The following list offer simple observations to help lose weight.
1. You will never lose weight because someone tells you to. Don’t even bother trying to motivate yourself to lose weight because so-and-so told you that you should. If you do, it won’t work. You have to want to do it for yourself. Then, and only then, you’ll succeed.
2. Calories, carbs, fat grams and other measures of food content are not as important as the quality and quantity of food that you eat. Each diet has some truth to it, but the secret to weight loss is simple: eat less, exercise more.
3. Each measure of food content has some benefit, and each has some problems. Try not to eliminate anything completely, but a general tip is that your diet probably contains an excessive amount of carbohydrates. Look at that first.
4. Soft drinks have a lot of calories. Diet soft drinks have a lot of sodium. Quitting both of them makes you shed a couple of kilograms in days. Do it now. There is no reason for soft drinks in your life as a regular drink.
5. If you MUST drink soft drinks, drink regular soft drinks, not diet. One regular soft drink will at least satisfy you and fill you up for a while. Diet soft drinks just bloat you and fill you with sodium, not to mention aspartame.
6. It is very difficult to cut high fructose calories out of your diet, but you should. Bread should not normally need sweetener as the #2 ingredient, should it? Read labels.
7. Once you stop eating junk food, some of it starts to taste pretty awful. Some junk food have strange metallic tastes. Have you looked at the ingredients in the food you eat?
8. The common medical opinion is that even low-calorie sweeteners like Splenda and Nutrasweet are a bad idea for dieters. Eating something sweet can fire off hunger impulses in my brain, it was easiest to just avoid every single type of sweets other than chewing gum altogether.
9. Chewing gum, however, serves a lot of purposes when dieting. It keeps your mouth busy, it satisfies cravings for sweets and if you’re a typical dieter it hides the halitosis (bad breath) that dieting causes.
10. If you have an organic food store near you, try some organic foods. One day you may find yourself enjoying edmame/tofu mixes rather than potato chips.
11. On the other hand, there are some good diet aids that are non-natural, non-organic but still worth looking into. Tea is a great alternative but not everyone can “get into” tea.
12. Almost any roasted vegetable can be made tasty with the right oils, herbs and spices.
13. Spice has minimal calories, and so do herbs.
14. Put enough cayenne pepper on anything and it will slow down your eating. It may even kick your metabolism up (albeit a very, very small amount).
15. Coffee and tea without milk and sugar will taste just as good once you get used to them. Try a little less added stuff every day. Black coffee has zero calories.
16. Fried foods are always bad for a dieter. Without exception.
17. If you only eat foods that you have to cook or prepare, it slows your eating speed down. Buy blocks of cheese and cut your own slices for a sandwich and you will see what is meant.
18. The exception is raw vegetables. They are very filling, have minimal calories and plenty of other benefits (fiber, vitamins, antioxidants). You can eat as many carrots as you feel like and probably only take in minimal calories.
19. Water has volume. Drinking water fills you up, at least temporarily – but the nice thing is you can keep drinking it non-stop. You can always add a lemon wedge if you want.
20. Alcohol has calories. Lots. It’s 100% unneeded calories.
21. Some alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, are a lot worse than others. A margarita or a whiskey sour has lots of sugar, calories and carbs – almost any mixed drink is a killer. A glass of wine has some calories and carbs but there are some possible health benefits, as with a glass of beer.
22. A salad bar is an invitation to disaster. 2000 calories of vegetables are still 2000 calories.
23. Salad dressing has a lot of calories. Stick with olive oil and vinegar – lots of vinegar and a little bit of oil. If you eat a salad drowned in dressing you’re probably better off just having some chips.
24. Eating carbs within 3 hours of your bedtime is a bad idea – you generally tend to be at your least active late in the evening, and those carbs will not be burned off.
25. Eating carbs for breakfast is a bad idea. You will be hungry again in an hour. Eggs, cottage cheese, or turkey is better. Fruits are OK, even though they have carbs.
26. Eating carbs for lunch will make you drowsy in the afternoon, so it is a bad idea.
27. Carbs are generally a bad idea. Other than natural bread occasionally, maybe rice and some pasta.
28. Have you ever actually measured out a single serving of cereal? What constitutes a serving seems like it would not be enough to feed a baby, let alone an adult. However, that should give you something to think about how adults eat.
