Tricks to Help You Eat Less for Weight Loss Success

There’s no way around the fact that you should eat less if you want to lose weight. It’s better to combine a reduction in calories with a good exercise program that fits your abilities and lifestyle.

But even with exercise, it’s important to watch portions, especially of foods that are higher in saturated fat such as cheese, cream, butter, and fat from animals.

Fatty meats such as bacon, sausage, ground beef that contains 20% fat or higher, and processed meat products like hot dogs, bologna, salami and pepperoni are mostly made from fat and can harm your cardiovascular health if consumed to excess.

Sugar should be severely limited, especially at the beginning of your weight loss journey when you must get over the hurdle of sugar addiction. This includes foods that contain white sugar, as well as other simple sugar such as white flour.

Fill up on healthy veggies. Eating vegetables such as salad first will prime your system for digestion of heavier foods such as meat based proteins and whole grains. You are also likely to eat smaller portions of your main protein and carbohydrate sides if you do this. The fiber in the vegetables will fill you up and take a while to break down and pass through the digestive system.

Eat mindfully. One thing you’ll notice, especially at the start of a weight loss plan is that the smaller portions you’ve committed to eating seem to go down very quickly. You may be used to gulping your food down and filling up on much more food than your body it really needs. Slow down. Give your stomach a chance to recognize that it’s being fed. This will prevent you from overeating. Chew each bite thoroughly. Savor the flavor of your food. Digestion starts in the mouth and is about complete mastication or breaking down the food using your teeth in the act of chewing. It may feel unfamiliar to hold food in your mouth and chew it for longer than you usually do. To get into the habit, count to 30 while chewing on a single mouth full of food before swallowing.

Don’t go hangry. The word hangry was recently accepted by dictionaries. This refers to being hungry to the point that you have a mood swing because your blood sugar drops and you begin to feel stressed and mentally confused. Hangry is a combination of hungry and angry.

For optimum weight loss, it should be your goal to stay out of the hangry zone. To do this, make it a habit to pack healthy snacks every morning.

You can lead a very busy life and still manage grab to an apple on the way out the door, and have a stash of almonds, cashews or mixed nuts in your car to snack on during emergencies.

Fitness is a Gift to Give Your Partner

Need some motivation to get out of that pleasantly plump partnered mindset? Thinking couples weight loss might be the way to go for you and your sweetloving sweetie? Too many people who are happily committed in a relationship put weight loss and fitness last on the priority list. We grow comfortable with each other over time. First, we lag on the exercise routine; 4 days of fitness becomes 3, then two. Pretty soon we don’t feel like we have to make an effort to impress anyone anymore.

Next, maybe we stop going to the gym altogether. Then the poor dog isn’t getting walked. Your stress-relieving afternoon jog or walk around the neighborhood becomes a daily coffee and donuts ritual. It’s a slippery slope situation that can take you into a physically unhealthy place. And as far as mental health, not making fitness and good health a priority in your coupled life can also take its toll on our self-esteem, mood and general attitude toward life. The truth is that being fit and healthy is a gift to give your partner! This is the case on several levels. Let’s explore them now.

It’s okay to be superficially attracted to each other for being healthy and in good

Let’s be real here… it’s just nice to have someone who you can show off to the rest of the world. Like woohoo, this hottie is all mine! You and your partner can mutually think and share your feelings on that about each other. It’s great fun, an ego boost, and a turn-on, to be known as someone’s arm candy, even if only in your own minds.

Loving the look and feel of each other is a gift. You might think that pure aesthetic appreciation and physical attraction to each other can’t touch the true meaning of love and commitment, through thick and thin. Maybe not, but we can surely connect at a surface level just to make things fun and rewarding. Not everything has to be about losing yourself in the relationship. It’s okay to admire your partner for their physical characteristics, and vice versa.

After all, attraction is where it all began, right? Your partner will appreciate, and be inspired to give back, if you continue to work on this throughout your time Being healthy and fit sends a positive message to your partner. Another way that being physically fit and a healthy weight is a gift: it sends a positive message to your partner through action. The message is, “I want to look and feel my best for you. I love you and I want you to feel as attracted to me as the first day that we met.” Yes, feeding each other is part of the nurturing expression of love. But it’s also important to strike a balance between nurturing behaviors and active pursuits.

Staying active also keeps things positive for and with your partner. Being a healthy weight and in good physical shape also gives your partner the gift of your positive energy which fuels your interactions. Inertia gets us stuck in an unproductive cycle. The less we move, the less we want to move. with the wrong foods, the more likely we are to zone out and trip out on those feel-good brain chemicals that stupefy us and make us feel sluggish and grumpy.

When we eat too much, don’t exercise enough, and become overweight, this becomes an accumulation of bad physical feelings. We’re forcing our liver, pancreas, kidneys, and digestive system to work overtime. We’re putting strain on the heart muscle and not giving our cardiovascular system the proper amount and intensity of exercise needed to remain strong and in healthy, working condition.

But this can always be turned around, and the result of being hearthealthy is more action both in the real world and between the sheets along with many other extraordinary benefits!

Staying physically fit and healthy for each other also has longterm significance for the relationship. On a deeper level, if you’re in this for the long haul, then the issue of staying healthy for each other in old age definitely factors in. No one wants to be a burden or dependent on another person, even if it’s someone we’ve committed to in a lifelong partnership. Not even if it’s someone we’ve put our faith and trust in to care for us for better or worse.

This is about keeping our own dignity – the dignity of staying independently able to care for oneself without assistance. It’s also about giving the gift of freedom to our partner.

Healthy hearts are happy hearts, and that’s a gift for life. Heart disease in old age is not just something that happens to people. It’s what happens when we tax our body by overfeeding and avoiding healthy exercise.

Saying “I do” or otherwise committing to our significant other is one thing. But also committing to the long-term health of our physical body is a way to ensure that the two of you will be living a long, happy and vibrant shared life together.