5 Eating Tips to Living in a Lean body

Tips for Eating for Fat Loss

Written Exlusively for MyNutritionStore.com By Kelli Calabrese



If any diet worked, there wouldn't be so many on the best seller list to follow.  Maintaining a healthy body weight is as much about what you eat as it is about what's eating you.  Excess food or lack of food is used to deny or mask emotional hunger. Food is a powerful drug, however there is no need to spend your time counting calories or points to achieve a long lasting healthful body weight.  Most animals maintain their body weight within a narrow range, suggesting a naturally "built-in" system of weight regulation or set point that our body wants to maintain. 

 

Some interesting dieting facts:

• 80% of all American women are on diets and Americans spend $300 million per year on diet products.
   
• American standards for ideal weight have become thinner and thinner over the past twenty years.  During the same time period, the weight of the average adult has increased by five pounds due to improved nutrition.
   
• The average American woman wears a size 12 to 14 clothing.
   
• Playboy centerfolds and Miss America Pageant contestants have become thinner over the past twenty years.

Most diets fail in the long run, causing dieters to repeatedly lose and regain weight after returning to their pre-diet weight.  This yo-yo pattern of weight loss and gain is more hazardous to health than remaining moderately overweight.  Only one in every four hundred people that start a diet succeeds in loosing the weight and keeping it off for life. 

People subjected to semi-starvation diets become preoccupied with food.  Excessive dieting can lead to irritability, depression, withdrawal and sexual disinterest. Bingeing is the body's natural response to excessive dieting.  The more you diet, the more you feel the need to eat.  The best defense against binge eating is to eat "real foods" regularly, in moderation and in the proper combination of lean proteins, fibrous carbs and starchy carbs.

So what can we learn from this outnumbered group of winning losers. Don't ask their view on carbs, what diet pill they popped before lunch, or how many minutes are in the title of their latest abs video. Just watch, watch them eat, and watch them eat with an attitude to better understand how to loose weight and keep it off.

 

Eating with attitude is not a diet but a set of simple to follow steps for removing the barriers that prevent most people from adopting a healthy eating plan and following that plan for life.

 

To learn how to eat with attitude is a five step process that will have you in your new mind-set by breakfast and beating the odds for life long health and weight loss week after week.

 

Step 1 - Recognize the reactionary eater within.  Have you ever felt that you were not in control of what you were choosing to eat? Chances are you probably were not in control because thru the years we learn to associate food especially unhealthy food with both good and bad feelings. We link snack food with parties, overeating with holidays, and comfort food with stress.  Advertising from fast food and junk food companies' reinforce our reaction to unhealthy food.  This makes consistent choices difficult when following a long term healthy life-style. The cure for the reactionary eater is to be proactive understand when you are reacting to food that is caused by the situation you are in, the way you feel, or the associations made by commercials and marketing campaigns. 

 

Take control by incorporating the following tips:

Eat often (every 3 - 4 hours) so that you ever feel like you are on a diet.  Going for long periods without foods causes cravings for high fat or sugary foods. 

* Have healthy balanced meals and snacks readily available.  Waiting until you are hungry is too late to begin preparing food and again you are likely not to make the best choices. 

 

* Drink plenty of water as hydration helps with cellular function, fat metabolism and satiety. 

* Clean out the pantry and fridge so you are tempted by foods that will keep you from reaching your fat loss goals. 

* Distract your attention from cravings by going for a walk, have a bath, calling a friend, reading or watch TV.

* Indulge once in a while so that you don't deprive yourself completely. 

 

Step 2 - Help the angel on your right shoulder fight the devil on your left shoulder. When confronted with every reason to make the wrong decision about eating you need to be prepared with the one reason to get you through your next choice in food.  To make the right choice the easy choice, use the power of the short term rewards to get you past the bumps that will cause you to slip and fall off your healthy eating plan.  Keep a mental inventory of rewards to gift to yourself for every battle one. The reward can be as indulgent as an hour of relaxation at your favorite spa, as quieting as an afternoon off from the kids from a supportive spouse, or the purchase of some piece of clothing that you could not fit into before you knew the power of eating with an attitude.

