Staying Organized For Successful Healthy Weight Loss

When we start out on a new diet we are usually very organized in the beginning. Full of enthusiasm, we plan menus, count servings and make sure to have all the ingredients that we need.

However, as time goes on, this often slips. We start to eat the same things day after day and go back to our old habits of rushing through meals to get to the next thing.

Remember that rushing makes you eat fast and if you eat fast, you eat more. You get less enjoyment out of it too, so you tend to want to eat again pretty soon.

It is important to have a well organized lifestyle for many reasons. For example, being well organized means that you do not get so stressed. Most of us eat more when we are stressed, so even that can make a difference to our weight. Plus of course high stress levels can lead to serious diseases such as heart problems.

Another thing that happens when we are disorganized is that we go to the refrigerator wanting something to eat and there is nothing there - or anyway, nothing that we are allowed on our diet. We didn't think of going to the store earlier in the day and now there is no time.

Healthy food generally takes a little longer to prepare than junk foods, so if we are always in a hurry then we are likely to give in to the junk foods a lot more often.

Being organized also means that you are likely to eat at the right times - before you get too hungry. Having planned meals and snacks at regular times through the day is important for the metabolism. It also helps us to avoid that feeling of needing food NOW that so often leads to us grabbing the nearest thing that is not actually poisonous, regardless of how unhealthy it is or whether we even like it.

When you do go to the store, always have a list and stick to it. Go to stores that you know well, so that you can go right to the things that you need without wandering up and down every aisle.

This way you will come home with the foods that you actually need for your weight loss menu plan, and only those foods.

Having a list also saves you a lot of time in the store. You can use that time to organize the rest of your day, including planning and cooking healthy meals.

About Fat in Your Healthy Weight Loss Diet

So is it true that fat cells last forever? Well, in a sense, yes. But don't panic because you can still lose fat if you stick to your eating plan.

The way it works is this. We are born with a certain number of fat cells and as we grow, our bodies create more. This includes if we put on a lot of weight.

However, the number of fat cells does not decrease. Once the number reaches a certain level, it stays there. So no matter how much weight we lose, we still have the same number of fat cells.

What about liposuction? This is a surgical procedure that removes fat cells from the body. Temporarily, it does mean that we have fewer fat cells. But the body quickly produces more to replace them, until it is back to its 'set point'.

The good news is that although we cannot reduce the number of fat cells in our body, we can reduce the size of each one. This is how this works.

When we eat, the digestive system converts the food into storable energy in the form of glucose (from carbohydrates and proteins) and fats. The glucose is used first and the fat is stored in fat cells. If we do not eat enough to satisfy our body's need for energy, it will take some of the fat from out of the fat cells and convert that to a form of energy that we can use. The fat cells shrink and we become thinner.

Individual bodies store more fat in different places. Men and post-menopausal women tend to carry more visceral fat, which is stored around the organs and produces an apple-shaped body. Pre-menopausal women store more subcutaneous fat (under the skin), especially around the hips, thighs and breasts, giving a pear-shaped body or hour-glass figure.

Visceral fat is more dangerous because it contributes to heart disease. Some people who look quite slim can still have a significant amount of visceral fat.

So any time that you are keeping to your eating plan but do not seem to be looking any slimmer, keep in mind that you may be losing visceral fat. This is an important step on the road to a healthier body.

Setting Up Good Habits For a Healthy Weight Loss Diet

A lot of the problems that people have when they are trying to lose weight are just a matter of habits.

Over the years, we set up a lot of bad habits around food. An example would be eating candy or cookies while watching TV. We're probably not hungry and don't need food at that time. It's just a habit.

If you find that you are still snacking when you are not hungry, take a moment to write down exactly when that tends to happen. Identify the habit that causes you to eat.

Where are you when this happens? At home, at work, in the car?

What are you often doing? Watching TV is a common one but there are many others. How about unpacking food after a visit to the store, working hard, or putting off a difficult task?

Are there emotional triggers? Anger, frustration, fear, grief, boredom, tiredness, even joy ...

When you have identified your food-related bad habits, think about how you can set up an alternative. In most cases, it's not enough just to replace one type of food with another. It's better to find something to do that does not involve eating.

For example, you could sip water while watching TV. You could take a couple of minutes to walk around the office when you need a short break from your work. You could have somebody else unpack the groceries. You could split that difficult task into easier chunks.

