For Healthy Eating Facts, You Can’t Beat This!

There are bunches of good, healthy eating facts out there and it can get incredibly confusing. Bad carbs, good carbs, protein, nutrients…It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out.

Today, let’s step back a little from all the confusion, and talk about one of the best healthy eating facts around. Do this, and you are guaranteed to have healthy, nutritious meals that will help you lose weight (if that is what you want).

Consider this, when was the last time you ordered a pizza or went through the drive through at the local fast food place?

You know the super deluxe pizza, or the hamburger and fries are bad for you… so, why? Why did you go there?

As with anything else, there’s going to be exceptions, but I would venture to guess that most of you ordered the pizza or stopped off at the fast food place - simply because you didn’t have any idea of what to fix for dinner. And, it was simply easier to stop off and pick up a meal, rather than plan one.

That may indeed be a fact, but not one of the healthy eating facts! True, after a hard day’s work, the last thing we want to do is have to come up with an idea for a meal. It’s even worse when you throw in the healthy, lose weight restrictions. (Tossing a frozen pizza in the oven is no better than having one delivered.)

Here’s an easy solution to that problem… whenever you can set aside a couple hours - plan your dinner menu for each day in the coming week. If you are feeling particularly ambitious, go for two weeks worth of menus. If you can’t find a couple hours, schedule them. It’s worth it.

Write out each meal plan on a separate sheet of paper. Then place them all in a three ring binder. If you really want to get fancy, you could separate the days with pretty multicolored tabs. Somewhere down the line, you will probably want to laminate the pages too.

Now, here’s the important part. Each evening when you get home, open your binder to that day’s menu and make it. We want to make this a habit, so never deviate under any circumstances.

This will stop you from having to worry about what to fix for dinner and will totally eliminate those last minute impulse buys from the local fast food place.

The danger is, many of you won’t want to try this because it seems too simple. But, it works and saves a lot of money too.

If you had a personal chef, and their job was to fix you healthy, nutritious, low-calorie meals, you would expect them to preplan the menu. If they always waited until the last minute for inspiration, you would most likely fired them. Think of yourself in the same way, pre-plan your meals. Then, don’t change your plans during the week.

Once you make this a habit, you will learn to truly value and depend on that little binder.

If you plan all your meals to be healthy ones, it MUST eventually improve your health. It has to!

Now, at the end of the week, do it again! Come up with seven NEW meal plans. By the end of the first month (4 weeks), you will have 28 all different recipes that you can call on.

Every meal, for four weeks, will be different. This way you will never get tired of eating the same meals over and over again. They will all be tasty, nutritious and low calorie. Once you’ve gotten this far, you can stop your weekly planning and just continuously rotate the recipes in your binder.

This is one of the simplest and best healthy eating facts out there and it also saves you a bundle at the grocery store.

Check out my website for a bunch of additional information and a free subscription to my ” Fast Weight Loss” mini course.

Even Successful Weight Loss Programs Usually Forget This…

Dieting - losing weight - trimming the waistline, whatever you want to call it, if - You Don’t Know What You Are Doing Wrong - You Can’t Change! Successful weight loss programs should always include a journal.

Simply put, anything that can’t be measured can’t be improved! So to find the most efficient and quick ways to lose weight, you first have to know what caused it.

Getting safe, healthy and fast results from our weight loss efforts is a step-by-step procedure. The first basic step is finding out exactly what we’ve been doing wrong - then we can change!

When attempting to lose weight, the first, smartest and easiest step you can take is to start keeping a daily food journal. A food journal is basically what it sounds like…a record of your daily food intake. Your journal can be as simple or complex as you wish. You can record lots of details or just keep it clean and basic. But either way, a journal is a terrific way to help yourself stick to your successful weight loss programs.

Your food journal can record a whole host of valuable information. First, how about listing your daily food intake? Just this simple and basic step can provide you with a lot of unexpected data. It will help you to actually see what you eat on any given day - and you’ll start to notice patterns of unhealthy eating that you had never previously considered.

It’s our daily habits and patterns that kill us. We do things without even noticing. Once you start writing them down, they come to light and you can take steps to change. That’s when you will find the successful weight loss programs to lose weight.

