Weight Loss (cont.)
The no-diet approach to weight control
By adopting sensible eating habits and practicing portion
control, you can eat nutritious foods so that you take in as many calories as you need to maintain your health and well-being at your ideal weight. Often, weight loss occurs on its own simply when you start making better food choices, such as avoiding
- processed foods,
- sugar-laden foods,
- white bread and pasta (substitute whole-grain varieties
instead),
- foods with a high percentage of calories from fat, and
- alcoholic drinks.
While nothing is absolutely forbidden, when you do succumb
to temptation, keep the portion size small and add a bit more exercise to your daily workout.
By replacing some unwise food choices with healthy ones, you'll be cutting back on calories. If you add some moderate physical activity, you have the perfect weight-loss plan without the need for special or inconvenient (and often expensive) diet plans.
Let's look at an example of a successful no-diet weight loss program:
A 45-year-old woman complains that she has gradually put on 12 pounds over the past year. In the last month, she's faced a stressful work deadline and added another
4 pounds to her frame.
This individual's goal is to lose the 16 pounds she has gained. Since her weight has been gradually increasing, she knows that she is consuming more calories than she is burning, especially with her sedentary job. She decides that a weight loss of
1 pound per week (equal to a deficit of about 3,500 calories, or cutting 500 calories per day) would be acceptable and would allow
her to reach her goal in about four months.
She decides to make some changes that will allow her to cut back an average of 250 calories per day.
- Skipping a large glass of sweetened iced tea will
save about 200 calories.
- Substituting mineral water for the cola she regularly
drinks during meetings can save another 150 calories.
- Foregoing her morning
muffin snack (or eating only half a muffin) can also save 250 calories or more.
To reach her goal of a 500-calorie-per-day savings, she adds some exercise.
- Getting up early for a 20-minute walk before work and
adding a 10-minute walk during her lunch break add up to a half hour of walking per day, which can burn about 200 calories.
- On weekends, she plans to walk for 60 minutes one day
and spend one hour gardening the next day for even greater calorie burning. If walking for 60 minutes is too much, two 30-minute walks one day would
burn the same number of calories.
- Twice per week she plans to stop at the gym on the
way home from work, even if only for a half hour of stationary cycling or swimming (each burning up to 250
calories).
By making just some of the dietary cutbacks mentioned
and starting some moderate exercise, this individual can easily "save" the 3,500 calories per week needed for a
1-pound weight loss, leading to a healthy rate of weight loss without extreme denial or deprivation.
Furthermore, her changes in diet and lifestyle are small and gradual, modifications that she can maintain over time.
Next: What about special diet plans (popular diets and fad diets)? »
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