To achieve weight loss or to maintain our optimum body weight along with fitness, we need to follow a balanced regime consisting diet and exercise. It is often said “We are what we eat”, what it means is that whatever we input in our body through the diet we consume results in the output our body produces like good/bad health and being disease free/unwell. In our quest to lose weight temporarily or over a short period of time, people resort to crash diets or unhealthy ways to diet which results in drastic health problems and diseases. Another problem most people face is maintaining the lost weight after losing it.
Here are some tips to face the challenges we encounter in our diet:-
Time management/Being Organized:
Being practical and planning ahead saves a lot of our time and keeps us prepared and updated. We can plan and fix our priority for either healthy grocery shopping for our everyday food menu or take some time out to exercise.
Sticking to Menus:
Planning and sticking to a menu saves us from the choice of unhealthy and rash junk food choices. If we plan and prepare our daily meal menus well in advance, we never tend to stray from our diets. We can plan a weekly menu of wholesome and nutritious dishes and leave a day in the week for a cheat meal, so that we are not tempted to cheat on the other days. Advanced technology and free home delivery running grocery apps makes putting together meal ingredients all the more easy and convenient.
Portion Control:
Most of the time, more than what we eat, what matters is how much we eat. And this stands true for daily healthy food choices also. Portion Control or as we say in common lingo, knowing when to stop, is extremely important. Knowing your limits restricts your unnecessary food intake.
Cutting down on high calorie/ processed food items:
Packaged or process foods or drinks are extremely high in calories and salt and sugar content. They are almost little to nil in nutrient value. This kind of ready to eat food items should be replaced by easy to eat and carry fruits or snack items like makhana, nuts, kurmura, sprouts etc.
Do not Give Up:
The Moment you want to give up, think why you started. Imagine yourself 6 months from now with and without physical fitness. Choose wisely. Invest in health promotion, disease prevention rather than cure. Be aware to take appropriate measures constantly to prevent running off from the track.
Being fit and healthy should be a lifelong choice and not a temporary solution to weight issues. Staying fit and healthy keeps us nourished and glowing from outside and within.