Eating healthy and excercise is always touted as the secret to weight loss. I hear it day in and day out… and i firmly believe it.  I dont thing that healthy diet and excercise are the only things you need. Your mental state, hapiness, work, friends, social life, living conditions etc. all contribute to your health and weight. I think I have figured out one of those things, eating healthy. And the secret I found to eating healthy is… my lazyness.

I am a very intospective person. I like to analyse my life to figure our why I do the things I do. I believe that if I fing out the root of my behaviors, i can then work on changing. This has worked immensely for me. It worked in finging out why i ead unhealthily. The root of my unhealthy eating habits were convience. Eating unhealthy was just too easy for me.

It was more convienient for me to eat at McDonalds then to cook a steak. It was more convienient for me to make a microwave pizza than to make a salad. If i wanted a snack, i just reached into the cupboard and grabbed a handful of doritos. It was just so easy. Upon this realization that eating unhealthy was so easy, i also realized why eating healthy was so hard. I didnt have any healthy food!

If I wanted a meal and had no food at home, i would have to go out. I had two alternatives; fast food or go to the store, buyu some meat and veggies, cook the meat and veggies and then eat. I was hungry and just driving through was much easier. So, i figured this if I went shopping and bought all healthy foods and kept my kitchen constantly stocked with healthy foods, I would eat healthy. I was right!

Since i had food at home, it was easier to just make something than to get in my car and drive to some fast food joint. Since making food at home was now easier, and all i had was healthy food, I ate healthy food! Wow! It hasn’t been difficult either. The one thing i have to watch is, the amount of food i have in stock. If I run out of food at home I instantly get the urge to eat out. I just have to make sure that my fridge id stocked healthily at all times.

I guess you could call this ‘working smarter, not harder’. Trying to use your will power to avoid bad foods is just too much work for some people… like me. I found that if I only gave myself healthy options, I would take them. Try if for yourself an let me know how it does.

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I was reading an article on http://www.diet-blog.com/ called “Obese Americans Claim To Eat Healthy” and this quote struck me.

A recent telephone survey of 11,000 people found that more than three-quarters of obese people say they have healthy eating habits.

How is this possible if eating healthy and excercise are the keys to weight loss?

I then made the realization that I used to think that I ate healthy. I knew that cutting back on junk food or ordering smaller fast food portions is less bad for your health. I assumed that since it was less bad that is had to be more good. I was wrong.

Eating healty and eating unhealthy are mutually exclusive. That means that doing less or more of one does not effect the other. So, if you are eating less junk food by eating smaller portions, you are just eating less junk. You are still eating unhealthy foods.

To eat healthy, you need to eat only healthy foods. Some unhealthy stuff is ok sometimes, but I would say that at least 90% of what you eat must be healthy foods to be considered a healthy eater.

I realized that i was eating unhealthy even though I thought I was eating healthy. I consiously examined the foods I was eating and thought to myself if it was healthy or not. I didnt look at the portions I ate. I just looked at the foods. I found i was primarily eating fast food and processed microwave type foods. They are not healthy foods. Once I knew this I changed my diet to one where I ate mostly fruits, veggies and lean meats. Now I can say I am eating healthy and I actually am.

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Dinning Out

Let me first start out by saying, i believe that restraunts are for enjoying yourself. They exist for the atmosphere and the food, and that is why you visit them. Restraunts are not for eating every day. I have two recomendations for eating out. The first is: limit you visits, and the second is: limit you portions.

Restraunt food may be high quality and it may be made with heathy ingredients, but it is not made to be healthy. The food is made to be delicious. Ill be fair and say that there are restraunts who specialize in healthy food, but they are sparce.  Restraunts use good stuff, but often they just use too much of it. It is evident in the large portions, buttery veggies and bottomless drinks. This is the fun of the restraunt. You get what you want and more. Some restraunts offer healthy alternatives, like salads or low carb items. But they suffer from the excess of restraunts mentality. Yes, they are good, just too much good.

Limit your visits: This is the easiest. Just limit the times you frequent restraunts. I would say eat out no more that twice a week, once if you can manage. Eating out is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. So when you do eat out, make it fun and enjoyable. Dont bother with trying to find the lowest calorie thing, everything is high in calories. Dont order you burger bun-less, unless you like it that way. A restraunt is a break, treat it that way.

Limit you portions: When you do eat out, limit youself. Restraunt portions are huge. It is really the size and ammount of food that gets you. Most restraunt offer half size portions. Take advantage of that. I also recomend splitting meals. If you eat out with a friend or another person, split a meal with them. You will eat alot less. You will realize how rediculously large portions are at restraunts. You will also save alot of money, about 50%, since you split meals. Mostly all restraunts will split meals for you, just ask them to.

