7 Tips for Diet Planning
The only way people are able to succeed in this busy day and age is if they have an adequate plan. While some can overdo their planning a bit, the need can’t be ignored. Dieting success requires a plan, probably more than most things. Yet people still try to just wing it.
Stop procrastinating. If you are reading this, you have the time to set goals and layout a plan. Here are 7 tips to help.
1. Mini Meal Splurge.
Experts recommend to people with certain disease that they should eat several small meals each day. They say that a person should eat something every two hours. While this is not hard, it can take some conditioning to get into the habit, as the three-a-day meal blueprint is pretty heavily ingrained.
Start eating every four hours instead and work your way down. Keep it like you normally would any of your other meals. Make sure you have your protein and your fiber. Have some veggies and some fruit to balance everything out. Don’t make your mini meal a bucket of fried chicken or a chocolate milkshake, although they sound really good right now.
Set the times and only eat at those times. Having a schedule helps train your brain. You’ll find that when you do a mini meals, you almost never feel hungry throughout the day and so are not tempted to indulge.
2. Know Your Calories
This is easier said than done. You need to have a specific amount that you are trying to reduce. If you are trying to reduce your meals by 10%, then you should stick to that. Don’t break out the calculator and count up every meal that you have. If you have been on a diet for very long, you probably have a mental image of the nutritional labels of your favorite foods. Don’t eat with your eyes, eat with your mind. That will help you cut down on the amount of food that you eat.
Set a reasonable calorie count and spread it out over the mini meals of your day.
3. Indulge
From time to time let yourself go. Eat something that you know you shouldn’t. If you get it out of your system, it will be easier to maintain your diet. If on the other hand you don’t allow yourself to eat things you shouldn’t from time to time, all you will do is hurt yourself in the long run. You are going to nibble each day on those things instead of just eating them occasionally.
Pick a day on the weekend to indulge. It also helps keep your metabolism from depressing due to excessive calory restriction.
4. Eat Your Calories, Don’t Drink Them
Don’t fill up on sodas and other drinks. You can get all your calories for one day in these if you do it too much. A few sodas here. A few cups of hot chocolate there. A few beers here. You get the point. That will put on the pounds easily.
Have bottled water readily available. Save the soda and alcohol for your indulgement day.
5. Exercise
You knew this was coming. It’s a cliche, but you really need to do this to keep healthy. Not only will it keep you fit, but it will keep you mentally sharp as well. That can go a long way in helping you stick to a diet. If you are depressed, chances are you will end up eating fatty foods that will make you fat. When you consume all of that fat, it will make you more depressed. It is a bad cycle to start.
It doesn’t have to be anything major. Just something to get the blood pumping. It can be as simple as jumping jacks for 30 minutes every other day. Be sure and make this a consistant time and put it on your overall diet schedule.
6. Make Your Meals Last
Chew your food! I bet you heard that one as a kid. Well, it is true. Don’t swallow your food. Instead, eat it slowly and enjoy the taste of it. If you do this, it will make you feel like you have actually ate something. If you swallow it down, you won’t get the same benefit. You will continue to feel a void. Give your stomach time to digest and send the “full” signal to the brain. The slower you eat, the less you eat.
Schedule not only when you will eat, but how long you will eat. Eat the meal to fill up the time. If you finish too quickly, force yourself to sit there and do nothing. Hopefully the boredom will motiviate you to eat more slowly next time.
Try reading a book when you eat, as this can naturally lengthen the time between your bites. Make sure it’s a good book your interested in. DO NOT watch TV. Eating while watching TV is the ultimate mistake, as you can consume a whole bag of chips without even thinking.
7. Discover Your Food Triggers
We all have these. When was the last time you went grocery shopping and you looked at a bag of cookies and realized that you had to have them? We do this sort of thing all the time. You need to understand what foods trigger your response system. If you can do this, you can avoid situations that will make you eat things that you shouldn’t eat. Write down which aisles to avoid in the store.
Final Thoughts
Make several copies of the plan and schedule you create. Carry one with you, and post the others around places you consistantly are. Your computer monitor, bathroom mirror, refrigerator, picture frame at work. Anything to help keep you on the plan. If you like more structure, you might want to read some diet plan reviews.