 

Your reward for small daily breakthroughs can be simply knowing you are moving one step closer to feeling better in your favorite clothes, fitting comfortably into your seat, getting up and down from the floor with greater ease, walking taller with confidence in your abilities and putting one more feather in your cap for making a healthy choice for your well being.  Each decision throughout the day adds up to significant progress by nights end.  When you can go to bed proud in your decisions, the next days actions become more effortless and you are that much closer to fulfilling your potential.

 

Step 3 -- Understand the power of food so you can eat more, eat right, and eat often.  It seems like new diets are created daily. With the many eating plan choices available to you how do you decide what is the best healthy plan for eating with an attitude. There is no one answer to finding a plan that first meets your doctors goals for your health and second gives you a nutrition plan that can be realistically followed.  In finding the right diet for you look for a plan that offers six meals and snacks a day, does not severely restrict any one food group, promotes whole foods, requires you to journal the food your eat, accommodates medical needs, and introduces flavor and variety into every meal.

 

Learning about yoru body and health needs as you age should be a lifelong quest. The more you empower yourself with knowledge about healthful eating to boost your metabolism, the easier decisions become.  Eating used to be simple, we plucked fruits and vegetables off trees and hunted for protein.  Now thanks to the media and infomercials it's more complicated than ever.  Here's a few simple rules:

 

• If it was around over 100 years ago, it's probably good for you.
• If it comes in a wrapper, can or cardboard box, it probably isn't good for you
• The more close to it's natural state food is, the better it is for you.
• If your tongue has to do gymnastics to pronounce the ingredients on the label, avoid it.
• Each meal or snack should be approximately the same size and contain a lean protein, a fibrous carbohydrate and a startch carbohydrate.

 

 

 

Step 4 - A calorie burned is better then a calorie not eaten. The base of the new USDA food pyramid is built on exercise and so should any healthy eating plan that you choose to follow if your goal is permanent fat loss.  In addition to improving health, fitness and performance, exercise is the key to maintaining fat loss. Chances of keeping fat off are much greater when combining sensible eating with regular aerobic exercise and strength training.   If your daily routine does not include exercise start with simple walks for a few minutes three times a week.  As you progress search out programs that include resistance training.   Strength training is the number one component responsible for boosting your metabolism, changing the shape of your body and improving your ability to function more efficiently in activities of daily living.  Strength training is your fountain of youth.  If you do not know the first step to take in beginning a fitness plan that is customized to your needs to optimize your efforts, go to www.KelliCalabrese.com for support from the 2004 Personal Trainer of the Year.    

 

Step 5 - Repeat steps 1 -4 prior to making eating choices.  Eating should be enjoyable.  You should become reacquainted with the natural flavors of food, savor every bite.  Do not multi task when you eat, begin digestion in your mouth and stick to one serving size.  Notice how you feel when you eat nourishing foods and what happens to your energy level.  Realize that your attitude towards what you choose to eat is as important as what you eat.

 

Five steps place you only a meal away from eating with attitude and finding the key to adopting a healthy lifestyle and sure track to meeting and maintaining your health and weight goals.  Abandon thoughts of "good" and "bad" foods and being "on" and "off" a diet.  If you make healthful choices 90% of them time, results will be more profound. The other 10% of the time, enjoy your favorite ethnic, childhood or celebratory foods.  The very next meal you can get back on track to eating with attitude.

 

 

Kelli Calabrese, MS, CSCS -Kelli is a Clinical Exercise Physiologist, 20 year fitness leader, Nutrition Specialist and Certified Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant.  She is the author of Feminine, Firm & Fit - Building A Lean Strong Body in 12 Weeks.  For more information about the 2004 Personal Trainer of the Year, visit www.KelliCalabrese.com, e-mail Kelli@KelliCalabrese.com or call 817-490-1296.