Altering these habits will make a huge difference in your ability to lose weight and keep it off.

So next time you find yourself reaching for the fridge when you are not hungry, take a look at the habit that lies behind that, and find a way to change it.

Cut Down Or Quit Your Healthy Diet?

Most diets are actually pretty flexible and allow us to eat certain things that we might be better off cutting out completely.

For example, some diets allow a couple squares of dark chocolate. If you can eat 2 squares of chocolate and then stop, that's fine. But for most overweight people, this is just not possible.

Another cause of many slip ups is alcohol. For those who are used to drinking a lot, it is hard to stop after one beer or one glass of wine. And even if you can do that without difficulty, alcohol lowers the boundaries of self control so that it becomes harder to say no to the unhealthy snacks that are often served up with a drink.

Most people have 'trigger foods' that they cannot eat just a little of. Often, these trigger foods will set off a binge of eating all kinds of other forbidden foods too.

Common triggers include chocolate, cheese, bread, pasta, nuts, chips, certain fruits, salty food, or sugar. Make your own list and make it as specific as possible. For example if cheese is a trigger for you, specify different cheeses. If it's chocolate or candy, write down the brands.

Then put your list into order. Like Colette with her truffles, it is best to cut out all of your triggers completely at first. But as you approach your goal, you can begin to add them back.

When you add them, begin with the specific recipe or brand that you can handle most easily. That way, your confidence will gradually grow until you find that you can handle just about any food without bingeing.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life in Your Healthy Weight Loss Diet

As you get deeper into your new way of eating and of life, it's important to make sure that you still have variety. Of course you don't want to fall back into old habits, but don't be too restrictive either.

Expand your food choices as much as you can now. This would be a great time to try new foods from your approved list, or experiment with new recipes or try supplements like colon cleanse elite or paraslim. Why not buy a recipe book designed for the diet that you are following?

It's also important to make sure that you are getting all of the vitamins and minerals that you need. There are two ways of doing this. Either you can spend a lot of time at a site like fitday.com entering everything that you plan to eat in a day and juggling with your menus so that you cover all of the requirements; or you can simply take a good multi vitamin and mineral tablet.

Some diets such as Atkins specifically recommend that you take a multi vitamin tablet every day. This is not because the diet is lacking in vitamins and minerals: even on Atkins induction, it is possible to plan a day's meals so that all of the RDAs are covered. (It's much harder to do this if you are eating a standard American diet full of refined flour and sugar!)

No, the reason that Dr Atkins recommends taking supplements is simply so that you don't have to spend time thinking about this. All of the bases are covered without us having to do the kind of analysis that can lead to food obsessions.

The definition of a vitamin is an organic compound that is essential to human health, that the human body cannot produce for itself. Minerals are the same but they are inorganic compounds.

Some experts have suggested that the reason that so many people on a standard American diet are overweight is simply because they are not getting the vitamins and minerals that they need. Products like white bread and refined sugar have been stripped of most of their nutrients. So no matter how much we eat, our body knows that it has not got all that it needs ... and we want more.

So covering the bases with vitamins and minerals actually helps us to lose weight. We can be satisfied with less food if we have all of the essential nutrients.

Losing Weight In Healthy Diet Steps

When people ask questions about a diet, one of the things they always want to know is how much weight they can expect to lose in a week. Health advisors, too, talk about how much you should lose per week as if weight loss is a steady progress. However, this is not the case and it is important to understand this if you want to be successful in your diet.

So what really happens when we lose weight?

For most people, the first effect of starting a diet is that a considerable amount of weight is lost in the first 7-15 days. This is particularly true if the diet is very restrictive or has a jump start induction phase.

What do we mean by 'a considerable amount'? Well, it will depend on the person and the diet. Generally, heavier people will lose faster, and men will lose faster than women.

A man who weighs over 300 lb might drop 15-20 lb in the first two weeks. A woman who is only a little over the normal range for her height might only lose 2-5 lb in the same time on the exact same diet.

After the first two weeks, you can expect your weight loss to slow down. Some people experience their first plateau at this point and do not lose anything in week 3.

If this happens, it is vital to stay motivated and stick with your diet. You have probably moved into a second phase which is less restrictive but that is not the reason for the plateau. It is simply that having lost a lot of weight, much of which was water, the body is taking a little time to adjust to its new set point.

