Portion control, portion control, portion control. Your body is designed very simple. You take in energy in form of delicious yummy food. You put out energy with the cells of your body burning it up. If you take in more energy than your cells need, your body puts it in storage (also called fat). If you put out more energy than you have been taking in your body takes that energy out of storage.
The secret in losing weight lies within the trick of using just a little more energy than you put in, but not enough for your body to start panicking and closing down all the storage. You need to find out how much energy you are needing and you need to go just a little under it to lose weight.
The next thing you need to do for staying within your range and not cheating on yourself is to eliminate certain foods from your diet that make you overeat. For many people sugar triggest this binge eating. At night you just reached the right calorie amount and can still afford a bowl of ice cream. Then one bowl of ice cream turns into two and so goes the weight loss out the door. Also, artificial sweeteners can have the same effect on some people. So watch what makes you tick.
When you found out what you need to cut out of your diet to be successful with your weight loss consider if you want to cut it out gradually, or go cold turkey. Many people just can not do the graduate thing and decide for all or nothing. If you thought sugar had no addicting affects, going cold turkey might prove to you it ain’t so. Another important factor in terms of portion control is the time that you eat. There are some basic rules to that and it will be easier for you to stick to your plan when you simply follow them.
- Eat breakfast. When you eat breakfast, you won’t stuff yourself later in the day. It has worked for many people, you might want to try it too. Also, eggs are really good for breakfast because they keep you full for very long.
- Eat every three hours. If you wait longer between your meals and snacks it is very likely that you will go and stuff yourself with the next meal. If you just keep your eating regular you will always keep your blood sugar level a little elevated and it will be easier to sanely eat your next meal without stuffing.
- Eat five to six meals a day. Again, this plays in with the blood sugar level. Keep it up all day and your body feel grate and not deprived, even though you lower the calories a bit.
The best way to keep track of portion size is to carry a journal with you or to use a website that you can track it on. For example you could use fitday.com, which is very popular by many successful dieters. The most important things that you need to write into the journal is of course what you ate, how much you ate and how many calories it had. It seems like a rather simple process, but it can take couple minutes out of your day when you have to measure your food or when you try to find the calorie amount for a particular item. However, it is worth it because as I said earlier, portion control is the most important thing in weight loss.