29. If you eat your meals with overweight people, you will eat more.
30. If you eat your meals with healthy fit people, you may eat less.
31. Restaurants don’t care if you eat everything that you are served. Their goal is to fill you up on free breadsticks, extra drinks and alcoholic beverages before main course arrives, so you’ll go home happy…and fat. They won’t be there holding your hand when you get that coronary bypass.
32. Unlearning the “eat because it’s tasty, not because you’re hungry” lesson is hard, but you can do it. Kids do not eat when they are not hungry unless you teach them to.
33. Generally corporations want you to be fat. Advertising companies, drug companies, food companies and even the self-help/diet industry need fat people. Healthy people don’t buy weight-loss pills, or new belts, or books on weight loss, or Doritos. This is the worst nightmare of half the large Australian corporations: a healthy, educated consumer who doesn’t watch TV.
34. Being fat is not a human’s natural state. If you are overweight and lose weight, you will feel happier. Not just because you are thinner and look better and feel better, but you were intended by nature to be a runner/tree climber/gatherer/builder.
35. Keeping snacks in the house is just plain dumb. It is bad enough to walk by so many fast food stores, vending machines and snack bars, but don’t keep snacks lying around at home.
36. Canned soups are a disaster – salt, calories, preservatives, and not satisfying. No one loses weight eating canned soups.
37. Putting pictures of fat people from magazines and supermodels or athletes or whatever on your mirror will keep you motivated. Not that we should aspire to that body shape, but the simple fact is that it can help with focus.
38. If you are hungry in the evening before bed eat a slice of cheese. You will sleep better and not wake up ravenous.
39. The first thing you should take into your body when you wake is water. Not spring water, not flavored water, but filtered water. Cold, and a lot of it. It will kill your appetite right off and wake you up. It will cleanse your system for the day.
40. I’m sure you know the feeling – after eating a big pile of salty potato chips you need something sweet “just to mask the salty taste in your mouth.” Down that road madness lies! Never chase food with food. Chase food with water, and lots of it.
41. Drinking cold water burns more calories than drinking lukewarm water (it lowers your body’s temperature slightly, so your body expends energy to warm it back up).
42. However, you should learn to enjoy lukewarm water. If you can only drink ice-cold water, you will be restricting your options too much.
43. You will miss some foods worse than others. It could be something like bread. Don’t give in. Saying “just one piece” is the equivalent of a junkie saying, “Just one hit.” Don’t do it.
44. Butter and oil have a lot of calories but sometimes sneak into food, so keep an eye out.
45. Dieting is lonely. Dieting around others who are not is torture. Tell your friends and family what you are doing, and do not let them push food on you.
46. Drinking green tea and herbal teas is good for you, and it keeps you feeling full.
47. You may hate cauliflower. Fine, but you will hate dragging your overweight body up the road when you are 60 if you do not eat veggies instead of chocolate.
48. Small, nibbly foods are a bad idea even when they are healthy. Do not keep anything you can grab by the handful and eat lying around the house – even nuts, fruits and veggies if you like them enough to overeat.
49. Meat should be viewed as a flavoring, not as a food. Never eat a piece of meat at any one meal bigger than your palm.
50. There is no particular reason for you to eat beef, pork, lamb, etc. You could get all of the protein you need from poultry and seafood. If you like the taste of red meat, fine, but eat it in small quantities.
51. If you go on a low-carb diet, you will get sick of meat. This is not entirely a bad thing.
52. Don’t be too sure that being a vegetarian or vegan is a good way to lose weight, either. You can eat nothing but cheese pizza and French fries and call yourself a vegetarian – it’s the quality of the food you eat that’s more important than the label you apply to yourself.
53. A small handful of nuts (almonds, for example) will keep you going for hours. At the same time, three handfuls of nuts are about 2000 calories.
54. Milk does not work into any diet plan be it low-fat, low-calorie, low-carb. Avoid it. Soymilk is better for you.
55. Fruit juice is almost universally too concentrated, even organic/natural fruit juices. Cut it down with water. Straight fruit juice tastes like syrup.
56. It is very, very easy to drink a lot of calories, particularly since most people don’t really think about calories in regards to drinks. Water has no calories, though.
