10 Real Life Diet Tips |
Are you like me... tired of diet tips tossed into the ether by someone with apparently no real life experience, unlimited income, and more time than they know how to productively enjoy?
For some of us, it's just not practical to spend half of our Sunday preparing carefully portioned meals for the rest of the week, or financially feasible to buy all our meals prepackaged in just the right portions.
And there are those of us who cringe at the thought of weighing food to achieve 'optimal portion sizes'.
If you are like me, then i think you are going to like these ten real life diet tips for the rest of us.
1.
Eating out? Restaurant portions tend to be enormous, and if it's on the
plate, we tend to eat it. If it's possible, order from the kid’s menu,
where portions are more reasonably sized.
2. Keep healthy
snacks around and easily accessible. A bowl of fruit on the kitchen
table, a container of celery or carrot sticks in the refrigerator, or a
couple of pop-open cans of fruit salad in your desk at work will help
you grab for something healthy when those first hunger pains begin. In
other words, you'll be more likely to grab something low-calorie and
good for you if it's easy to eat.
3. Substitute frozen
vegetables for canned. Canned veggies tend to be high in sodium, which
you don't need, and low in real nutrition, which you do. Buy economy
size bags with zip closures to make it easy to pour out a single
serving for a meal.
4. Buy a vegetable steamer. Steaming is
one of the healthiest ways to cook vegetables. The food retains nearly
all of its natural nutrients instead of leaching it out into the
cooking water. Even better, it makes your veggies taste great - which
means you'll be more likely to eat them instead of filling up on fatty
foods that pack on weight.
5. Never eat standing up. One of
the easiest ways to sabotage your diet is to 'eat without thinking'.
Treat eating with the respect that it deserves. Fix yourself a plate.
Sit down and eat properly. You'll be less likely to just pop food into
your mouth without paying attention.
6. Spread your meals out. When you eat three meals a day, your body
tends to store whatever it doesn't need right that moment. By adopting
a 'grazing' habit, you'll keep your metabolism working throughout the
day. Have a small breakfast, a piece of fruit with crackers or toast at
mid-morning, a light lunch and an 'after school snack' mid-afternoon.
Just remember that you're breaking up the same amount of food into
smaller meals, not ADDING more food into your daily diet.
7.
Grab a fruit juice or flavored water instead of soda. Soda is nothing
but empty calories. No nutrients, lots of sugar, and believed to lower
your immune system. Instead, grab a bottle of 100% fruit juice, or
water flavored with a spritz of fruit.
8. Drink water. Even
the FDA recommends at least 8 full 8 ounce glasses of water a day to
keep your body working right. When you're dieting, you should drink
even more. It's not just that full feeling - water helps your body
digest foods properly and cleans out your system.
9. Can't
afford a gym membership? Make a pact with friends to exercise together.
Make a date at least three times a week to play volleyball, take a walk
or spend half an hour doing something active.
10. Skip the
potato chips. Fatty snacks fried in hydrogenated oil like potato chips
contribute fat and calories and not much else. Instead, grab a handful
of dried fruit or a cup of yogurt for the same amount of calories and a
lot more nutritional benefit.
How's that? Real life diet tips you can use. Now, go to it. And enjoy!