Low Carb, Low Fat, More protein, Eat all the fat you want..... These are the many things we hear as we are bombarded with the latest and NOT always the greatest diet and eating tips when trying to find the Silver Bullet for permanent weight loss. Well I thought that we would talk about common sense proven tips that will ensure that along with a solid fitness program, will help support your fitness and health goals for life. Eating Tip 1 Eat Slow- If you read about the French Paradox, which discusses why the French eat a lot of fatty foods, but are a leaner society than that of the United States. They take their meals very seriously and it is one of the most important times of the day. You will get multiple benefits from this tip. Eating Slow will help your body absorb the food at the right level allowing you to fill up much quicker as it will not provide a tendency for you to OVEREAT!!! The other awesome benefit is that you can spend more time with your family so that you can share the important things in life with each other!!! Eating Tip 2 Eat 5-6 times per day. Do not allow your blood sugar levels to drop, in between meals. By eating more often and eating the right types of foods that are on the low end of the glycemic index, you can keep your blood sugar levels more even throughout the day, and ensure that you are not getting those mid-afternoon yawns and also help keep the excess weight off. Remember that when you spike your blood sugar by eating simple sugars and refined carbohydrates, this will potentially cause your body to store fat!!! Eating Tip 3 Eat Your Breakfast... I was bad at this many years ago, but I learned to fuel up early in the day. Eating a good solid breakfast to start your day helps supply you with the fuel you need to get started, especially if you are incorporating a early morning fitness program in to your day. You need the fuel to get your engine going in the morning. Do not starve your body early, because you may have the tendency to binge eat later, because your body gets into the craving mode. Feed your body early!! Eating Tip 4 Slow down as the sun goes down. What do I mean by this? Well just as important as it is to eat a great breakfast to start the day, it is also as equally important to reduce your food consumption as the day goes on. So plan to eat a good solid breakfast, a good lunch, and reduce your meal portions at dinner time. Remember as you get closer to bedtime your body starts to wind down and you will not have the same opportunity at night to burn those consumed meal calories as you did earlier in the day. So eat more early and back down as you reach sun down. Eating Tip 5 Give yourself 3 hours!!! Yes 3 hours before going to bed. Do not consume anymore calories. As I mentioned before, your body starts to slow down as the day goes on and gets ready for sleep. You do not want to consume a lot of calories right before you go to bed, because you will end of potentially storing those calories as FAT!!! Your body sometimes give you a false sense of being hungry as you bedtime nears. You get those 9pm cravings... And a lot of people end up hitting the Refrigerator and over-consuming right before bed time... Not good for managing your weight and body fat %. If you just can't resist the munchies, then what I do is eat a few high good fat nuts. Like unsalted Almonds skin-on (good for fiber) or a couple spoonfuls of no sugar added all natural peanut butter. Eating a good quality fat food will satisfy your craving and will keep you from binging on something with lots of bad carbohydrates or simple sugars, like ice cream, cake or cookies. Eating Tip 6 Stay focused on eating green in every meal. Always incorporate a good high quality low glycemic index dark green vegetable with each meal. I suggest things like spinach or romaine lettuce in your lunch time salads. Eating broccoli, asparagus, or steamed spinach as your vegetable at dinner time. All of these dark green vegetables supply your body with great vitamins and nutrients as well as being great sources of fiber and are naturally low on the glycemic index scale and will keep your blood sugar levels from spiking after eating. So think Dark green at meal time and challenge yourself to keep it as part of each and every eating event. Eating Tip 7 Blend your foods.. Blending your foods means making sure that if you are eating a food item that does contain carbohydrates make sure that you incorporate a good low fat protein along with it. Eating a low carb tortilla wrap where the first ingredient is whole wheat flour that is unrefined. Add lean chicken breast as part of your filling in the wrap, maybe with some thinly shredded romaine lettuce and other veggies. Eating Tip 8 Use splenda as your sweetener of choice, when looking for a simple sugar replacement. I have tried many sugar subs over the years an no other product has the taste of sugar like splenda does. Not equal and surely not sweet and low. Splenda is outstanding for sprinkling on low glycemic fresh fruit like blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, and I also use it to sweeten my drink of choice. Caffeine Free Green Tea that I infuse with cinnamon stick and whole cloves. What a refreshing cold beverage that keeps the caffeine out of your diet, provides you a great antioxidant and does not spike your blood sugar levels by using the no calorie sweetner in splenda. So I hope you enjoy my GREAT 8!!! These eating tips will help keep you on the right track, when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle.. All of these tips are the tools that I live by every day.... Stay tuned next month for more healthy eating tips @ Body Perfect Fit!!! |
