Eating a Healthy Diet to Lose Weight

One of the reasons so many people are overweight is because they're always on diets. Most diets are very strict and they usually rule out the intake of certain food groups or reduce the daily calorie intake to an unhealthy amount. Diets don't work, in fact; they have reverse results. After some time, you get bored and go off the diet to return to your old eating habits that made you overweight in the first place. Once you return to your former caloric intake, you will gain back proportionately more body fat than you lost. Dieting is not the answer to permanent weight loss. It's just another way of mistreating your body, just like eating the wrong amount of food or the wrong kind of food at the wrong time.

Cutting back on calories might seem like the best solution for weight loss, but when decreasing your calorie intake significantly, your metabolic rate slows down and burns less calories. The more drastic your diet, the greater the drop of your body's metabolic rate is likely to be. While on a low-calorie diet, the safety system that protects your body from starvation can be so effective that after a few weeks you stop losing weight altogether. Don't be fooled; sticking to a restricted-calorie diet will only lead to

chronic fatigue, a weaker immune system and psychological stress.

For healthy weight loss results, we need to learn to eat sensibly including a variety of nutritious and wholesome foods. It doesn't mean depriving yourself of foods you enjoy and eating only awful-tasting foods. Deprivation creates cravings and cravings often results in binges. Rather, it's learning to eat three or more sensible meals a day with wholesome snacks and occasional treats. Splitting up meals in three to six different meals provokes different energy consumption levels and the more you break up the calories you consume throughout the day, the more calories you'll burn.

Most people have not figured out how to balance their food intake.

In order to obtain the essential nutrients your body needs, eat a wide variety of foods. Choose the recommended number of daily servings from each of the five major food groups. For a healthy body and a thin one, you need to eat a proper balance of foods that will keep you in perfect harmony. For example; if you had eggs and toast for breakfast don't go for an egg sandwich for lunch. Try not to duplicate the same food over and over again. The key word to it all is "balance".

Another important factor in achieving proper food harmony in your body is timing. For many of us, supper is the "big meal" of the day. If you are concerned about weight, health and a good night's sleep, the end of the day is the wrong time to pack in so many calories. By morning, a good number of these calories will be stored as body fat. Keep in mind, the later in the day you eat, the lighter you should eat.

Eat everything in moderation.

Avoid oversized food portions. In the last few years, the portion sizes have gotten larger ; in restaurants, fast food places, supermarkets and even at home. When faced with larger portions, you tend to consume more calories than what your body needs. Take a look at the serving sizes suggested by the Food Guide Pyramid and compare the portion sizes with what you usually eat. For example, the recommended portion size for pasta is 1/2 a cup, my bet is that most of us eat two to four times that portion in one single meal. Choosing sensible portions is a key to maintain your weight in a healthy range.

Try to eliminate saturated and "trans" fats

Fat is our most fattening nutrient. Fat contains 2 to 3 times more calories than any other food types. Saturated fatty acids (meat, butter, milk products...) are harder to burn and have a greater tendency to get stored as fat than does the mono-unsaturated fatty acids (olive oil, peanut oil, avocado...). As for the poly-unsaturated fats (fish, omega 3) are not likely to get stored at all. According to recent evidence, both types of unsaturated fats also help to lower the amount of cholesterol in the blood.

What about sugar!

The typical American eats 20 teaspoons of added sugar a day and that's excluding the natural sugars found in milk, fruits and fruit juices. Sugar accounts for far too large a share of our daily calories which are worthless calories. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture food pyramid, 10 percent of calories should come from added sweeteners. Many people get 30 percent or more of their calories in added sugar. If you are counting calories, eating too much of the sweet stuff will take a big chunk out of your calorie quota for the day and you'll miss out on essential nutrients. For example, a soft drink or

fruit drink can contain as much as 10 teaspoons of sugar, that's about 150 calories of worthless calories. So if you drink 2 a day, that makes 300 wasted calories with no nutrient values.

Salt - The leading food additive

Salt is a combination of two mineral substances that are essential nutrients- sodium and chloride. But these substances are needed in much smaller amounts than we consume. Our biological need for sodium is 1/10 teaspoon a day, but the average person consumes at least 3 to 4 teaspoons. Salt favors water retention and increases the intestinal absorption of the glucose that may contribute to weight gain. Salt and other sources of sodium we eat are naturally present in foods, including dairy products, meats, and seafood. Not to mention the salt added to foods at home during cooking and at the table. The rest comes from processed foods. You can go a long way toward reducing your salt

intake by avoiding commercially prepared foods that are obviously salty.

So many people eat foods with no idea of their nutritional value. You can lose weight if you eat foods that are lower in calories and fat for a given measure of food. If you look at the labels of commercially prepared foods, you'll soon realize that they are packed with sugars, salt, fats and a bunch of chemicals which are detrimental to your body. Eat foods that contain a lot of water like vegetables, fruits and soups. If you want to lower your intake on salt, sugar and fats, eat fresh.

and oh I almost forgot...don't forget to Exercise!

This article was written by Joe Blaschke of [ezweightlossexercise.com] where you can get free info and tips on weight loss, dieting and exercise. To read more on health related topics go to [diversityforyou.com]