Fuel And Burn All Day

Sharon Jane Akinyemi

Sharon Jane Akinyemi

Sharon Jane

Eating for health and energy should be more important than simply getting the fat off our bodies. But we must make sure that this goal is accomplished as well.

With this in mind you will agree with me that being overweight can affect your lifestyle and the way you live.

Moreover your body actually knows about how many calories it needs at specific times of day. If you don’t fuel up right,  it revolts with fatigue, cravings and more efficient fat storage. But if you eat and burn all day long with  more frequent yet smaller meals and snacks , your body will respond  with higher energy because it has sufficient, immediate fuel throughout  the day.

When we start noticing weight gain, our first instinct is often to skip meals. Don’t! As I have written in earlier articles, cutting calories too dramatically can damage your metabolism . Even if you eat the same number of calories, you’ll burn them off better if you spread them throughout the day.

Tricks You Must Fall For:

Use A Smaller Plate

Nigeria’s lunch and dinner plate has grown over the past 20 years from eight inches to 10-12 inches. I will never forget a dinner outing we had with friends not long ago. When our plates arrived, they were the biggest at the table, huge platters of food. We all laughed. My low calorie foods will look lost on a large platter. Instead, choose a smaller plate(the conventional soup plate) and fill it with just  the right amount of food (up to 2 cups-1/2 cup protein, 1/2 starch, 1 cup veggies) to stay fit.

Drink Water Before Meal

A cup of hot tea (preferably green tea) works even better to fill your stomach with  before eating. Research has shown that soup eaters who begin their meal with a hot bowl of soup lose the most weight. Continue to drink clean water throughout the day. You need 8-10 cups to rehydrated. Don’t trust your thirst mechanism. Train yourself to drink water, your body needs.

Don’t Tempt Yourself

Plan meals based on the same healthy foods while using a variety of fruits and vegetables to add excitement to your diet.  A recent study  proved that a variety of foods in any category except fruits and vegetables caused subjects to overeat and become obese. Increasing the variety of fruits had no effect on body weight. But increasing the variety of vegetables caused even greater weight loss! More praise for green things!

Feed On Demand

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That’s a breast-feeding term. Lots of mothers swear by it. It can work for dieters too. Eat when you are hungry and not when the clock (or someone else) tells you to. Wait until you hear the familiar growl. Or maybe it is not too familiar  to you. Reacquaint yourself with true hunger (but not a famished feeling). Feel that rumble in your stomach. Then you eat. You’ll enjoy your food more- and eat less. Snacking pikes on the weights.

Know When To Stop

That’s the catch, it’s not too hard for us to be sure when we’re hungry. It’s much more difficult  to tell when we’re satisfied. Most of us lost our appetite control mechanism after childhood. Watch children. Pile food on their plates. It doesn’t matter how scrumptious it is, when kids are finished. They can’t be talked into another bite. “No, I’m full,” comes a firm answer. If they are ever coerced into overeating, they shove their plates back, make a face, rub their tummies, and groan “Ugh! I’m full. My stomach hurts.”

Eat More To Burn More

This trick sounds like it contradicts the last one. But every time you eat something, your metabolism kicks in to burn the calories. So don’t stuff yourself once, twice, three times a day. Research shows that people who eat most of their calories at one sitting gain the most  weight (like those who skip breakfast and lunch and indulge themselves at dinner). Keep that light feeling in mind. Spread your food allotment throughout the day. Since you are eating mostly fruits and vegetables, you won’t be loading up on fats and high-carbs. But you will be revving up your calorie-burning metabolism.

Reward Yourself

Many dieters punish themselves  when they fall off the low-cal wagon. Don’t! Commit yourself to a lifetime of healthful eating and climb back on! (After all, don’t you want to look and feel good for the rest of your long life, and not just for that  special dinner outing?).

Once you are at normal weight, eat healthily all week, and then present yourself with a reward meal on the weekend (perhaps  at your favourite restaurant). Or buy yourself a gift if you stay on your eating plan for the next three weeks. Whatever it takes, but just don’t punish yourself. That becomes a vicious cycle in which you will eat to feel comforted.

A Friendly Advice

Another  way I control my weight  is to hold to a standard. I have a maximum weight that I allow myself to climb to, but I won’t go over that. I tell my husband, “I’m right at the line again. If I go over, I start to look fat.”

He always reassures me, “You don’t look fat….” That gives me at least another week of overeating before I’m forced to face reality. I like this little game. But when I hit the maximum, I cut back on calories. I watch my food intake and I intensify my exercise and workout throughout the week.

If we splurge on the weekends, then I reduce my meals on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (or whatever it takes). If I eat breakfast out and overdo, then I don’t eat the rest of the day and have vegetables especially garden egg and carrots  or just have soup for supper. We all know it’s easier to lose six kilogrammes than sixty.  Maintenance is easier than overhaul.

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