One of the things I emphasize when I talk to clients in Houston, Tx is that when you want to lose weight so you fit into your jeans, you have to eat green. That doesn’t mean everything you eat should be green, just that you should eat healthy and include a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet. You need to workout to tone your muscles and get that curvy look everyone loves. Working out also helps you burn calories, but the real secret to losing weight starts in the kitchen.
Eating healthy isn’t dieting.
When you think of losing weight, you normally think of going on a strict diet where you wave good-bye to all your favorite foods, lose weight and then go back to old eating habits, which makes you regain the weight you just lost. Instead, eating healthy simply means making smarter choices when it comes to food. It means less processed foods and more whole foods. You can eat that way for the rest of your life and be healthier for doing it, too.
Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to have some of your favorite foods.
If you love cake, when you healthy, you can still have some cake occasionally. You just can’t have it every day and must remember portion control. It means eating one piece of cake, not the whole cake. Don’t worry if that happens, either. You aren’t falling off a diet or anything, just taking a step back one day from what’s now your normal healthy eating habits. Go back to healthy eating the next day.
You’ll never feel starved or deprived.
One of the things that most people love about healthy eating is that they never feel hungry. You’ll even learn to make substitutions that don’t effect the taste of the food, just makes it healthier and lower in calories. For instance, eating brown rice has more nutrients than the same amount of white rice, but fewer calories. Substituting Greek yogurt for sour cream on a potato also saves calories but gives you that same creamy taste.
- You’ll be amazed at how much you like the new way of eating and on those rare days you go back to old eating habits, how unsatisfying it is.
- Cutting out products with added sugar is one of the biggest changes. It’s hard because sugar is so addictive. Make sure you have plenty of fruit for snacks and gradually switch your snacks to other options that aren’t sugary.
- Learning to eat healthy means you can eat anywhere without worry about falling off a diet. You simply make the smartest choice of food when in restaurants or at parties.
- When you combine regular exercise with a healthy diet, not only will your jeans fit better quickly, you may even find you have to buy a smaller size much sooner than you thought possible.