Your body weight affects your health as well as your ability to live longer since excess body weight usually increases your chances of developing certain lifestyle diseases which not only affects the quality of your life but can also shorten your life.
You may want to drop a few pounds if you are overweight or you just want to get leaner and fitter. You lose weight when you burn more calories than your consume. Understandably, this is easier to say than put into practice.
Look at this way, calories come from the food you eat and your body needs a certain number of calories to perform bodily function and keep you healthy. Eating more than you need results into it being stored by the body as fats.
What to do
Since everyone has a different metabolic rate which either burns calories faster or slower, there’s no one-fits-all solution but there are certain healthy habits that can help you maintain a healthy body weight.
Eat dense foods
These are foods that are low in calorie but high in nutritional value. They make you fill more full without pumping your body with excess calories.
Here’s how it works: A fresh fruit like a mango has a calorie count of about 200 whereas a slice of cake can have something in the region of 1500 calories but a mango will make you feel more full than the slice of cake since it also has fibers. Eat a variety of food classes such that you feel full without consuming a lot of calories.
If you are the type to have your cake and eat it, you can check Easy-Diabetic-Recipes.Com for cake recipes that are just as delicious but with less sugar and calories.
Exercise regularly
The most effective way to maintain a healthy body weight is to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Exercise increases your metabolic rate making you burn more calories.
Exercise helps burn the calories that you consume but that’s is not a free pass to eating anything you want. You still need to eat healthy.
Your exercise regimen should include aerobic training like running, cycling, jogging or swimming and strength training to build muscles and tone the body.
Have an eating plan
Do not deny yourself food in the desire to lose weight. If you try lose weight by depriving yourself food, the body will go into starvation mode and hold on to the fat stores. It’s a survival skill to keep you from starving to death. In any case, that always ends up with you eating a lot of the unhealthy stuff.
Instead, develop a comprehensive eating plan that sees you stay full for longer and prevents you from eating when you are not hungry.
The trick is to snack on healthy foods like fruits in between your meals and drinking plenty of water.
Cook your own meals
Unlike eating out, you have a lot of control about what goes into your body when you cook your own meals. You have the choice of ingredients and cooking method.
You can steam and grill your foods instead of deep frying them which is not only unhealthy but also denatures some nutrients.
