With countless diets, programs and products
promising to help you shed pounds, it should be
easy. But as any veteran dieter knows, it's hard
to lose weight. It's even harder keeping it off.
Simply eating too much and not being active
enough is the cause of people being overweight.
Too many people concentrate on losing pounds to
improve appearance, when the primary focus of
weight control should be to achieve and maintain
good health.
To get the proper daily nutritional value:
* Eat a variety of foods
* Eat a high-fiber diet (choose more grains,
fruits and vegetables instead of protein, fats
and sugar)
* Maintain a low-fat, low cholesterol diet (eat
no more than 30% of calories from fat, including
only 10% from saturated fat)
* Use moderate amounts of salt and sodium and
choose sugar substitutes
* Limit alcoholic intake
Often the first step to a good diet lies in
changing food and eating behavior:
* Don't skip meals
* Eat a series of small meals throughout the day
and avoid a big meal late in the evening
* Eat and chew slowly
* Use a smaller-sized plate to achieve a "full
plate"
* Don't go back for seconds
* Bake or broil food instead of frying Order
from light menus and purchase low-calorie or
low-fat foods
(remember that low-fat does not necessarily mean
low-calorie)
* Learn about food values and make healthy
combinations in meals
* Reward yourself with non-food pleasures
Ounce for ounce, fat provides more than twice as
many calories as protein or carbohydrate (nine
calories vs. four). This energy difference may
explain how fat promotes weight gain. Yet even
when calories are the same, a person eating a
high-fat diet tends to store more excess
calories as body fat than someone eating a
lower-fat diet.
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