Many people find it valuable to record calories, protein, fiber, fat, and other nutrients. Portion sizes could be recorded as well. This is a lot of work, but it is definitely worth the effort. You won’t have to do it very long before you start to find HUGE gaping mistakes in what, when, why, how much and the way you eat.

You could move from the strictly factual journal into more of a diary format. You could write down triggers that make you eat even when it’s not for hunger. You can record your cravings, how your weight loss program is affecting you on a daily basis and your inner feelings. There are many formats and things you can write. The key to keep in mind is that it’s YOURS! Make it any way you want.

No one else would have any reason to want to read your food journal - so it’s not like a traditional diary kept under lock and key and hidden away. After all, it isn’t exactly tabloid fodder to read a list of everything you ate in a day. (Unless you’re famous, then you should hide your journal.)

In the actual creation of your journal, use whatever tools work best for you. You don’t need to go out and buy some fancy leather bound journal. (Unless that’s what you WANT.) A simple pad of paper and a pencil will work just fine. You could even keep your journal on your computer. Just fire up your word processing program or an Excel type spreadsheet and keep the icon on your desktop for easy access.

You could keep your food journal on a laptop or palm pilot, you could use a voice recorder or slip a notebook into your bag during the day…whatever works best for your lifestyle. The key is to make it something that you will keep up on a daily basis.

Your journal is incredibly more valuable as a tool to lose weight than your scale would ever be. Finding your unwanted habits and patterns and tracking your progress is as simple as keeping your journal up to date and reviewing it once a week.

When you hit certain weight loss goals, give yourself a big “ATTABOY” or “ATTAGIRL” It may seem hokey, but buy some gold star stickers and award yourself one whenever you reach a goal. (Seems dumb, but try it - those stars can become pretty important to you.) Skip the tub of ice cream and reward yourself with a non-fattening gold star. Try to set a goal that you can reach every day - so pretty soon your journal is filled with stars. It works.

If you back slide, study your journal and find out what went wrong! It’s all there! You can fix your mistakes and move on to the next gold star.

Your doctor can offer a lot of good advice and keep you healthy and safe. Be sure to take your food journal with you, and show it to them, when you visit your doctor. Also, always get a physical before starting any diet or exercise regimen.

It’s a little extra work, but a food journal works wonders for most of the people who keep one. Consider starting yours today- it’s the best method for finding quick ways to lose weight!

Low Carb Diet - Combined With Exercise Will Give You Successful Weight Loss

For many, diet and exercise are the two major factors in losing pounds. Once you’ve got your exercise regimen set up, you must then focus on your diet and the quality of foods you eat. If you follow a high protein low carb diet, you will definitely lose weight more quickly than with most other types of diets.

A high protein low carb diet can be beneficial for you in several significant ways. It’s essential to understand precisely how this kind of regimen works. There are various degrees of a high protein, low carbohydrate diet plan but the point is that boosting your protein consumption and decreasing your carbohydrate intake will enable you to lose weight and enhance your health.

There is more than one reason for choosing a high protein low carb diet. Of course, anyone can choose to follow a high protein low carb diet that is created especially for weight loss. There are also high protein low carb diets created specifically for diabetics and others whose general health would benefit from such a plan.

A high protein low carb diet will help you restrict consumption of refined carbohydrates. Some foods that contain refined carbohydrates are white rice, pasta, crackers and sugary foods. These can give you a short burst of energy, but are better avoided. If you cut down on the refined carbs, you will be able to better control insulin and blood sugars. This is vital for everybody, not only those with diabetes.

An advantage of the high protein low carb diet is that losing weight is easier with this type of diet. If you’re limiting the amounts of poor quality foods that are in your diet, you will get healthier and become thinner as a result. When you are on a high protein low carb diet, make sure that you are not restricting your entire carbohydrates intake. The carbohydrates contained in foods like fresh vegetables, fruits and whole grains are very healthy. These types of carbohydrates are necessary for the well being of your body.

It needs to be understood that a good, healthy diet in order to lose weight is not complete with just raising the protein intake and lowering the carb intake. In order to go one step further, you must realize that regular exercise is necessary for the body to stay healthy as well.

Bad eating habits make weight loss difficult if not impossible. By following a high protein low carb diet plan you will naturally eliminate unhealthy food choices from your diet and pave the way to a healthier life.