5 Healthy Tips To Try When Dieting

“There you go again” said Ronald Reagan to his political opponent, and there we go again, on a diet.

We all know that a yoyo diet is one of the worse things we can do to your bodies. It’s bad for the heart, it’s bad for the skin, and it’s bad for the self-esteem.

If you find yourself in need of another diet, maybe there are some things you can do differently.

Here are some tips to help you. Some of them are from doctors, some from people who have tried and were successful in losing weight and maintaining it for a long time.

1. The culprit these days is no so much the fat we eat, but the carbs which turn into sugar. More and more emphasis is being put on the glycemic level of the blood.

Too many spikes up and down will ruin your attempt to lose weight. When our body gets the sugar it needs to function, insulin is released to balance it.

More sugar, more insulin. Then the level of sugar in the blood decreases, the insulin is still looking for it and you feel hunger or you have too much insulin and feel faint.

Fat makes you feel full, simple carbs don’t. That is why it is better to eat nuts than chocolate. They are both heavy in calories, but the nuts have enough oils to make you feel full.

2. Don’t shock your body by cutting too many calories at once. Reduce about 100 calories from your food and take time to adjust. You will train your body over time to want less.

3. Dieting has to do with planning, and moving it to the top of your to do list. Plan your meals in advance and have something healthy to snack on when the urge awakens.

Even though it is important to have a meal with the family, if you are too tempted to finish your children’s plate, excuse yourself and eat alone.

4. You have to have some sort of exercise to get the body burning some more calories. Walking for 20 minutes a day will do a lot towards your health. 20 minutes! Walk to the store, walk to the post office, or walk during your lunch break.

5. For a mid-afternoon snack, have some cherry tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and salt. The water in the tomatoes will fill you up and the oil will sooth your hunger.

Don’t get discourage even if you’ve cheated and ate more than you were supposed to. There is always tomorrow to cut down on caloric intake. Just don’t turn the cheating into a habit.