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How Developing an Eating Plan Can Help You Lose Weight

Getting started on a weight loss program is easy. Staying on it is the challenge, right? Let’s face it, there are plenty of temptations out there and we all fall off the wagon sometimes. But it’s when we stay off the wagon that we despair and then turn to food for comfort in what seems a never-ending cycle.

One of the most important steps to take is to remove some of those temptations by creating a clear and organized eating plan to lose weight. By this, we mean plan all your meals and snacks for a week and shop once for the ingredients. It’s a powerful tool and we’ll show you why.

Fewer Impulse Buys and Meals

Haphazard eating makes weight loss impossible. When you have no meal plan, it’s easy to fall into that “I don’t know what to make for dinner” haze. When that happens, it’s even easier to shop when you’re hungry (a known killer of weight loss programs), or buy foods on impulse, or even just throw up your hands and order out.

Write down your entire week’s meals and snacks and then buy all the items for them. You’ll be more inclined to eat that food because it’s in your house. That goes double if you buy fresh vegetables and fruits – you’ll want to eat them before they spoil.

A Plan for Success

There are many eating plans for losing weight. Not all will work for you. If you know the kinds of foods that will help you shed pounds, plan meals around those. If not, a great idea is to follow a diabetic meal plan, which would be low in sugar and starchy carbohydrates, while high in lean meats, fish, nuts, seeds, and fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. Adopting this kind of eating plan will not only help you lose weight, it should have you feeling great. You’ll be eating non-inflammatory foods, helping your heart health, lowering your cholesterol, boosting your immunity, raising your energy levels, and more. The right diabetic support plan will lay out recipes to follow and offer the highest quality supplements to enhance your progress.

By the way, a meal template for the week can remove the indecision of finding ideas and recipes yourself.

Set Your Shopping Day

One day of the week should be your grocery shopping day. Only one. A good idea is to choose your least stressful day. More trips to the grocery store will only increase temptation. Write down 7 days of items and only buy those.

Prepare Meals in Advance

On the same day that you shop for groceries, bring them home and prepare meals and snacks for the week. Make a day of it. This is a huge part of why meal planning is important for weight loss. When you have your meals ready ahead of time, you will be less inclined to eat junk. Plus you’ll develop a sense of pride about your preparation work and that you’re eating to your plan.

Make Meal Times Sacred

Your eating plan must include setting times for meals and sticking to them. Eating haphazardly through the day will not help you lose weight, even if you stick to your planned menu. Your body needs the right portions of nutrition in the right order and at the right times. No skipping meals and no bingeing to catch up, especially late at night.

Eat Healthy and Tasty

Choose a weight loss meal plan that includes foods that taste good. If you don’t like what you’re eating, you’ll never stick with it and your weight loss journey will stop very quickly.

Supplements

Enhance your nutritional intake with precisely calibrated supplements that are free from artificial ingredients and sugar. They can help you feel satisfied while boosting your mood, mental focus, organ function, gut health, and immune system – all of which combine together to make your body run more efficiently and achieve its optimum weight.

Here’s hoping you are now very enthusiastic about starting your weight loss eating plan. Commit to it, be determined, be organized, and be disciplined. You know it’s for the best cause: you. Then, each week, it’s OK to give yourself a small reward before embarking on the next week’s plan.

Creative Commons Attribution: Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Weight Manual and a clickable link back to this page.

Exercise Alone is Not Enough for Effective Weight Loss

If you’re overweight, you know that committing to lose weight is an investment in your health.

So, you start exercising regularly and wait for the numbers on the scale to drop. Only they don’t. Or they drop a little and then stop.

Does this scenario seem familiar? Do you feel lied to about the exercise you’ve been doing? After all, it almost seemed to guarantee you would shed those pounds.

The issue is that exercise alone is not enough for weight loss. Long-term success comes by following a carefully planned program of exercise and diet together, along with a mental shift.

Update from the Old Rules

Exercise is indeed a key part of a weight loss journey, no question. But many of us are stuck in a mindset revolving around what the old guard of weight loss always preached: eat less and exercise more. In theory, it sounds like it should work. Maybe it does for a short time. Burning more calories than you consume will cause you to lose weight, but that loss can be temporary. Starving or depriving yourself is an old, old approach and a pathway to regaining the weight the moment you revert to a more regular intake of food and calories.

If you starve yourself, your body stops burning fat. It sheds water and muscle and other materials. So, it’s time to change your thinking entirely. Exercising requires fuel, sometimes more fuel, so you need to learn exactly what kind.

Exercise and Food Together Are Key

There’s no ‘either/or’. While one school of thought claims exercise alone will handle weight loss and another camp swears blind that cutting out certain foods is the way, the truth is you need a balanced and sensible approach to both.

Exercise does not replace food. Dietary change is not a replacement for exercise. You need both. You need to fuel your body properly so it can both exercise and lose fat tissue.

So, don’t believe the fad diets that claim they’ll handle everything. And don’t fall for the fitness gadgets on infomercials that promise the earth.

Instead, look for a weight loss program with proven results, especially in keeping weight off. You can be sure it combines both schools of thought in a scientific manner.

Exercising and Gaining Weight?

Many people report gaining weight when they start exercising. That’s because they are gaining muscle, which has more mass than fat tissue. It’s a normal occurrence, but it’s common for people to give up at this point.

Don’t. Keep going! Muscle tissue can burn fat tissue. Being stronger can increase your metabolism. But…

…look to a carefully formulated program that sets the right diet to balance your exercise. You can’t work out and eat chips and expect to get lighter.

