In a busy world of fad diets, TV gimmicks and unhealthy food there's got to be a way to get healthy, lose weight and still maintain a semi normal daily routine.
Well, aside from the obvious measure of avoiding the big four fast food chains; there are some simple things every one can do to improve their diet. You can pay thousands of dollars for a professional nutritionist, gourmet chef and personal shopper, leaving the plight of your thighs in their capable hands; or you can fast like a Himalayan monk.
Just kidding, by simple things I meant just that, simple things.
Stop rebelling and make breakfast your most important meal of the day
The Canadian and US Food Guides both suggest, quite correctly that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but so many of us either choose to ignore that little tidbit or make excuses for why we don't eat breakfast.
The simple truth of it is, if you want to lose weight, prioritise breakfast. Make that first meal of the day the one that counts. Eat pretty much whatever you want for breakfast, the more the merrier. Eggs, bacon and/or sausage (preferably turkey or chicken), porridge, cold cereals, you can even eat copious amounts of toast and not feel guilty. Now, most proponents of the big breakfast will tell you that eating a well balanced meal first thing in the morning will supercharge your body and give you loads of energy throughout the day. What it will also do is elevate your metabolism, jumpstarting the mechanism that burns fat from your body and giving you a head start.
The key to this is in making sure you keep your metabolism elevated by supporting it with several small (and nutritious) meals throughout the day.
Skip dinner and burn fat while you sleep
Almost the direct opposite idea as prioritising breakfast, make dinner your last priority. Think about it, what is the point of spending so much time preparing and eating a huge dinner at the end of the day. When you consider that food is energy, what exactly do you need all that stored energy for over night? Are you running marathons in your sleep?
Cut down your dinner portions to almost what you used to eat for breakfast. A very small meal, mostly consisting of protein will do nicely. Remember, you've been supercharged all day from your breakfast and the small, regular meals you supported it with throughout the day, so now all you need is to top up the tank.
This might seem strange, but if you look at what happens to your body when you sleep, especially after eating a large meal or fatty bedtime snack, it will make sense. Just by falling asleep your body has entered a reduced metabolic state; you aren't processing food into energy because you're sleeping, and therefore all that recently eaten food is slowly being converted into fat stores to be used as energy at a time when your body is in motion and needs an extra boost. I bet you'll never look at your dinner plate the same way again.
Speaking of dinner plates, throw them out
Well ok, not literally, but figuratively. The next time you dish out your dinner on a standard dinner plate have a look at how much food is actually on that plate. Considering what we've already discussed above, ask yourself why you dished out that much. Was it because you're famished and you have a burning need to fill your gut? Or did you simply fill the plate to its borders?
The point is, next time you dish your dinner (or any meal for that matter), try dishing it onto a sandwich plate. Portion size is one of the easiest things to control, but there's a psychological trick to it. If you sit at the table staring at a standard size dinner plate with small portions on it, you will invariably feel as though you don't have enough food. Trick your tummy and your mind by using a smaller plate and making more modest portions seem like the kings share.
Don't choose the salad, choose the steak
One of the most common misconceptions about healthy eating is that salads are the smarter choice. Granted, a leaf of lettuce and a few carrots are definitely a better choice than a BBQ sauce covered hamburger on an oversized bun; though most of us don't think of a true, naked garden salad when we think of eating a salad. While I've been known to partake in a sumptuous and creamy Caesar salad now and then, I can't help but chuckle when I see some wanna-be health nut order a chicken Caesar salad in a restaurant, saying "oh, I"m on a diet, I'll just have a salad'.
I say skip the salad for a couple of reasons. First, stop kidding yourself; choosing the salad in the face of onlookers then pigging out on a tub of ice cream at home because you're still hungry, isn't doing you any favours. Second, more often than not it's the dinner menu at a restaurant offering you those choices, in which case, why chose the fatty, carbohydrate filled salad dressing, when you can fill your belly with slow digesting, slow metabolising protein and avoid having those evil carbs and transfats converted to fat stores on your belly, thighs or elsewhere while you sleep?
Make the word “diet” your new four letter word
Make it a bad word, a word you loath publicly and openly. Don't use it, shun others who use it, forbid it from being used in your household! Alright, that may be a little drastic, but the point is eating healthy and staying fit is a long term endeavour. It's not a quick fix or a Band-Aid for a boo-boo on your spare tire. It has to be a lifestyle choice, and a lifestyle choice can hardly be summed up in four letters.
Calling your choice to eat better a “diet” puts a label on it. It makes it inflexible, unforgiving and gives it a finite end. Most people think of diets as relatively short periods of time, during which you deprive yourself of the foods you really want. Now I ask you, what is being accomplished by calling your choice to live healthier a diet? Call it a new outlook, call it lunch, call it whatever you want… but whatever you call it, stick to it by being realistic and coming to the understanding that this is just how you are going to be.
However you plan to do it, eating less, eating better, or hiring that chef and living the highlife, make the commitment to yourself for the right reasons. Be honest and make realistic goals about how you want to be. One of the best things about these kind of choices is that tomorrow is always another day.