I always split meals when i eat out with  Christin, my girlfriend. It has cut my dining costs by 50% and it has stopped me from stuffing myself at restraunts. I find it more fun when sharing, say a pizza or salad. We just interact more instead of stuffing our faces. Anyway, the way to eat out is limit your visits and limit you portions. Get either half sizes or split meals. You will save money and your waistline.

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Snacking for Weight Loss

Learning to snack effectively is a major key to losing weight. Correct snacking will boost energy, fight cravings and stave off hunger. Snacking effectively will also help in eating proper portions during meals.

A snack is a mini-meal between meals. Snacks are typically eaten between breakfast and lunch, between lunch and dinner, after dinner and after workouts. Snacks are small servings of usually one food, like an apple or piece of cheese. I will give examples of god snacks later. Snacks help fight energy lulls you feel after your prior meal is digested by keeping your stomach working. Snacking fights off cravings by and hunger by having you eat more regularly. Snacking will also keep you more full, so you are not starving when it is time for lunch or dinner. You will be more aware of you fullness when you snack between meals, thus you will not stuff yourself silly. The benefits of snacking are many. You get to eat more and more often, and you 
get its many benefits.

Good snacks are foods high in fats and proteins, or foods high in fiber. Examples of foods high in fats and protein are nuts, cheese and lean meats. Foods high in fiber are the ever good ruits and vegetables. A good snack is a handful (one serving) of nuts, a piece of beef jerky,  an apple or some carrots. Those are all good examples of effective snacks. You need to keep the  portion to one serving and have only one food. A snack is to hold you over until a full meal, so don’t over eat snacks.

Snacking has many benefits. They give energy, curb craving and hunger, and lessen the chance of  overeating during meals. Foods high in protein and fats or food high in fiber are good snacks.  Remember to eat only one serving of one food as a snack. Snacks are not meant as meals, they are meant as fillers to hold you over until meals.

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Manage your cravings

There are two types of cravings. They are recuring cravings and one-time cravings. Once-time cravings are the seemingls random need for a certian food. En example is really wanting a pickle one day, when you dont really like or eat pickles regularly. The other craving, the recuring craving, it the troublesome one. This is when you constantly want a food for seemingly no reason. An example is that you constantly want ice cream, or you want a soda at a spefit time every day. This is the craving that you have trouble with and that needs to ba managed.

Let me start off by saying, the once-time cravings are usually biological in nature. Meaning that you probably are craving it because the food has some nutrient in it that you need. It is adviasable to heed this craving. Since they are few and far between, it is ok to give in to them. The other craving is the detrimental one. This is the craving where you constantly want McDonalds french fries or chocolate chip ice cream. You have these cravings when you are not even hungry. You are just eating to satisfy you craving.

It is easiest to think of a craving like a mini addiction. You want the food for no other reason then to satisfy the craving.  You dont want it all the time, and you reaize it is a craving. That is why i call it a mini adiction. This mini addiction is fairly simple to break. It is simple but it oes take time and persistence. The steps to beat a craving are: awareness, deferment and routine.

Awareness: You must become very aware of you craving. You need to know what food you crave. This is easy most of the time because you usually crave one food. But if you crave something sweet or something full of carbs, you need to identify what you are most likely to eat when that craving hits. I, for instance, craved carbs. I looked at the food i ate when i satisfied this craving. They turned out to be mostly gold fish crackers. The second thing you need to become aware of is the times of you craving. You need to know when or what situations are present when the craving hits. Is it at 11:00 every day, or when you are watching TV?

Deferment: Once you are aware of when, where and what your craving is, you can now work on stoping it. Plan ahead and defer your craving elsewhere. If you crave chocolate, remove the chocolate from your house. Get rid of the food you crave. But this does nothing to the craving and it will make you nuts. You need to also replace the food with something else. There are many things to replace a craving with. You could replace it with a healthy food or a low calorie food. You could have a big glass of water. Some fay to brush your teeth. The mint flavor reduces the craving and you dont wnt to dirty you teeth. Find something that works for you. It will be difficult at first, so pick something that you will be able to do. You also want to have this replacement thing ready to go when your craving usually hits. If you are replacing a craving for a candy bar at noon with an apple, be sure to have that apple ready at noon.

Routine: The puropse of this to to retrain you brain. You need to do you deferment when ever you have this craving. Planning ahead makes it easy on you. Since you wont have to think about finding the deferment fod of thing it becomes mindless. Mindless is what you are looking for. Doing something mindlessly is called routine. You need to replace your craving enough times that is becomes mindless and routine. When that happens, your craving is gone.

I wont pretend that this is easily done. The first few times of replacing the craving is very annoying. You mail fail at it the first few times and give into the craving. Just stick to it. It will become easier and easier until the craving is gone. Take time to enjoy what you are replacing your craving with. The more you focus on your craving replacement, the less you think about wanting your craving. Stick to it and you will succede.

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