Healthy Eating
Losing weight isn't only about taking exercise. To be successful it is also important to look at your diet but more importantly your lifestyle as a whole..
In today's enviroment of confusing food labelling, fad diets and get fit quick schemes its easy to feel confused about what is good and what isn't.
Weight management is not about dieting, its about making small changes to your lifestyle that you can maintain. Fad diets simply do not work and Yo-Yo dieting is harmful.
Many people have do not realise exactly how much they eat in one day, when asked they generally under estimate the amount of food consumed. If you are trying to 'watch what you eat' a handy way of keeping track is to keep a food diary.
You can easily jot down what and how much you have eaten and when.
I have provided a free food diary for you to download, please click here to download it
Healthy Eating - The Basics
The major dietary problem in countries of the western world is over-consumption of certain dietary components. Excessive intake of sugars and fats has resulted in excessive caloric intake together with a diet of low nutrient density. One in four people in the UK are obese, a risk factor for diseases of the heart, blood vessels, cancer, diabetes mellitus and others.
The evidence that diets restricted in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol can reduce the incidence of chronic diseases is now overwhelming.
Learning to recognise the difference between hunger and appetite is very important. Hunger is the stimulus within our bodies that indicates to us that we need to consume food. Appetite consists of the pleasurable sensations provided by food and is associated with the enjoyment of food.
Food is often used in one way or another to express feelings of happiness, love, security, or to cover up emotions of worry, grief, and loneliness and so on. Before you have a snack, ask yourself why you need this snack, or why you may be reaching for something you know you should not eat.
There is a saying "A healthy body produces a healthy mind". This is true, because the brain benefits when food intake is adequate. Whatever you eat turns into YOU. Only you have complete control of what goes into your mouth.
Be careful with sugar. It is very easy to eat excess amounts of sugary food raising your caloric intake too high. One can of a soft drink with sugar beyond your caloric requirement could cause a potential weight gain of almost 15 pounds in a year.
Food is anything that nourishes the body. No two foods are alike in the ability to nourish, for no two foods contain identical amounts of nutrients. Therefore, variety in your diet is important.
Got food cravings? click here to read my article on how to combat them.
