Easy-to-Swallow Diet Tips - Part Two

Small changes in your eating habits can give you big weight loss results. I know people who have lost twenty to forty pounds by combining these easy-to-do diet tips with regular exercise. True, it took them one to two years to reach their goal but they were able to maintain their weight loss because the changes they made were realistic and doable. That is far better than losing a lot of weight in a short time by going on a strict diet only to gain back all the pounds a year later.

Sit down
Taking spoonfuls of a dessert or cutting off a square of a chocolate bar every time you pass the refrigerator is deceiving. People who claim they are only eating a spoonful of ice cream may actually be consuming two scoops a day. If you really want that piece of cake, put it on a plate, sit down, eat it slowly, and savor each bite without any distractions to spoil your pleasure.

Don’t mix
Mindlessly eating a bag of potato chips while watching TV loads your body with a lot of excess calories without really feeling satisfied. Weight experts found that people who eat while doing other activities don’t feel as satisfied with their food as people who concentrate on the taste, smell, and texture of their food.

Vegetarian
By eating two meatless meals a week, you can save 550 calories, according to the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. Combining beans, grains, and vegetables will give you as much protein as meat with a lower caloric content. Another way to be a part-time vegetarian is to put less meat and more vegetables into casseroles and other mixed dishes.

One-to-One
Nutrition research scientist Barbara Rolls says that when you replace a high-fat item with a fat-free piece, eat the same portion -- not a bigger one. The same goes for low-carb products. Many people have the mistaken notion that fat-free or carb-free means calorie-free so they eat double or triple what they should.

Substitute
Substituting something as minor as mustard (15 calories) for mayonnaise (100 calories) can help you cut back on 85 calories. Switching from whole milk (150 calories) to non-fat milk (80 calories) removes another 70 calories. While it doesn’t sound like much, a savings of just 100 calories a day can mean a weight loss of approximately ten pounds in a year.

Slowly limit.
No need to deprive yourself completely of high-calorie ‘’addictions’’. Instead of five soft drinks a day, cut it down to three. After a while, you will find that you can cut down even more without going through withdrawal symptoms. It may take you a year to get from a five-a-day habit to a soda twice a week but you will learn that you can have a healthy relationship with tasty but unhealthy treats.

Smaller plates
Human beings are visual eaters. We seem to be hard-wired to eat more when we see large portions. Studies have proven that people lose track of what a normal size portion is when they use large plates. The opposite is true. Eating out of a smaller plate makes you feel full with less food.

Out of sight
“Out of sight, out of mouth” is a favorite saying of dieticians because it really works. If you don’t have your favorite temptation at home, you can’t eat it when you get a craving late at night. A study showed that office workers who kept candy and cookies in a closed cabinet were less likely to eat them compared to when the snacks were kept in a bowl on their desktop.

Three-fourths
A painless way to cut calories is to eat only three-fourths of the starch (rice, pasta, potatoes, or bread) that you normally eat. Removing just one-fourth of your rice will save you (for every cup of rice) 55 calories, which is the equivalent of one cookie.

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