This will happen over and over as you continue with your weight loss. You'll lose different amounts for 2-4 weeks and then there will be a week or two when you don't lose. It's possible that there will be times when you will even gain a little. But it's a question of taking two steps forward and half a step back.

After the plateau there will come a moment when for no apparent reason your weight drops again. Anything that was gained is lost, along with more.

Tracking your progress on a graph will help you see this clearly. The graph will move downward for a while, then it will flatten out or even rise a little, then drop again. Over time, you could maybe work out an average, but from week to week the variations can be great.

Have patience. Do not be tempted to return to phase 1 or look for a different diet. That will just send you off the rails completely. Stay with your plan and if you want to change anything, think about getting a little more exercise. You will soon see the weight dropping off again.

Healthy Weight Loss Diet Lessons Learned From Animals

There's no doubt that humans are a lot more intelligent than most of the animals out there. Nevertheless, we can learn a lot from animals when it comes to food. Often we take supplements like natural acai or acai berry pure to lose weight in a healthy way.

Did you ever see a wild animal that was obese? I doubt it. Even if there is plenty of food in their environment, they will stop eating when they have had enough.

Just about the only time that animals get fat is when they are fed by humans. This includes pets and some wild birds living on our scraps, like pigeons or ducks.

Pets can get fat if they are fed on the wrong foods. It's important not to feed them on leftovers from the dinner table or give them a lot of treats.

Most of us don't know much about pet food and our choices depend more on the marketing skills of the producer than what is good for our pets. It's worth taking the time to research what is the most nutritious food for your pet.

Pets, like humans, will also tend to overeat if they are bored. Often times, living in a house or an apartment can be quite boring for them, so they get fat.

In fact, this is also true of us. Watching TV all day with little or no interaction with other people is a surefire recipe for obesity, alcoholism and other disorders.

If you want to keep your pet healthy, there are three other things that are just as important as food. Those are:

1. plenty of contact with other people and animals,

2. plenty of exercise, and

3. plenty of new experiences or challenges in your pet's life.

Does your own life include all of those factors?

Do We Have A Fat Point that we Can not Beat?

Some overweight people take the fatalist view that their body was just born to be fat and there is nothing that they can do about it.

Often times, this view gains power in our minds when we hit a plateau with our weight loss and do not lose for a while. It seems like it is impossible for us to lose any more weight.

But this is not true. Our body just needs a little time to adjust, and then it will start to lose again.

Of course our body adjusts to our current weight the best that it can. If we are overweight, it will allow the skin to expand to contain the extra fat, so that we don't burst. It will also set up more capillaries, develop extra connective tissues and adjust hormones in line with the size that we are.

This means that when we lose weight, the body again needs time to adjust all of these factors. First it will slow the metabolism to stop us losing any more weight while it figures out what to do. Then it will spend some time adjusting for a new, slimmer size. Then finally we can lose a little more.

This is why weight loss goes in steps.

So do not expect your weight loss graph to be a straight line.

And if you do not lose for a while, do not think that your diet is at fault. Remember that your body is adjusting to the new weight, and pretty soon you will start to lose again.

Is Your Diet and Weight Loss Healthy?

Nutritional deficiencies are very common in people who are overweight.

This is true even if the person is eating as much as they want, without trying to do a 1000 calorie diet at all. It happens because we are often choosing to eat food that is high in calories without being high in vitamins and essential minerals.

Often, by supplementing with a good natural source of vitamins and minerals, we can correct these deficiencies.

It is especially important to take the right supplements if you are on any kind of restrictive diet for weight loss.

If you are skipping meals, using meal replacements or following a diet that does not make you eat a ton of vegetables, you likely have some deficiencies in your diet.

This adds to any deficiencies that have built up over the years of eating food that was high in calories but poor in nutrition.

The result is that if we do not take supplements, the body will be constantly crying out for food, because it wants to get its nutritional needs met. This causes cravings that can seem irresistible so we break the diet.

If you are having a lot of cravings for particular foods, or if you have had trouble following diets for any length of time in the past, a good nutritional supplement could make the world of difference and help you to succeed this time around.

Eating It All in a Healthy Weight Loss Diet

Kids are often picky eaters and many of us will have spent our whole childhoods being pushed to eat. We were constantly being told to eat some vegetable that we did not like, or told we had to finish everything that was on our plate before we could have dessert.

