My Top 5 Tips for Losing Weight and Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle!
1. FIBER.
If I were only allowed to give one piece of advice to a dieter, it would be to eat fiber. Lots and lots of it. Fiber is only found in plants and helps move waste through the body and brush it clean. Without enough daily fiber, you will become backed up and food will sit in your stomach and intestines and rot. Ew.
True or False: Our ancestors consumed about 100 grams of fiber per day.
Here are 20 foods with lots of fiber.
2. BREAKFAST.
Eat it and enjoy it. For some, eating breakfast is a challenge. It can be hard to have an appetite first thing in the morning, but you can train your body to need it. Start with a piece of whole-grain toast with peanut butter or a small cup of oatmeal, but make sure you eat SOMETHING in the morning. It will help control your lunchtime desire to eat a large meal.
3. DON’T DRINK YOUR CALORIES.
Learn to love water, not soda, juice and sugar-packed teas. Even if you’re drinking Coke Zero or a drink that has no calories, you’re training your body to crave the taste of sweet drinks, rather than the liters of water it actually needs and wants. Don’t wait until you are thirsty, because by then you are already dehydrated. Each time you get hungry, try drinking a large glass of water and waiting 10 minutes. Many times, thirst is disguised as hunger.
4. TAKE PHOTOS OF YOUR FOOD.
Many nutritionists and trainers will tell you to keep a “food log”, where you write down everything you eat. This can be time-consuming and inconvenient, so for the busy ones, I advise you to take photos of your food (with your phone if it has a camera) for one week. Everything you eat, including snacks. That means each time you’re about to reach for that bag of BBQ potato chips, think about the fact that you’re going to have to look back at this photo. How are you going to feel at the end of the week? What would your trainer or nutritionist say about your photos?
5. ENJOY YOUR WORKOUTS.
Not enough people do. Create a workout playlist with songs that pump you up and smile while you’re working out! Look like you enjoy making healthy choices and don’t treat your workouts like a chore. Instead of saying “I should work out today”, start saying “I want to work out today”. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference it makes. And don’t think that you need to run 10 miles or just do a bunch of push-ups and crunches every day. Switch it up! Ride your bike to the beach, try a kickboxing class and sign up for sites like Groupon and LivingSocial to get discounts on fun fitness classes in your city.
