After you have paid your money and attended the weight loss camp, you will be very enthusiastic to maintain your newly gained body shape or weight loss.
At the camp, usually, they will prepare the food for you accompanied with lessons on how to prepare healthy meals to continue with the healthy lifestyle you have newly learnt.
Most of the camps will also include a list of what you can eat and what foods to stay away from to bring home with you. But what happens when you come to a restaurant and that the menu does not have something recommended in the list? Simple, choose the smallest meal of grilled fish with the fresh salad without the dressing.
When you search the internet using the tag "healthy choices in diet" it will lead you to more than half a million websites telling you what is the best choice for a healthy diet.
All will tell you that you have to cut out the "extra" sugar in your diet. Well, if you are having a cup of coffee and you use two sugars, it is easier to "spot" where that "extra" sugar is.
However, not all sugars are that easy to recognize. For example, sugar is also found in our normal white bread (among other ingredients, you have to read the label), ketchup, milk, peanut butter and the list goes on. But you get the idea, it's the HIDDEN sugar that is causing lots of trouble.
As consumers, we now have to learn new skill - read the label before purchasing anything off the shelves.
When we see "sugar" placed in the first or second position in the listed ingredients, chances are, that product is high in sugar. On the other hand, the manufacturer has also come up with another method of "hiding" the sugar content. Some with label the ingredients in alphabetical order, so "s" is further down the list. Others, call sugar by another name - carbohydrate, saccharide, glucose, fructose, sucrose (table sugar) and lactose (the sugar found in milk), syrup, and the list goes on.
Oil intake is slightly easier to control as well as to recognize - you think? Oil and fats, also know as lipids, are found in some foods notably like butter, cakes, ice-creams. Then there are also the HIDDEN oils and fats found in meats, poultry, fish, cheeses, eggs, and nuts.
In so saying, not ALL oils and fats are bad. Some are really good for the body. the use of olive oil in the daily diet played a role in a generally lower incidence of cardiovascular disease.
So what do we need to eat more of? Fresh vegetables, fruits, juices, green leafy salad. All the exercise and dieting and eating healthily during the weight loss camp will go to waste if the lifestyle cannot sustain it.
Stay in touch with the other participants in the camp, via email (with web cam if possible) and check on each other, motivate each other, give your friend the support. Most of all, exchange new ideas of how you make your meals more interesting with each other. Learn how other cultures prepare their food and try it out for yourself, you will be surprise how many ways you can prepare the same vegetable.
Believe it or not, you really need to eat, and not starve yourselves, to maintain your new figure.