But hey ... you're grown up now! You can give yourself permission to eat differently.

You don't need to eat everything that is on your plate.

And you certainly don't need to finish up everything that is left on the table or on other people's plates.

Of course, we don't like to waste food. It costs money and a lot of work went into preparing it. Sometimes, an animal died so that we could have this meal. It seems kind of ungrateful to throw it in the trash.

But if you look at how a slim person eats, you will realize they don't actually waste much food at all. They eat what they want, then they put the rest in the refrigerator. Often, they will finish it up later for a snack when they get hungry again.

Remember that your metabolism will work faster if you eat less and eat often. So eating three fourths of your dinner now and the rest in a couple of hours is actually better for your weight loss than eating it all now.

You can even do this when you eat out, by asking the staff to let you have something to pack the leftovers in.

Of course, if you find that you almost always have extra food left at the end of a meal, then you are probably preparing too much. Often this happens in families when a parent wants to make sure that there is always plenty for everybody.

But a loaded table just encourages us to eat more. So either give the family a break and prepare a little less, or keep the serving dishes in the kitchen so the extra food is not right there on the table virtually asking to be eaten. If you have to go to the kitchen to get more, you probably will not take so much.

Are You Ready To Change Your Weight in a Healthy Way?

Most of us have been struggling with our weight for years or even decades before we learn to eat in the best way for our bodies. Over eating, or just eating the wrong foods, is a habit that is hard to break.

Some foods, like sugar and refined carbohydrates (white bread and pasta), can even be addicting in a similar way to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. We may start to need the feeling of calm and satisfaction that come with a blood sugar 'high'.

Probably all of us have been eating sugar and refined carbohydrate foods since we were little kids. So it is not surprising if we go from one weight loss program to another, looking for the 'magic' diet that will solve all of our problems.

If you have successfully given up smoking, you may have tried many times and gone back to it before finally quitting for good. The same thing can happen with diets.

So what makes the difference between all the failed attempts and the one time that we actually quit? The answer is in the mind.

Having the right attitude is vital. We have to be sure in our minds that we really want to change our eating habits.

It's no good thinking that you want to lose weight, if you don't want to change your eating. This is how most people approach diets. Even if they are not aware of it, what they really want is to carry on eating and living exactly as they do now, and magically become thin.

We have to see that this is not possible. Either the food habits or the exercise habits have to change, and both is best.

So before you start another low carb food diet, sit down and write all of the reasons why you want to *change your eating and exercise habits* - not the reasons why you want to lose weight.

These might include dealing with specific health problems that you have or generally feeling healthier, being able to play with kids, being free of the addiction to certain foods, being able to eat without guilt, etc.

Then focus on these benefits as you begin your new program. You will find that focusing on eating and fitness is much more effective than focusing on weight, appearance and the scale - because eating and fitness are the things that you actually need to change. The rest will follow automatically.

Handling Healthy Weight Loss Plateaus

If you have been following your diet for a while now, you may have noticed that it is harder to stay motivated as time goes on.

There are many reasons for this. Often we hit a plateau, where even though we are sticking faithfully to the rules, our weight or size does not change for a week or two.

This happens to everybody and the reason is often physical. Losing weight is not a linear process. We lose and then the body needs time to adjust before losing more. Sit it out and you will almost certainly begin losing again, perhaps when you least expect it. This is a good time to step up the exercise.

Keeping a diary can also help when the going gets tough. If you have not been recording what you eat every day, now is the time to start. Perhaps portion sizes have been creeping up, or there is more snacking.

You can also record other things in your diary. Weigh yourself once a week at the same time of day, and enter that. You may find you are losing a little each week, even if it does not seem much day by day.

You may also want to measure yourself each week. Using a tape measure, take several measurements e.g. thigh, hips, waist, chest, upper arm. Often you will find that even if you are not losing weight, you are losing inches. Remember that muscle weighs more than fat and this is the effect of toning.

Record all of your exercise in your diary too. You may want to set weekly exercise goals in terms of time or reps. Keeping a diary will help you track and achieve these goals.

Finally, you can enter other information such as supplements taken, how you feel (both physically and your mood), sleep patterns etc.

All of this information can be hugely helpful in getting you over a plateau as well as figuring out what went wrong if you gain or have a bad day. It is worth investing this time for weight loss success.