How Do I Stop Eating?

For years I’ve been struggling to death to achieve an acceptable weight if not the ideal weight. I am overly overweight for many years now since my college days and I wanted to stop it and finally lose weight to be healthier, reduce cardiovascular risks, and gain back my confidence. I searched and searched for tips and techniques to help me with losing weight. I even tried different diet pills but taking them only gave me headaches and palpitations and so I threw them all away. I’ve read several promises of wonders of the water therapy. I religiously followed the therapy but after four to five days I couldn’t even take a single drop of water or I’ll puke.  I didn’t realize that water could be so unpleasant to my taste buds.  I did enroll myself to the gym but with my busy work schedule I couldn’t find the time and energy to burn my fats.

Vegan diet programs are so popular but as a carnivore all my life these vegetarian diets is a big no for me. I tried changing my diet to green vegetables but I don’t like the taste and I couldn’t enjoy my meal. So I just opted to basically starve myself out of desperation but still no luck as my stomach makes its hunger sound again and again that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. And when I was about to give up my best friend bumped into a diet solution program and I said no. He was so convinced about the program that he bought it for me and I don’t have any choice but to try it or else I’ll pay it. He even took a picture of me so that we could track any changes and bet that I’ll give him 50 bucks after six months if the diet solution program is effective.

The diet program is so detailed and comprehensive that I jumped into its quick start guide as I was lazy enough to read the whole thing. After a month, I felt like I was losing weight so I jumped unto the weighing scale and to my surprise I’ve lost 5 pounds!  YAY! This is the first time in my entire weigh loss struggle that I actually see some results even though it’s not that significant as compared to other promises of instant weight loss programs that I tried that don’t even worked. My 5 pounds weight loss gave me enough motivation to read through the detailed manual and as I read it I started to practice and integrate the program to my daily life and I realized that it’s not hard to do as what I imagined before trying it out. And what I like the most with this diet program is the fact that I don’t starve myself and I get to enjoy what I eat without sacrificing my satiety but still seeing myself losing weight!  I don’t crave for sweets now and midnight snacks and I do not have to go through the torturous ways to see myself lighter.  My picture below is my best friend’s proof that he won our bet and I owe him 50 bucks, what a wise man! Don’t you think I’m more good looking now after losing weight?

Stop habitual eating by listening to your body’s natural signals and learn to eat only when your body needs it. We should eat only when our stomach calls for hunger but not when our tongue calls for taste.

Since eating pleases our physical needs along with our emotional needs, one can find it difficult to eat when one is “feeling” hungry or starving. Therefore, you must find other ways to get that emotional satisfaction outside of comfort food, so you can stop habitual eating for good. Your reliance on food will diminish once other positive methods of dealing with emotional issues are put in place. You’ll know when you really have to eat!

First, discover when you really need to eat. Once this has been learned, you will definitely be able to distinguish actual physiological hunger with your desires to meet emotional needs or comfort eating. Like me, I notice that I often experience hunger every three hours in general and when I start to feel that hunger I can tell it instantly! That only means I know I need to eat as soon I get the chance.

Try to listen to what your body is trying to tell you, so you are able to feel your hunger. First off you need to ask your body if it is hungry, give it chance to answer. It is easy for us to become so involved in work activities, or with family and friends, that we simply do not notice hunger until we are already ravenous. However, at this stage, you have allowed yourself to get far too hungry, and as a result, you will be more concerned with eating now, rather than eating healthily. These cravings will only lead you to consume additional calories or most of the time unnecessary calories.

Have some trigger events that will remind you consciously and instantly that it is time for you to eat. Implement this and make it a part of your daily activities until you learn how to determine the physical hunger by yourself. Some good ways are:

• Set a notice and or reminder on your laptop or computer to remind you every now and then.
• Put an alarm or an alert on your mobile phone or iPod.
• Set the alarm on your watch so you’ll always be notified in case you weren’t in front of your laptop or your phone wasn’t beside you.

Take note that there will be times that you won’t feel the hunger or need to eat. But take advantage of it and feel the difference and compare it during the times you are hungry. Slowly, you’ll determine the difference and learn the feeling of a real physical hunger and thus act on it accordingly. Carry along with you your favorite healthy foods and munch on them whenever you start to feel hungry. This ensures that what you will eat is healthy and not just any other fatty or junk foods that are available at that moment.