A Disciplined Plan

Exercise is not enough for weight loss because your journey is not a straight line. You don’t begin at point A, then arrive at point B. It doesn’t work that way. There are hills and valleys, dips and plateaus that you will need to contend with and adjust to.

Discipline is important. There are so many temptations out there – to eat badly or to just sit around – but you have the power to make better choices. One way to help is to follow a program that lays out your calorie intake, meals, eating times, and exercise ideas. That kind of approach increases your likelihood of success because you have specific steps to follow, rather than taking an ad hoc approach. Each day you follow the plan, praise yourself. Praise will create a stronger and more positive mindset built around success.

Ditch Sugar and Gluten, Increase Protein

A lot of weight gain can be attributed to internal inflammation, which comes from consuming inflammatory foods like sugar and gluten. These high carbohydrate foods are the addictive ones that people crave the most.

This is really where exercise is not enough for losing weight. To succeed, you need to reduce these foods (or eliminate them entirely) in combination with exercising. Increase the protein you consume to be about 25% of your daily intake. Protein is filling and can help stop cravings and random snacking. If you really want to bring the inflammation down, try plant proteins instead of animal-based.

Supplemental Insurance

Taking supplements can be your health and weight loss insurance – provided they are the right supplements that support your journey. To maintain energy levels, boost your immune system, ramp up your digestive health, stave off hunger, and fill the gaps of your nutritional needs, you need supplements your body can truly absorb. They must be free of sugar, gluten, dairy, preservatives, and artificial colors and flavors.

Don’t Do It All Yourself

Losing weight requires learning how. Exercise alone will not bring weight loss. Diet alone will not bring permanent weight loss. Save yourself the learning curve by following a well-researched and proven program devised by health and nutritional experts who know exactly how to help the human body operate at its very best.

Creative Commons Attribution: Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Weight Manual and a clickable link back to this page.

Ten Restaurant Rules to Follow When Trying to Lose Weight

Think eating out and weight loss can’t possibly go together? Think again. If you know the ‘rules’, you can eat out occasionally, and continue your program of weight loss and health improvement.

Restaurant Choice

On the whole, typical American food is unhealthy. Add to that, there’s so much of it out there calling to us all the time. That’s why we have an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases. But the less inflammatory options that are lower in calories, sugar, starchy carbohydrates, and saturated fats are available in many restaurants and taste great. Just choose carefully where you eat out. For example, if you want Mexican, look for a salad bowl with protein and vegetables. No sour cream or tortilla bowl. In a steakhouse, it’s easy to order red meat with plenty of fresh, steamed vegetables. Seafood is always a good choice, also, provided it’s not deep fried or accompanied by overly rich sides.

Search carefully for restaurants that can cater to your needs and insist on those places when heading out.

Eat a Little Before Going Out

If you go to the restaurant when you’re ravenous, you’ll be more inclined to order up big with things you shouldn’t. It’s much like grocery shopping when you’re hungry. Eat a small meal beforehand, especially one with soluble vegetable fiber to help you feel less hungry, and drink a large glass of water or two.

Consistent, Disciplined Ordering

When it comes to eating out and weight loss, be your own advocate. If you would have skinless grilled chicken with broccoli and other vegetables at home, order the same at a restaurant. Professional chefs can make them even better than you can and 99% of establishments want to please their diners. Place orders that are consistent with how you should eat and your servers will find a way. Don’t blow your weight loss program, because one fall ‘off the wagon’ could reinstate full-scale internal inflammation and trigger cravings that are hard to ignore.

Low-Carb Substitutes

Don’t pair your proteins with bread, potatoes or rice. Switch the burger bun for lettuce. Order a salad instead of fries – with dressing on the side or not at all. Otherwise, ask for something green and steamed instead of the starches. Your digestion and immune system will thank you.

Dressings and Condiments

When it comes to eating out and weight loss, little add-ons like dressings can cause big problems. Dressings are most often loaded with sugar, preservatives, and artificial flavors and colors. A McDonald’s salad with dressing can have more sugar and calories than a burger and fries. Insist on no sugar added, otherwise get olive oil and lemon juice or balsamic vinegar for a dressing.

An Appetizer is Enough

Have you noticed the size of meal portions that restaurants serve? They’re enormous. Only in America, too; such huge servings are not how the rest of the world’s restaurants do things. Therefore, change your thinking to understand that an appetizer is a meal in itself. Just stay clear of deep fried appetizers and those containing excessive sugar and starches. When in doubt, lettuce wraps make a great choice that won’t destroy your weight loss regime.

Box Half of It

Make eating out for weight loss a strategic affair. If ordering an entrée, ask to have half of it served on a plate and the other half boxed up. That way you eat only half of the meal in the restaurant and take home the leftovers for another meal.

Skip Dessert

This rule should be the most obvious for anyone aiming to lose weight and keep it off. Desserts are very high sugar and calories.

Beverages

Drink plenty of plain water and stay well clear of high-calorie, high-sugar drinks like beer and soda. ‘Diet’ sodas are a big no, also, because they cause terrible inflammation. A glass of wine may be OK, provided it’s a 6-ounce. Otherwise go sparkling with alkaline, non-inflammatory San Pellegrino or Perrier water.

Follow a Proven Core Program

Last but by no means least, embark on a formal weight loss program that has a track record of sustained success and provides you with complete dietary guides, meal plans and ideas, activity ideas, and social support. By following its advice and receiving that social support, such a program can guide you on weight loss and eating out so you’ll be motivated to make better choices.

Creative Commons Attribution: Permission is granted to repost this article in its entirety with credit to Weight Manual and a clickable link back to this page.