Saturday, January 27, 2007

Weight Loss Without Exercise

We all have had a hard time with weight loss. It is something that most of us will struggle through, but with a little help and determination we can beat the battle of the bulge. I have been where you have been, gone through the ups and downs only to come out more knowledgable. I hope in this article I can show you that it is not all about running on the treadmill or jogging for miles. You can take simple steps to help control or reduce your weight.

1.) Start eating Breakfast. I know that this sounds like common sense, but you know the saying…”Common Sense is sometimes not so common.” For the life of me I could never figure out why I was eating so much, so late at night. I would eat dinner and then find myself stuffing myself with more food as the night went on. I remember being in college and raiding the vending machine at midnight for cookies and chips. Feeding my face with anything and everything I could get my hands on. At the same time I was not eating my first meal until about noon. I never put the two together. When you think about it logically, you are fasting for 12 hours. That was the reason for my late night binges. From midnight until noon I would not eat anything. Think about that for a bit. Have you ever skipped lunch and dinner? I am sure you have. Remember how hungry you were? I am sure you do. Now think about doing that everyday, not eating for 12 hours on a regular basis. Once I started eating breakfast I stopped having those late night binges. I sometimes would eat late at night, but not nearly the amount I used to. If you need more guidance Click Here! But please read on…

2.) Stop eating out so often. I can guarantee that you will see a difference not only in your weight, but also in your pocketbook. How many of you actually know the nutritional content in a cup of coffee? How about in a greasy fried hashbrown? How much fat is in that breakfast sandwich? Most of us don’t know and I venture to guess that we don’t want to know either. A lot of food that we consume when we are out are sautéed in butter, fried in oil or baked with tons of sugar. While it does taste good, it keeps us coming back and keeps the weight coming as well. When we prepare our own meals we can monitor what goes into it. Instead of frying something in oil we can try an alternative such as non-fat cooking spray or instead of tons of salt we can try another seasoning. By preparing our meals we can give our body what it needs and less of what it wants. If you work all day, taking a little extra time the night before to pack your meals can pay off greatly. Not only on your health, but your finances as well. Lets add this up, lets say that you have fast food for breakfast and lunch 3 days a week. I am guessing $3.50 for breakfast and $6.00 for lunch, now that’s being conservative, we all now that that it could be a lot higher. That’s 3 times $3.50 and 3 times 6.00 = $28.50. Now lets look at this grocery bill, lets say we get some fruit such as bananas and breakfast bars that would be about $5.00, a loaf of bread and a package of turkey breast sandwich meat and some carrot sticks for lunch would run about $9.00. Those groceries alone would last you a week for breakfast and lunch, would be a lot healthier and would be half of what you were spending eating out not to mention half the calories and fat as well. Now do the math for your own situation. We live in a great country, everything becomes convenient for us, even gaining weight. We can have food delivered to us, we can go to a restaurant and order without leaving our cars, but if you take a little extra effort and time you can be well on the way to a healthier and lighter you. Learn more about what you are putting into your body Click Here!

3.) Make a better choice when you do eat out. I know what it is like when we are busy, sometimes we don’t have the kind of time we would like to prepare something. I know the feeling. So what I propose you do is to make the better choice. With the fast food industry getting sued left and right for “helping” others gain weight as well many other afflictions that come with obesity, a lot of places are offering healthy alternatives. I love places like these. Instead of a burger you can get a grilled chicken sandwich, instead of fries you can get low fat or baked chips, instead of a soda you can get juice or water, instead of a side high in fat we can get choose steamed vegetables. Taking a common sense approach, we can make the better, healthier choice when we eat out. Want to get a Physician’s expertise on weight loss?

4.) Start eating more frequently, don’t wait to get hungry. What??? You want me to eat more meals??? I thought this article was about losing weight. Yes it is. If you are like the typical person, I bet you probably eat 2-3 large meals a day. And I do mean LARGE. A lot of people I talk to hit the drive throughs pretty early on the way to work. It is so easy, convenient and cheap. You can get some coffee, a breakfast sandwich and a side for just a few dollars. All of this adds up in excess fat, sugar and calories. Of which we all know where those go. I am asking that you start eating 5-6 smaller meals. As I mentioned earlier, preferably these would be meals that you prepared yourself. The body’s natural reaction when it does not get something constantly is to go into “Storage” mode. If we are eating 2 large meals a day, it will try its best not to metabolize it as quickly, on the flipside if we are eating smaller meals our body goes into “burn”mode. Our metabolism speeds up and so does our ability to lose weight. You will also find that you will not be getting those bad hunger pangs like you used to. When you are hungry you tend to overeat. Try going to the grocery store when you are hungry and see all the goofy things you end up leaving with. Eating smaller meals every few hours offsets our bodies’ tendency to overindulge when we do sit down to eat.

5.) Drink more water. Whenever I go to a restaurant I always have water instead of a soda or alcohol. It is good for me and keeps me hydrated, it also has other added benefits. When we don’t drink water regularly our bodies naturally store it. Often we carry the water weight around our bodies. When we drink water more regularly, our bodies shed that excess water weight because it knows that there will be a constant supply of it.

6.) Cut back on alcohol consumption. This one is pretty obvious. Alcohol such as beer has a lot of empty calories. It is also a diuretic which causes us to have to urinate more often. Not only can this be annoying, but it can cause us to become dehydrated. If you have ever been dehydrated before you know the fun that comes with it: Nausea, Cramps, Diarrhea. This alone would cause me to cut back. Cutting back on alcohol also will have a great affect on your health, pocketbook and waistline.

I hope that this article helped. For some fool proof methods and tips on losing more weight check out Fat Loss For Idiots where they can help you lose 9 lbs. in 11 days. Please come back often as I am constantly adding new articles.