Losing 2lbs a week is a good goal to have, it’s attainable and it can be achieved in a healthy way. To lose 2lbs your diet needs to give your body the nutrients that it needs to maximize how your body functions and increase the effectiveness of your metabolism.

Daily caloric intake is important but also where those calories come from is also vitally important. One of the first steps that you can take is to start writing a Daily Food Journal; this will assist you in monitoring what you are eating but also make it easier for improvements to be made.

EAT CALORIES, DON’T DRINK EM!

The first step that you can take with your diet is to put all your calories into what you are eating and not what you are drinking. You can be aware of the calories that you eat, but unaware of the calories that you are drinking.

Start by making better choices when selecting what you are going to drink with your meals. Soft drinks (carbonated) will naturally be very high in sugar therefore high in calories. If you find it hard to stop drinking soft drinks completely then start to reduce them gradually; don’t buy large bottles, limit yourself to 3-4 cans a week, then this can also be reduced.

The habits that we have formed are difficult to eliminate, but it’s easier to replace a bad habit with a good habit. Start looking for new healthier drinks that you can include in you diet; green tea with a teaspoon of natural (organic) honey, freshly blended fruit juice, etc. Try to limit drinks outside your meals to water.

Water is vitally important for your body; helping you to stay hydrated and improving body functions.

WHAT YOU CHEW ON

Moving onto what you eat; what you should be looking for it to be eating smaller portions but more frequently; eating 5-6 times a day. Eating like this should keep you feeling satisfied throughout the day and it will also help keep your metabolism elevated helping you use calories.

When you eat breakfast you elevate your metabolism, then about two hours later it will dip again and then wait for you to eat again. This is how your metabolism looks like if you only eat 3 times per day;

And this is how your metabolism will look if you eat 3 meals plus 3 (healthy, balanced) snacks in between your meals;

Breakfast is important and will spike your metabolism after you have woken up. This time would be good to eat complex carbohydrates that will keep you feeling satisfied for longer. Then about 2 hours after your breakfast have a snack; for my first snack I will usually have 2 boiled eggs, yoked with a prawn, bit of chicken stuffed in the hole where the yoke used to be.

I aim to have my lunch 2 hours after my first snack. For my lunch I have a large dinner size portion of raw fresh vegetables, with home-roasted nuts, olive oil, and meat (boiled chicken, pork, beef or some fish; tuna, mackerel, salmon). This is a fiber filled lunch that will keep you full.

Next up is snack number 2. I keep this based on protein as I am seeking to build muscle. I would have a handful (not a bucket full) of roasted nuts. Buy some raw nuts and get out a wok and heat up some olive oil and crushed garlic in it. Then add in all your nuts filling up your wok (to make a supply of nuts) then just stir them until they go brown.

2 hours later my dinner is up and it’s small. But this is ok as I am usually not hungry as my lunch and 2nd snack are still in my belly. For dinner I focus on some type of meat and cooked vegetables. My portion size is a small side-plate that the food cannot go out of the circumference of the plate and I am not aloud to pile food on top of each other (one layer).

And, yep you have guessed it 2 hours later I will have my 3rd and final snack for the day; which is usually a whey protein shake, made from cold water.

REMEMBER TO REPLACE HABITS!

I did not just start eating healthy; I educated myself then I started to slowly make little healthy changes that have built up into an effective eating plan; and mixed with Workouts That Give Me Results I have ignited my bodies natural fat burning process and I am (for the first time in my life) losing about 2lbs of fat per week.

CHEAT MEAL

Usually on a Saturday or Sunday I will toss out all the healthy advice and for my lunch OR dinner meal I will eat whatever the heck I want; beer OR burgers OR pizza (not a whole one), carbs galore.

This cheat meal gives you something to look forward to and helps you stay on track, remember you are human and you have to have a strategy for these kind of desires.

BUT this is one meal on the weekend, NOT all meals on the weekend because you can easily undo all your fat loss efforts if you do this.

Check out these related posts;

• Why My Workouts Give Me Results! (5)

Tags: eating, healthy eating, how to lose 2lbs a week, metabolism, snacking

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 9:18 am and is filed under 2lbs A Week Club, Health Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.