57. There is no greater feeling than suddenly discovering you can wear that pair of pants that did not fit you a couple of months ago.
58. Needing to go buy a new belt because your old one is too big is a close second.
59. Measure portions. You should never eat more at one sitting than fits on a plate. By plate, it is meant a plate, not Thor’s shield.
60. Getting “checked out” is a real mood-booster, even if you are in a relationship.
61. Jogging helps you maintain weight loss and fitness. Lifting weights helps you lose weight. However, walking is the best exercise because you can so easily do it any time of the day without any special equipment.
62. Being happy burns more calories than being depressed.
63. Stairs are free workout machines. Elevators and escalators are rides.
64. Jogging is easier when you have good shoes.
65. Never go to the supermarket on an empty stomach. You will end up buying more than you need and probably at least one thing you should not eat.
66. Try not to watch too much TV. There are many ads for junk food and whether you pay attention or not there is a lot of unconscious programming going on there.
67. Another good reason not to drink too much alcohol is that your judgment gets impaired. Not dancing on the table with a lampshade over your head – but standing next to the bar grabbing a handful of nut mix.
68. You don’t wear out shoes as quickly if you weigh less.
69. The first time you walk by a friend you have not seen in a while and they do not recognize you because you have lost so much weight is an amazingly positive experience.
70. You can quit wearing black clothes all the time. Black is slimming, but being a healthy weight is slimming-er.
71. There are some places on your body that will never lose their fat, and there is no point in expecting them too.
72. Gaining weight is incredibly easy for most people, even with a very healthy diet. Once you have a poor metabolism by being overweight, it is even easier.
73. If your knees, back, ankles, shoulders, neck or any other joints hurt and you are overweight, losing weight will very likely help them. Even feet pain can disappear after weight loss.
74. In the same way, gaining weight is – oddly – going to put more strain on your back and knees than being overweight but holding a steady weight.
75. If someone takes a picture of you when you are at your peak weight, Use something like a photo at McDonald’s, fat and happy. Keep it, treasure it, frame it. Use it for motivation.
76. Never forget that when you were significantly overweight , people would cringe on airplanes when you sit in the seat next to them. The looks you get are awful. Maybe they aren’t fair, but they are there. Avoiding those looks is another benefit of losing weight.
77. Airplane seats, bus seats, train seats, even office chairs: for some reason public seats are designed for svelte and trim people. Nobody wants to admit the fact that they are increasing insufficient for many Australians.
78. If you can’t see your feet while standing up, it’s a sign and is not natural.
79. If you can’t touch my toes, or tie my shoes without sitting down. Kneeling became very difficult, it’s a bad sign.
80. Remember that you have only one life to live. A helpful thing for me to remember sometimes is that your average person has around 29,000 days on this earth. Try to think whether you would trade 1 day for potato chips. Would you give up 1 week for a steak, one month for a lifetime of Coca Cola? It may not cost that much, but is it worth the chance?
81. If you are afraid that quitting smoking will make you eat more, you should be afraid. However, you should still quit. Using cigarettes as an appetite suppressant is like fumigating your house with poison to get rid of one mouse. Sure, it may work, but at what cost?
82. Your skin tone will suffer from being overweight. If you are severely overweight, be prepared for wrinkles and sagging skin when you lose weight.
83. Sex is better if you are fit… and you will probably get more of it, regardless of whether you are married or single.
84. Diet pills are worthless. You can accomplish the same thing by sniffing garbage.
85. Television will make you hungry. You can’t imagine how many food-related advertisements there are on TV until you start trying to lose weight.
86. Once you start to lose weight, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it ten years ago. However, once you’ve lost the weight you’ve meant to lose, you’ll forget that euphoric feeling and be tempted to eat a little bit of junk again.
87. Once you lost weight, you will be afraid of getting fat again, but not so afraid to start justifying eating things shouldn’t be eating.
88. There is not one single thing at Starbucks that you can have on a diet, except black coffee.
89. Entrée are often the most caloric foods on the menu. Stick to main course only.
90. The failure rate for dieters is high. Even successful dieters often gain the weight back.
Dieting is more like a battle. Food will keep coming and coming and coming.
You will lose if you stop fighting it even for a minute.
Bariatric Surgery makes it easier to lose weight and keep it off.
It make it easier to tell live healthier every day: