Make Healthy Choices Make For Better Weight Management

If you want to eat healthy, it is best to rely on good ole common sense. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that a diet that consists of a lot of junk food is not only fattening but is also damaging to your health. It is also unreasonable to expect that a diet that is devoid of carbohydrates would give you the energy to engage in strenuous workouts to further your weight loss. The point here is that if you want to get rid of excess weight, you need to learn how to make smart food choices and stick to a sensible eating plan.

Keeping a food journal will help you keep track of what you consume, not only the kinds of food you eat but their caloric content. It has been clinically proven that it is only by reducing the amount of calories you consume daily that you would be able to lose weight. Get hold of a book or find an online resource that can serve as your guide in computing the calories of the foods you eat and the beverages you drink. Use the information in your food journal to make positive changes. For example, you can have unsweetened tea with lemon instead of a can of pop with lunch. Or you can just go for low fat/low calorie instead of regular when it comes to salad dressing. Also, it is better to drizzle rather than drench your greens.

Before you head for the grocery, plan your meals for the week. Make a shopping list and stick to it, this will keep you from buying unhealthy foodstuff on impulse. Include low fat and low calorie foods such as lean meats and chicken, fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, healthy nuts for snacks, low-fat-fat dairy products and a lot of whole grains (whole wheat pasta, legumes, brown rice). It is very important to have plenty of high-fiber foods in your daily diet. Fiber is very filling thus it allows you to less and at the same time it absorbs the calories from the foods you consume and flushes these out of your body.

Be mindful about portion sizes. Based on the American Diabetes Association guideline, a serving of meat, fish or poultry is three ounces or equal to the size of a deck of cards, while a 1-cup serving of milk, yogurt or fresh vegetables is about the size of a baseball. An ounce of cheese is more or less the size of your thumb and when it comes to rice or cooked pasta, one serving size is one-third of a cup, and three-quarters of a cup for dry cereal. Take note that commonly available food portions are considerable bigger than those recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This was recently found out in a study conducted at the New York University.

Lastly, exercise is essential to weight loss and good health. Aerobic exercise raises your metabolic rate which means that it helps you burn calories. Thus, if you do 30 minutes of it, three times a week, you would easily boost your weight loss efforts and get a great cardiovascular workout at the same time. Your exercise routine should not only be limited to aerobics however. You should also build up lean muscle because the more muscles you have, the faster your metabolic rate.

Make all the sensible changes in your diet and lifestyle right now and commit to these before another fad diet comes along. The sooner you get serious, the sooner you'll be reaping the rewards of your sensible choices.