Portion Size Matters!

If you are on a weight loss diet of some description and you are becoming concerned that you are not losing as much weight as you expected to lose, it could be that you have not quite found the right portion size for your meals. Many people who have gained weight over time have done so through eating meals that were too large for them. Of course its not something that you may notice especially when it happens over time as you gradually become accustomed to eating larger size meals.

But when you come to diet in order to lose weight, it is quite natural to expect to continue eating the same size portions, just substituting the high calorie foods for lower calorie alternatives. While the plan is basically sound, it can slow down the rate of weight loss simply because the stomach is still used to receiving a large portion of food at each meal sitting. The way to overcome this problem is to reduce the portion sizes so that the stomach becomes re-educated to expect less food at each meal time.

This is something that many what is diet meal delivery programs already cater for, as their meal sizes are often a lot smaller than what people are generally used to. It can cause problems in the early days of such diets because the dieter feels hungry all the time while their stomachs are getting used to the smaller portions.

There is a way around this problem and that is to eat smaller meals but more of them. Instead of the typical three main meals of the day, try increasing that to five smaller meals. You will find you don’t tend to feel hungry between meals as the time between them is shorter. You can work with much smaller portions of food remembering to maintain a healthy balance of proteins, low glycemic carbs and unsaturated fats always making sure to include some fiber in the form or raw fruit or vegetables.

Eating less food at each sitting teaches the stomach to expect less food, so it naturally learns this new regimen over time. Your calorie intake may be exactly the same as it was when you were eating three larger meals, but your body;s fat burning power increases as the digestive system has to work more often to process the food spread out over the day. This is desirable and leads to greater weight loss over time too, which is, after all, what you are aiming for.

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Basic Weight Loss 101

There is a base level to the weight loss process that forms that basis of just about all the programs and plans that are currently in existence at the present time. Once a person who is keen to shed some weight gains a good understanding of these basics, then they can achieve whatever they set out to do as long as they stick to what they have learned and don’t go off the rails.

The three main areas that form these basic tips for weight loss are already well known and will seem pretty obvious to you once you read them, but maybe you have never thought of them in such a way before. These areas are:

  1. Healthy Diet
  2. Exercise
  3. Mental Attitude

Healthy Diet

The saying that “you are what you eat” is very true and not something that has just been created by the media to try and sell you something (well, maybe it has been borrowed for such, but that’s not the original sentiment). When you eat a healthy, wholesome diet in moderate portions at the right intervals throughout the day in proportion to the amount of activity you do during the day, you should not gain weight.

That’s a pretty sweeping statement, but when you analyze it, you’ll see its perfectly true. As long as you are eating enough to fuel your body for the activity level it has in a day, then all the fuel you consume will be used and there will be none left over for the body to store as fat. Once you start eating more than you need, or eating a lot of unhealthy food containing high levels of refined sugars, high GI carbs or saturated fats, then you are going to start storing fat because your body can’t use it all up.

Exercise

As long as you exercise in sufficient amounts during the day to burn off all the energy you consume through your diet, you will not gain weight.

That’s another a sweeping statement that when you analyze it, you will see it is also quite true. You can’t burn off all the energy (measured in calories, of course) that you have consumed through your diet through exercise each day and store any fat. There’s none left over for your body to store! Its when your exercise levels dwindle yet you keep eating the same levels of food or drinking soda and other unhealthy drinks full of empty calories that you start gaining weight. Even then, it takes time because your metabolism can deal with a lot more than many people realize. But put that metabolism under strain with too much food to process and it can’t cope. The excess that it doesn’t process get stored as fat.

Mental Attitude

To even begin to work with the previous two factors in your daily life, you have to have the right mental attitude. You really do have to have the motivation to eat right and exercise regularly. If you don’t the chances are you won’t do what you have to do and you will gain weight.

So you see that in order to maintain a healthy body that is at its correct weight, you need to satisfy those three main basics. When you can do that, you can lose weight and keep it off.

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Is Nutrisystem the Best Diet?

With the emphasis on taking the easiest path to dieting success foe many people, especially those with busy lifestyles, choosing the right kind of diet is not really as tough as it used to be. With some top quality commercial diet plans available at a very reasonable price, that choice is made even easier. One of the top programs comes from Nutrisystem, but with all the good press this diet company tends to attract, is it really the best of them all when all things are considered? We take a look and see.

You can read any number of very good write ups on the diet and you’ll get a good review of Nutrisystem and how it works, but reading about it is one thing. Actually doing it is another. And then being able to compare it with other diet companies such as its main rival Jenny Craig, or the other nationwide delivery companies that provide a fresh meal menu such as Bistro MD, Diet-to-Go and eDiets, would make the decision complete. But how are you going to know unless you try them all?

Chances are, you simply won’t be able to afford to try them all as they rise in price for their standard menus and Nutrisystem is actually the least expensive of those just mentioned. The cost is a highly important factor in many people’s final decision, so being the cheapest of the major diet food delivery companies certainly puts them high above the others in the desirability stakes.

The meal quality is also a big factor as its no good getting your diet plan for the best price only to find you can’t eat the food because it is not to your tastes. Nutrisystem diet plans are made up of a combination of 30% fresh frozen meals which are of good quality and the rest are processed meals and some with freeze dried ingredients such as some of the pasta and rice dishes. Overall the quality is on par with Jenny Craig, although inferior to Bistro MD and eDiets as these companies only send out fresh frozen or fresh chilled meals respectively.

The plan lasts for a month at a time, although you are generally enrolled on an auto delivery program that means your second and subsequent months of food are automatically shipped and your credit card debited unless you phone to cancel in advance. Its something the customer must remember to do or face getting another month of diet meals. Good if you really like the diet but bad if you don’t and wanted to quit but didn’t know you had to manually cancel!

This trait is not exclusive to Nutrisystem and the other companies do something similar, so whatever you end up deciding to opt for, you should remember that the onus is on you to cancel long before you complete your current package of meals. One of the best weight loss tips to make this diet work for you is to just stick with it and don’t cheat. It’ll work for you if you do only this, but you can make it even better by drinking lots of plain water and getting some exercise too. As to being the best, Nutrisystem is a good diet and easy to do, while being a great time saver in that you don’t have to make any meals yourself, but it is beaten on quality by one or two other companies, just not on price.

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