Through this, you’ll be more familiar with how your body feels when it is really hungry. As such, if you find yourself in the pantry or in front of the refrigerator even when you’re not really hungry try to find other things to do instead of munching those foods. Distract yourself away from the thoughts of foods. You can also ask yourself why you feel like eating at that moment. Mostly, we tend to eat to feel comforted because we are stressed, feeling down and disappointed, and even just because we are bored. Once you realized the cause of your emotional eating, try to act on it and do positive things instead. Do something productive when you feel bored or uplift yourself when you are down. Here are some more ideas that you may find helpful:

• Listening to music you enjoys
• Doing physical activities like swimming and walking
• Read your favorite novel and magazine
• Going for a soothing bath
• Talking to a friend

These activities will help you to get away from consuming another pack of extra calories and eventually learn how to stop eating. Always pamper yourself and do things that will uplift you. Focus on doing productive things instead of resorting to comfort eating.

Eating healthy can be hard if you have developed a lifetime worth of bad eating habits. This makes it pretty difficult to make the right food choices.

This is particularly true these days when everyone seems to live for fast foods. If you live a fairly busy life, it is always more convenient to grab a bag of fries and burger than to actually spend a couple of hours cooking and eating healthy meals. With numerous prepackaged foods in the market, more and more people are finding it easier to just get these foods. Unfortunately, by doing this, they only end up placing their health at greater risks.

Learn Your Nutrition Basics

Eating healthy starts with understanding your nutrition and how the food you eat affects your body and health. What are carbohydrates and how do they help you? What are effects of proteins and vitamins? There are so many nutrition basics that you have to know and understand. Knowing them is the key to eating healthy. They will help you make correct food choices.

The 100-Calorie Snack Packs

You have probably tried the 100-calorie snack pack. This is okay if you don’t eat often, but if you do, this is far from being a good choice when it comes to eating healthy. The truth is that, there are practically no real food pieces in these kinds of bags. If you would bother to consider other low-fat foods or low-calorie snacks, you will realize that you are better off with these latter kinds of foods. You can get more food for the same 100-calorie value.

Read the Labels!

The one mistake that many people commit on a daily basis is this – they do not read food labels. People who bother to read product labels tend to make wiser choices than those that don’t. Many people randomly throw in items on their grocery cart without bothering to check if they are getting healthy foods or not. If you want to make sure that your family eats only the healthiest foods, you need to check product labels. Check the nutritional value of every food you put into your grocery cart. You would be amazed by how different your choices would be once you start reading and checking labels. Most food product labels contain information on calories and nutritional value. You would know how much fat a particular product contains and what one serving for the product should be. You should choose products that offer serving sizes that are worth the amount of calories. A bag of a low calorie chips may be a bad choice compared to a slice of pie that is more filling.

Choose Your Foods Well

Eating healthy goes hand in hand with correct food choices. This is easier if you know the effects of nutrition to your health. If you know the difference between complex and simple carbohydrates, you would be accordingly guided when choosing your foods. So, if you love munching on foods, you will be aware of the risks to your health. You will be more careful of what you eat. Eating healthy is not just about eating three times a day and not eating at all in between. There are people who do not have the time to eat their meals on time. There are people who are just way too busy to even eat three regular meals. There are people who would go to work without eating breakfast or who would forget that they haven’t eaten their lunch. For these people, snacking is a more recommended option. You can snack on small amount of foods 5 to 6 times a day. Just make sure that you opt for healthy foods. Otherwise, you would be placing your health at risk. You should opt for low fat foods and stay away from refined sugars. Always eat only a cup of whatever it is that you would be eating. Eat enough but not too much.

Get Your Water Fill

Eating healthy is not limited to foods only. You need to make sure that you get plenty of water everyday. The more water you drink, the less likely you would retain fats. Water flushes out dirt in the body as well. You will also feel fuller for longer period time. Regardless of your eating habits, you need to make sure that drinking plenty of water is part of your diet plan.

