts.
• Always warm up with stretching before exercising. This will make your body burn more fat when you actually do start exercising, and will help prevent accidental muscle damage.
• PLAY with your kids! It is hard enough for us to find time to be with them with all of the pressures of life. Play some kind of game requiring physical movement. They will love you for it, and you will benefit in more ways than you can imagine.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
• When parking your car at a store, park it as far away from the store as possible. This will also reduce dents in your car doors from careless people.
• ABS: if you sit a lot at your job or at home, you probably have a flabby stomach. In order to tighten your abdominal muscles/stomach, you should:
• Stand or sit with a tall posture, and hold your stomach in as much as possible.
• The best exercise you can do during the day to tighten your abs is: when you exhale, pull your stomach in, pushing the air out. Pull your stomach in tightly and a little quickly, then let it out naturally while you breathe air back into the lungs. Pulling the stomach in tightly acts to push the air out of your lungs as you build your ab muscles.
• Eat less and you won’t have to exercise as much!

TIPS FROM READERS

• Eat very S-L-O-W-L-Y and enjoy the flavors.
• Vary your caloric intake so that your body doesn’t go into a starvation-prevention mode. If you keep calories lower every day, your body will adjust to that amount as if it were all it needed to maintain your weight, and you’ll stop losing.
• Don’t ever skip breakfast. Eat something: a piece of toast, fruit, etc. Your body’s metabolism rate slows down at night and does not speed up again until you eat something. If you wait until lunch to eat, that is 4 or more hours that your body is burning calories at a lower rate. Eat something soon after you get out o bed and your body will burn calories at a higher rate until lunch. Also, don’t go more than about 5 hours during the day without eating. That causes you to eat more at meal time. Eat healthy, low-fat snacks in between meals.
• Don’t deprive yourself! If you really enjoy eating a certain food, plan for it. Make it a reward for doing extra sit-ups or for spending more time on cardiovascular exercise. This helps to avoid binging and will give you something to work a little harder for.
• Right after eating a meal, especially dinner, go straight to the bathroom to brush and floss so that your mouth is feeling nice and clean. This makes it less appealing to eat more (especially before bedtime).
• If you get hungry, chew gum. Chew gum while preparing meals or making lunch for the next day. This will prevent you from nibbling food while it is right in front of you.
• Eat your meals away from the television and other distracting places. You will enjoy your meal more and it will take a little longer to eat the meal. Drink at least 2 glasses of water or one glass of milk during your meal so that you will feel fuller, causing you to not go back for seconds.
• Try to work out as much as possible, but at your own pace. Reward yourself, but not with a snack, by putting a certain amount of money in a jar every time you work out. The more you work out, the more money you save. Then go on a shopping spree, and buy yourself a new wardrobe for your new thin and trim body.
• Weight in pounds multiplied by 15 will equal the number of calories per day to maintain that weight. 500 calories less per day will result in approximately 1 lb. weight loss per week; 750 calories = 1.5 lbs. per week. 1000 calories = 2 lbs. per week. Keep a daily diary of calorie intake. Fat, carbohydrates, and protein will automatically adjust themselves to stay within allotted calories per day.
• Keep your meal portions small.
• Eat to live, don’t live to eat.
• The most important thing to consider before going on a diet is the reason you are doing so. NEVER diet because you think it will make people like you. Diet because you want to look and feel good for yourself. Otherwise you may be disappointed.