Six Tips For Losing Weight Without Fad Diets

Monday start diet. Tuesday break diet! Wednesday plan to start again next Monday.

If this is you, its likely time to get down the diet roller coaster and build some bigger changes to the route you eat, drink and think about food.

Here are six tips to help you get started.

1. Improve Your Diet Quality Score

When trying to lose weight, it might be seducing to discontinue carbs, dairy or the other food group altogether.

But to stay healthy, you need to meet your requirements for important nutrients like iron, zinc, calcium, vitamins B and C, folate and fiber. These nutrients are essential for metabolism, growth, mend and fighting disease.

Our review of diet quality indices used to rate the healthiness of eating habits found that eating nutritious foods was associated with lower weight gain over time.

Improving your diet quality entails eating more fruit and vegetables, lean meats, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, legumes, dried beans, wholegrains and dairy( mostly reduced fat ).

Rate your diet quality and get brief feedback utilizing our online Healthy Eating Quiz www.healthyeatingquiz.com.au.

2. Mum Was Right Eat Your Veggies

Fruit and veg are high in fiber, vitamins and phytonutrients, but low in total kilojoules. So eating more can help you manage your weight.

A study of more than 130,000 adults found that those who increased their uptake of fruit and vegetables over four years lost weight. For each extra daily serve of veggies, there was a weight loss of 110 grams over the four years. It was 240 grams for fruit. Small, but it all adds up.

Not all veggies are equal. Michigan Municipal League/ Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Drilling down to specific fruit and veg gets interesting. Increasing cauliflower intake was associated with a four-year weight reduced to about 620 grams, with smaller reductions for capsicum( 350 g ), green leafy vegetables( 230 g) and carrots( 180 g ). The reduction was 620 g for blueberries and 500 g for apple or pears.

It was not good news all round, though. Corn was associated with a weight gain of 920 g, peas 510 g and mashed, cooked or simmered potatoes 330 g.

3. Restriction Your Portion Size

If you are served larger portions of food and drinks, you eat more and devour more kilojoules. That sounds obvious, yet everybody gets caught out when offered big sections even when youre determined to stop when youre full.

Research reveals offering larger portions leads adults and children to devour an extra 600 to 950 kilojoules( 150 -2 30 calories ). This is enough to account for a weight gain of more than seven kilograms a year, if the kilojoules arent compensated for by doing more exercise or eating less later.

4. Watch What You Drink

A can of softdrink contains about 600 kilojoules( 150 calories ). It takes 30 -4 5 minutes to walk those kilojoules off, depending on your size and speed.

Children and adolescents who usually drink a lot sugary drinks are 55% more likely to be overweight.

Switch to lower sugar versions, water or diet drinks. A meta-analysis of intervention analyses( ranging from ten weeks to eight months) found that adults who switched had a weight reduced to about 800 grams.

5. Cue Food

Our world constantly cues us to feed and drinking. Suppose food ads, vending machine and chocolate bars when trying to pay for petrol or groceries. Food cues trigger cravings, prompt eating, predict weight gain and are hard to resist. They can build you feel hungry even if you are not.

Ditch the oily popcorn and take your own snacks. rpb1 001/ Flickr, CC BY-NC

Try to minimise the time you expend in highly cued food surroundings. Avoid food court, take a list when you go to the supermarket and take your own snacks to places where highly palatable food is advertised, like the movies.

This will reduce autopilot eating, which sabotages your willpower.

6. Resist Temptation

A treatment for food cue reactivity is called exposure therapy. With the help of a psychologist or health professional, you expose yourself to the sight and smell of favourite foods in places that commonly trigger overeating, like eating chocolate when watching Tv. But, rather than eat the chocolate, you merely have a taste without eating it.

Over time, and with persistence, cravings for chocolate reduce, even when cues such as Tv ads or people eating chocolate in front of you are present.

You can also draw on your brains own self-management skills to resist temptation, but it takes conscious practise. Try this food cue acronym, RROAR( remind, resist, organised alternative, remember and/ or reward ), to train your brain to resist temptation on autopilot.

When you feel yourself pulled by cues to feed or drink 😛 TAGEND

R emind yourself that you are the boss of you , not a food cue.

emind yourself that you are the boss of you , not a food cue.

R esist the tempting food or drink initially by turning your back on the cue.( This gives you time to think about next steps .)

Have a pre- O rganised A lternative behaviour to employ against food cues. Grab a drinking of water, walk around the block, check your telephone messages, read, take a walk in the opposite direction. Diversion runs.

rganised lternative behaviour to employ against food cues. Grab a drinking of water, walk around the block, check your telephone messages, read, take a walk in the opposite direction. Diversion runs

Remember what your big-picture goal is. Do you want to eat better to help you feel better, reduce drugs, lower blood pressure, improve diabetes control or manage your weight?

Six Tips For Losing Weight Without Fad Diets
Six Tips For Losing Weight Without Fad Diets
Six Tips For Losing Weight Without Fad Diets
Six Tips For Losing Weight Without Fad Diets
Six Tips For Losing Weight Without Fad Diets