The world is full of dietary tips and people telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. It can be hard to tell what exactly will work for you. All that advice conflicts with one another, after all. However, we’ve taken the steps to make it all a bit easier on you. These tips are a collection of those that have been tried and tested. Some are methods, some are tips for sticking to you diet. All of them should be a stepping stone that helps you get closer to the body you want. So, let’s get started and find the technique right for you.
Plan your meals
There are a lot of things that can get in the way of even starting a diet. The expensiveness of healthy food. Being unable to eat all those greens before their expiration date. These excuses will disappear into thin air when you start planning ahead on your meals. So will the hassle of trying to meet your requirements each day. Planning makes sticking to your diet extra easy and doesn’t give you the time to hit those unhealthy snacks. There’s even a website that can help you depending on what you’re going for with your diet.
Control your cravings
Cravings are the enemy of just about everyone who’s going for a diet. Especially if you have a sweet tooth. What’s to stop you from having a moment of madness and fetching a box of doughnuts from your cupboards? Well, firstly, you should be getting rid of the temptations within the household. Even if it means that others are missing their treats, too. Keeping yourself busy is another way of avoiding those temptations. Nuts are a great way to do just that. They’ll stop your appetite from getting the best of you and they’re good for you, too.
Put more focus on nutrition than calories
There’s no denying that there’s no getting around the truth of calories. No matter what you eat, if you take in more calories than you exercise, you won’t be losing any more weight. However, don’t let calories be the end-all and be-all of your diet. Pay more attention to the nutritional values of your food, too. Make sure you’re getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs. The Better Nutrition programme can teach you to start identifying the nutrition of foods, not just how many calories you have to count up.
Diets that work
There are a lot of diets flying around and not all of them are going to have only good effects on you. The Atkins diet is famous for how negatively it could affect the life of practitioners. In contrast, the Paleo diet is one that has popped up recently and seems drastic. It focuses on the foods that have always been available to us. Nuts, meats and fruits are the primary sources of energy. Meanwhile, dairy and staple grains are ignored. Unlike other fads, the paleo diet while extreme, follows the mainstream principles of weight-loss. Less saturated fat, less salt. If it sounds like it would be a hassle to source the food for this diet, there plenty of cookbooks that help. This PaleoHacks review can give you more info.
Mood foods
What we eat has a tremendous effect not only on our body but also on our brain chemistry. When you’re going into a diet, try to fit in some of what dieticians are calling ‘mood foods’. For example, pumpkin seeds will fall within the boundaries of nearly every diet you can find. They also have the benefit of fighting causes of depression and anxiety.
Snack now and then
This relates to the tip of keeping a bag of nuts with you. Hunger is the diet killer. Not only does it create a very physical need for your body to combat but it has big effects on you mentally. When you’re hungry, you’re much likely to say ‘forget the whole thing’ and throw yourself into a binge. Pick up snacks that are easy and filling, with their own nutritional values to offer. Protein bars can be a great way of doing just that.
Stay hydrated
You already know that we’re made up, in majority, of water. You already know that hydration is incredibly important to our bodies. It also helps us fight things like headaches and poor sleep. Make sure you’re getting hydration wherever you can. That doesn’t always necessarily mean drinking bottled water all the time, either. There are lots of ways the human body can get its hydration. Fruits and berries, for example, are an excellent source of water. Watermelons are 90% water and taste delicious. Find out the other ways you can supplement your water intake and avoid dehydration at all times. This goes double for days you plan on exercising.
Stay unstressed
Stress is another one of those enemies to everyone who’s dieting. It tenses your body and makes it difficult to shift fat. It also leads a lot of people to stress eating. Stress also negatively affects our perception of all our efforts to staying healthy. In a time of great effort, like dieting can be, stress always has the opportunity to poke its nasty head up. So fight it. Breathing techniques are a great way of flushing the stress from your body in the middle of the day and even stops stress-causing hormones.
Kick the saturated fats
More than calories, more than sugar and more than salt, these are the bane of a healthy diet. Saturated fats are found in so much of modern food, it can seem difficult to eradicate them. Partly because, let’s be honest, they taste delicious. However, it’s entirely possible to replace them and keep the tastes we love so much. Stop using butter in cooking and start using oils, including olive oil. Go for the lean meats instead of fatty ones. Don’t assume all fruit based products are completely healthy. Coconut products, for instance, usually contain a lot of saturated fat. It’s not the single step you need to take to have a healthy diet, but cutting saturated fats will instantly make your current plan a lot more effective.
