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Welcome to the New Year! As you may have noticed, 'tis is the season when society's interest in weight loss escalates from the slightly obsessive to the barking, raving, shrieking insane.
Everywhere you turn, someone is telling you how to lose a quick and easy 10, 20, 50 or even 100 pounds. Of course, many of these are commercial pitches for dubious exercise devices, pills, fad diets, or low-cal convenience foods, squarely aimed at separating you from your hard-earned money.
Some of these pitches are laughably stupid. But there's also plenty of sensible advice on offer this time of year. It's just that few people want to follow the sensible advice, because, well, it makes sense! It doesn't promise magic. Real weight loss advice is no fun compared to a product or a system that we can buy for easy monthly payments of just $29.99 that will make weight loss pleasant and effortless.
Yes, please sign me up for the diet plan where I get to eat my fill of delicious pizza, pasta, chocolate cake and ice cream while the pounds just melt away! Oh, and can you send me a little barstool I can swivel on for a few minutes at my desk each day that will magically sculpt my entire body and make me lean and muscular? Thanks! Oh wait, on second thought, I don't really feel like swiveling. Have you got something in a pill I could just take? You do? Awesome, let me get my credit card!
Not being clever enough to have any miraculous weight loss products to market myself, I suppose I have to share the boring sensible stuff instead. Which you probably already know! But in the season of jaw-dropping "before" and "after" photos, and "Lose 30 pounds in 3o days" claims, it might be a good time for a reminder about the tedious, obvious stuff that actually works.
1. Focus more effort on adding healthy foods to your diet than to subtracting calories.
I know, this seems backwards. And if you're an old hand at healthy eating and you're just working on portion control, feel free to skip this step.
But if you are eating even remotely like most people in this "modern" age, you are eating far too much processed, fatty, salty, sugary, dangerously tasty crap. You are getting a belly-full of transfats and saturated fats and sugar and refined grains and questionable chemicals. You are being programmed to crave junk and these cravings keeping you in a constant state of insatiable food-lust. And you are probably eating far too few fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, lean proteins, and healthy fats like olive oil. The stuff your body actually needs that will keep you from being hungry all the time.
This not only messes with your weight and your metabolism; it leaves you a handy target for disease and will make your old age miserable, if you even manage to get to old age.
Of course if you're trying to lose weight fast, it's tempting to focus solely on calories or Weight Watcher points, for which you get "credit." Instead of putting healthier stuff in your body, it's easier to plot and scheme about how you can replicate all your favorite treats in 100 calorie portion controlled versions. However, many folks have discovered that this energy and motivation may be better used slowly but surely acquiring a taste for healthier foods.
It takes trial and error and persistence, but you can retrain your tastebuds. Eventually, you may come to crave a spinach, mango, and kefir smoothie in the morning just as much as you used to love a frosted Poptart.
2. Learn to prepare at least a few healthy meals you like to eat.
I hate this advice myself because I don't much like to cook. But no matter how "healthy" a restaurant or take-out place claims it is, you often can't trust that they're not adding extra butter, sugar, salt, etc. to make it taste better. And lets face it, most places don't even pretend to offer healthy ingredients. And "healthy convenience foods" that are truly healthy and don't taste like plastic and overcooked vegetables and sawdust? These are few and far between.
The old standard advice is still good: do some menu planning, get a list together, stock up on healthy staples, and make a big-ass pot of something a couple times a week and freeze extra portions for later.
Looking for recipe ideas? We'll be talking more about that in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, check out This
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