Your eating habits ultimately determined your state of health. If you want to ensure that you would have more fruitful years with your loved ones, make sure that you eat right. Eating healthy and a positive lifestyle are the keys to a long life.

The right diet to lower cholesterol levels can work wonders for you. It helps to reduce the levels of the bad cholesterol. This helps protect from heart troubles and also incidents of blocked arteries. It is essential to opt for a healthy diet as we age.

A low cholesterol diet implies that you need to consume less of foods high in saturated fat and more of foods which lead to increased levels of good cholesterol (HDL) and help lower bad cholesterol (LDL).

Nature has given us plenty of food choices which help to lower LDL and raise HDL. A low cholesterol diet typically consists of such food. You need to eat more of these natural cholesterol busters and less of foods high in saturated fat. The liver is forced to produce increasing amounts of LDL when we eat high levels of unsaturated fats.

The low cholesterol diet mainly consists of food items like oatmeal, rice bran, soy and soy products, nuts, sterol fortified foods, fiber rich food, whole grains, legumes, fish full of omega 3 fatty acid, garlic, vitamin E and C rich fruits and vegetables.

Are you wondering why this list looks familiar? Well these are all food items rich in protein and fiber. When we consume a lot of soluble fiber, the liver produces more HDL and less and less of LDL. This keeps away heart complications and keeps the blood flowing freely.

Let us be clear here that fatty foods are not bad for your heart. Infact the consumption of foods like olive oil, fish, nuts, avocado etc is very beneficial for the heart. These food items have a high fat content but the fat is all of the unsaturated type. This is good news for the body and particularly so for the heart. These are fats are essential for body function and for the making of HDL.

A high fiber breakfast of oat or rice bran along with a helping of fruit would be a perfect start to the day. Be sure to have five helpings of vegetables and fruits as they give you a lot of fiber and nutrients. Juices are not part of the game as they have no fiber. Increase your garlic intake, cooked or raw; it works wonders on the LDL.

Processed and packaged foods are a store house of high cholesterol. They are high on salts or sugar and unsaturated fats. Their consumption leads to increased production of LDL by the liver. Other food items which are high on cholesterol are meat, egg yolk, full fat dairy produce, fried food items, and food cooked in saturated fats.

A good low cholesterol diet helps you fight your cholesterol problem and also keep it in control. Eat healthily and wisely.

Which is better when it comes to these two juggernauts?

I’ll explain both and we’ll come to a determination.

Wheat dieting is an interesting experience. When I first read the term I immediately thought of a diet solely consisting of wheat, but for most diets it’s just the opposite. Many focus on ridding wheat from the diet completely in order to lose weight or be healthy. This is an interesting concept that I was expecting, but certainly can work with. The diet itself is best for people who have intolerance to wheat, but can be done by anyone looking to rid the stuff from their diet. Basically, a diet free from wheat would consist of three meals per day and a snack. Many things can be eaten but what are not allowed are pretzels, wheat bread, wheat pasta, and wheat cereal. Pretty much anything that must have wheat in it. This wheat diet plan is similar to other plans that cut out certain foods in order lose weight. Many plans will remove potatoes and other starches, and if looked at in that way, this diet seems plausible.

The rice diet on the other had is a little bit more severe. Dieters are asked to eat from a variety of about 30 foods, but mostly rice. The goal is to limit sugars, starches, fats, and processed foods in order to lose weight. The most basic plan boils down to a three phase regimen. Each phase is one week and each phase limits certain foods. The phases are supposed to help the dieter change the way they eat and view eating, so that in the third phase (the maintenance phase) they can keep off any weight they lost. So, which diet regimen would be the better choice? That might be tough call depending on how much you like rice versus wheat. But, overall I’d have to go with the rice diet. The reason is that the wheat diet seems to be mostly beneficial towards individuals intolerant to wheat products. While that’s a fine reason, it should take a backseat when compared to the ultimate goal of losing weight and being healthy. The fact that it doesn’t makes me skeptical. The rice diet on the other hand seems to be a more traditional approach. Meals are selective and phases make it simple to follow. If you’re an avid eater of rice, then the few other principles you have to follow for this diet should come naturally. In the galactic battle of rice versus wheat dieting, rice wins.