Are you looking for healthier alternatives to easily manage your favorite foods and lose weight?
If you answered “yes”, you must know the reason why it is so difficult to lose weight.
Most weight loss methods start with food elimination from your diet, and it can feel overwhelming to create good eating habits by eliminating the food you love.
So today, we will concentrate on better ways to handle your relationship with food, so you can get to your most ideal weight and keep it that way, with ease.
Here are eight simple food habits that’ll help you keep the weight off for good.
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8 Food Habits That’ll Help You Stay Slim
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1. Be aware when you’re eating.
Would you go to extreme measures to have a better relationship with the way you eat? A lot of Americans will!
Millions of Americans eat unconsciously and food experts say that creating a small “window” of awareness will help you stay slim if you have a bad relationship with food.
Here’s another reason why mindful eating is so important. Practicing more attentive ways of eating will enhance your meal, reduce over-eating, promote healthy digestion, reduce anxiety about food, and improve your psychological relationship with food.
Dietitians say that if you eat unconsciously, without thinking and thoughtlessly, it will inevitably lead to more weight gain.
For tips to help you be more mindful with food, try this:
- Try to put your fork down between mouthfuls and be mindful while you are eating. Doing so will create a little small moment of awareness that you may just need so you can see how much you are actually consuming on a daily basis.
- Begin with your shopping list, be mindful of what you are putting into the cart ahead of time.
- Start with smaller portions.
- Appreciate your food and enjoy eating new healthy foods that you’ve never tried before.
- Bring all your senses to the meal and savor what you are eating.
- Take small bites.
- Chew thoroughly.
- Eat slowly.
2. Up your water intake to 1 liter of water a day.
This nifty water bottle glows to remind you when it’s time to sip.
In the period of one day, how many glasses of water do you suppose the average American drinks?
Well, you’d be surprised to find that the average American (for both men and women) consumes 13.4 cups a day, with 48% of that including regular beverages.
It’s plain and simple, people don’t drink enough water, and drinking water is one of the easiest ways to increase fat-burning ability.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends that women should drink at least 74 ounces, which is a little over 9 cups.
If you increase your water intake, you’ll reduce the amount of food you are consuming, increase your metabolism to work even faster, and your waste will be also detoxified to bring your body to a natural homeostasis.
For tips to help you drink more water, try this:
- Establish a drinking water routine. Just like setting up a morning and bedtime routine, everyone should build a timetable for their water use to make drinking water more manageable.
- Add flavor to make your water more flavourful. Citrus fruits and herbs work wonders for livening up water.
- Use an app to track your water intake. Keeping up with how many glasses you’ve finished can be easy (and fun) with the help of free apps like WaterMinder® that track your every sip.
- Get a high-tech water bottle. This nifty water bottle recommends your customized daily water intake with your phone and glows to remind you when it’s time to sip.
- Dilute sugary drinks with more water and ice.
- Make your home water taste even better by investing in a home water filter. The Soma Water Filtration Carafe works wonders for when you are at home.
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3. Keep a consistent meal routine.
If your desire is to stick to a consistent weight and have a great relationship with food, then always make sure that you eat at the same time every single day.
According to health experts, keeping to a reasonable standard of food intake on a daily basis (while also thinking about what is going to motivate you to stick to a meal schedule), will tremendously help you stick to your ideal weight.
The best way to do this is to keep unhealthy foods out of the house, stay smarter throughout your consistent mealtimes by incorporating leafy greens, healthy vegetables, and lean proteins, and know that people who don’t lose weight (in the long term) tend to have an incorrect and irregular meal time which leads to excessive weight gain with snacking.
For tips to help you keep to a consistent meal routine, try this:
- Start with realistic expectations. Know your limits and your weaknesses with food and include them in a healthy way that’ll help you stay consistent with eating healthy.
- Emphasize vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat dairy products as your go-to staples.
- Include healthy proteins such as lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts every day.
- Limits saturated and trans fats, sodium, and added sugars from your diet.
- Control portion sizes.
- Keep unhealthy foods out of the house.
- Carry healthy snacks with you at all times for those low blood sugar moments.
- Have a game plan before eating out. Glance at the menu online and make sure to have something healthy for you to come home to.
- Don’t let traveling derail your progress. Always have a food plan to fall back on.
- Don’t have an ‘all or nothing’ approach. Keep going and keep trying.
- Think about what really motivates you and do more of that!
4. Fight fat with healthy fats.
Fat may appear to most people as the villain to those who are trying to lose weight. But for those who are still having a hard time losing those extra pounds?
Most wellness coaches will always educate their students on the difference between healthy fats and bad fats.
That’s because healthy fats will always provide the extra kicker you need with major health benefits to assist with further weight loss.
Try to choose good healthy fats like nuts and seeds, avocados, and oily fish instead of fast foods that contain trans fats. Transfats are not healthy at all and are associated with a greater risk of heart disease.
Plus you’ll be bound to gain weight if you eat a lot of transfats over the healthier ones.
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5. Always Move around after your last meal.
A few may find this very difficult but ten thousand steps a day is all you need in life coupled with a balanced diet if you’d like to stick to a healthy weight.
With less focus on food and more movement, you really can stick to your ideal weight!
Doing this will help you remain slim and tell the body that it is time to stop consuming if you make this your daily habit after hopefully your last meal.
Don’t forget to take the stairs to ensure your heart rate increases so your heart and waistline stay in better shape.
6. Don’t Snack After 9 PM.
It’s often described as late-night weight gain and studies back it up that late-night eaters will gain much more weight than those who choose to dine early.
The reason for this is is that most night owls are more likely to overeat because they are more likely to suffer from food shortages (during the day) and they often choose to eat unhealthy foods that contain high amounts of sugar and trans fat, to combat their hunger in those late-night hours.
This is one of the worst food habits that you cannot ignore.
Consuming foods within 1 hour before you retire the day away will cause your digestion to keep working while you are asleep and this not only impacts your waistline but it’ll also negatively impact your sleep.
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7. Learn to celebrate without needing food.
Fitness gurus have been known to say that planning ahead and achieving your goals is an important element in your strategy for losing weight. Especially if you reward yourself correctly.
If you have always celebrated with food? Try to make sure that you seek to celebrate all your celebratory milestones from here on out without the need for food.
For instance, a great way to reward yourself is to treat yourself to a new workout bottle perhaps or spend that extra money you made on a fitness lesson instead.
Always remember that you can celebrate without food and still be comfortable.
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8. Keep your bedroom a no-food zone.
If you haven’t learned already, eating in bed is one of the basic ways to pack on those extra pounds.
Health experts say that you’ll most likely be distracted when you eating in bed and you won’t know how easily you’re snacking and the food will inevitably disappear.
That’s why health and wellness pros will always say that reserving your bedroom for rest and training your brain and body to cope without food outside of the bedroom is the best way to start a healthy food relationship.
Food really doesn’t need to be overly complicated. With the right course of action and following a few suggestions above, you are bound to improve your weight loss journey and have a better relationship with food.
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Author: Rebecca
Hi, my name is Rebecca and I am the face behind Everything Abode! I am a lifestyle and wellness writer based out of Vancouver Island. When I’m not writing or exploring mountains and beaches with my furry rescue, I love spending time learning creative ways to manifest a healthy home. Thanks for stopping by!
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