WEIGHT Loss

WEIGHT WATCH

                 By Renu Parteep Kaur*

Eat, Pray, Lose

Are you having a hard time sticking to your diet plan?

Yes, it’s really difficult to stick to extremely low-calorie diets, which can hurt your long-term success. Boredom and hunger can both undermine your weight-loss goals.

It is important to remember that too much or crash weight loss has many negative consequences for the body and your health.

Everyone has different body structure. While one person may be very thin naturally and may not be suffering from any negative health effect, but for others losing their weight      

may be unachievable without putting one;s body under dangerous stress.

You are what you eat.

Cutting calories is an approach most dieters take to meet their weight loss goals. But it is once in a while that people take calorie restrictions too far; making their weight loss slower and more difficult by slowing their metabolism. As the saying goes, “We are what we eat,” our food choices have a huge impact on how we look and feel, both physically and mentally.

Understand calorie.

Eating a well-rounded and varied diet will go a long way towards making sure you have all the nutrients you need. Remember that our body uses everything put into it and what we give it determines how it’s used for good health, or for bad.

       Low calorie diet does not mean the consumption of reduced amount of calorie rich foods. Such a diet only precipitates hunger, causes interim weight loss and deprives the body of nutrition. An unplanned low calorie diet which is also devoid of important nutrients having a low nutritional value is therefore, unable to regulate metabolism in the body, which can be the cause of lifestyle diseases.

What to eat?

1.   Fat-free(skim) milk instead of whole milk.

2.   Fat-free frozen yoghurt instead of ice-creams.

3.   Graham crackers, ginger snaps, fig bars instead of cookies.

4.   Egg whites or egg substitutes instead of whole eggs.

5.   Canned broth-based soups instead of canned cream soups.

6.   Jelly, jam, or honey on bread or toast instead of butter or margarine on toast or bread.

7.   Chicken or turkey without skin (white meat) instead of chicken or turkey with skin, duck or goose.

8.   Opt for fresh or frozen vegetables over canned vegetables.

9.   Chocolate syrup instead of fudge sauce.

In addition to above, avoid processed or pre-packaged foods. Processed foods like canned soups or frozen dinners contain hidden sodium that quickly surpasses the recommended limit. Simply choosing low fat products when there is an option is a good way to reduce fat and calories.

Think long term

1.            Always go in for lifestyle change and not for short term diet. Permanent weight loss is not something that a “quick fix” diet can achieve.

2.            Low calorie diet is not recommended for children, adolescents and pregnant women. Individuals who usually go on such a diet are extremely over weight, Dieters usually lose 0.5 to 2 kg per week or a total of about 5 kg in 4 weeks. The specifics of weight loss diet are hard to describe as the diet mainly depends on one’s individual needs.

To set yourself up  for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small manageable steps rather than drastic change.

          *Renupreet Kaur is diet therapist and obesity expert.

Source: Tribune Life+Style dated 24^th February, 2014.