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| Are you helping or hindering your weight loss efforts? |
I always had a great appreciation for delicious food. Unfortunately that love can sneak up on you and add unwanted pounds to the body. If you are also guilty of overly enjoying food and want your body back, then you know what follows next with the cycle of dieting and exercise. However, if you’ve been losing this weight loss battle more than winning, then you could be unintentionally sabotaging yourself because of what you assumed was true.
While it is true that drastically cutting calories does seem to initially help you weigh less when you jump on the scale, attempting this form of dieting also backfires in time. In the world we live, temptation is all around us. Constantly denying yourself something you crave eventually sets in. Your willpower breaks, only resulting in you eating more, perhaps even to make up for all you missed.
The wiser course of action is to still eat fewer calories, but not strictly adhere to any starvation allotment that some fad diet may insist upon with something like 600 to 800 calories per day. It’s healthier for your body to lose the weight more slowly such as two pounds a week, which means about 1200 calories for a woman.
Another big mistake is trying to cut all fats from your diet and replacing with fat or sugar free versions of foods. To make up for what is taken out of a fat-free product can amount to more sugar and salt after additives are factored in. Full monosaturated fats such as what you get from nuts, olive oil, avocados, etc. are important for your health, but also they can fill you up more than their skinnier versions. There’s less likelihood of eating when your hunger is satisfied.
A juice cleanse is not what it may seem nutritionally or for long-term weight loss. Of course, you’ll be excited when you see how quickly the numbers on your scale drop when committing to a juice cleanse for several days. Though you might lose a few pounds, they do tend to return once you start eating normally again with whole foods.
Promising yourself that you’ll commit to some regular vigorous form of exercise like a program of cardio such as running or spinning is great for burning off calories and firming up. The only pitfall is your body adapts to the same usual workouts over time and will stop giving you the same results. What works better is to vary up your routine and add lifting weights and time on the treadmill, dance moves, squats, lunging, and long walks, etc.
The key to any long-term success keeping those pounds off is moderation so keep that in mind.
