Tricks You Can Use to Con­trol Your Eat­ing Habits

Your diet is as impor­tant to your over­all as fit­ness as your exer­cise is. And for los­ing weight weight it is essen­tial to watch your diet, not overeat, or indulge in junk food. Some­times you need a lit­tle some­thing extra besides your own will power to help you main­tain that healthy diet and not grab that dou­ble cheese­burger, or the garbage in the snack machine. So whether you are on a par­tic­u­lar diet plan, or just watch­ing your diet, there are a mul­ti­tude of ways to curb your eat­ing habits

There a num­ber of tricks you can fol­low regard­less of what eat­ing regime you are following.

Chew Gum- Gum can keep you track with your healthy or sen­si­ble eat­ing habits or on that new diet you start. Keep some great tast­ing gum with you so when you either get hun­gry or bored you can chomp on that instead of an unhealthy calo­rie laden alter­na­tive. Stay away from bub­blegum and sugar loaded gums. Chew­ing gum can keep you away from bore­dom and mind­less eat­ing which can sab­o­tage any diet.

Drink 8oz. of water a half hour before every meal- This is a very sim­ple trick, espe­cially if you tend to have a hard time feel­ing full after meals. By drink­ing water before each meal you give your stom­ach the chance to reg­is­ter ful­fill­ment with­out stuff­ing it with calo­ries. Plus, odds are any hunger pains you might expe­ri­ence before meals is just your body’s way of telling you it’s thirsty.

Eat six times a day- Eat about every two hours … 8am, 10am, Noon, 2pm, 4pm and 6pm. Eat most of your pro­teins, fats and carbs (ie-egg white omelet, tuna and cot­tage cheese, soups, etc.) dur­ing your 8am, Noon and 6pm meals and then snack on veg­gies, fruits and healthy fats (ie-apples, berries, cel­ery, nuts, etc.) dur­ing your 10am, 2pm and 4pm meals. These don’t need to be large meals but just enough to feel con­tent and keep a con­stant level of energy.

Eat a large breakfast- As men­tioned above, eat a large break­fast. Some have become accus­tomed to skip­ping or skimp­ing on break­fast and lunch. This usu­ally leads to mind­less snack­ing and large din­ner meals. The large meal should be break­fast or lunch. It bet­ter on the metab­o­lism, and helps curb mind­less eating.

And this doesn’t mean go ‘any­thing you want’ for break­fast. You should try to keep it healthy and have some­thing with a sub­stan­tial amount of pro­tein, good fats and some good healthy carbs.

Keep a water bot­tle on your per­son at all times- Keep a bot­tle of water with you all the time. Keep at work and one at home. Not only does water help curb your appetite, but it really does help you flush things through your body and help lose weight.

Sleep eight hours per night- Get­ting a good nights rest is prob­a­bly one of the best things you can do on any diet. Not only does it recharge you, but it pro­motes fat loss. The goal for any weight-loss diet. Addi­tion­ally, less sleeps trig­gers the hor­mone ghre­lin which trig­gers hunger and decreases your energy lev­els. Which will only pro­mote overeat­ing and mind­less snack­ing. A good nights sleep really will help you lose weight and sta­bi­lize your energy lev­els through­out the day bet­ter than any food or diet.

Eat an apple a day- Eat and apple. It’s a great source of fiber, vit­a­min c and potas­sium, plus it doesn’t con­tain any sodium, fat or cho­les­terol and is only 80 calo­ries. It’s a great snack on any eat­ing plan. Apples can also give you a boost of energy, which is bet­ter than cof­fee any day.

Healthy Eat­ing Ideas

Reduce Fat and Cholesterol

• Use skim or low-fat milk and cheese made from skim or low-fat milk
• Cut back on the amount of fat you use in cook­ing
• Use water-packed tuna instead of oil-packed
• Choose lean cuts of meat
• Trim vis­i­ble fat from meat
• Roast, bake, broil, or sim­mer meats and drain fat after cook­ing. Don’t fry
• Remove the skin of cooked poul­try
• Use smaller amounts of meat and stretch it by serv­ing in casseroles with grains and veg­eta­bles
• In a dip or sand­wich fill­ing, replace all or part of the may­on­naise with yogurt
• Serve Cana­dian bacon instead of reg­u­lar bacon
• Use veg­etable or peanut oils instead of solid short­en­ing and use mar­garine instead of but­ter or lard
• Try sub­sti­tut­ing egg whites in recipes call­ing for whole eggs
• See a com­par­i­son of dif­fer­ent types of fat and cook­ing oils

Con­trol Calories

• Avoid overeat­ing. Eat only when hun­gry and just until you’re full.
• Mod­er­a­tion! Eat a vari­ety of foods that you enjoy, but watch serv­ing sizes.
• Eat slowly and chew your food well. This allows you to real­ize you are full before you overeat.
• Don’t auto­mat­i­cally have sec­ond help­ings, unless it’s a low-calorie veg­etable or fruit.
• Decrease your fat and sugar intake and your caloric intake will likely decrease.
• Eat in a relaxed envi­ron­ment. It takes about 20 min­utes after you begin eat­ing for your mind to real­ize that you are full.

Reduce Sugar

• Avoid high sugar foods — read labels for words like high fruc­tose corn syrup, dex­trose, sucrose
• Use unsweet­ened canned fruit or fruit canned in its own juice.
• Try using less sugar in your favorite recipes

Reduce Sodium

• Decrease the amount of salt used while cook­ing
• Taste foods before you add salt
• Avoid high sodium foods — read sodium con­tent on the labels
• Drain and rinse canned vegetables

Increase Fiber

• Eat whole grain breads, cere­als, and pas­tas
• Eat more raw fruits and veg­eta­bles
• Nuts and seeds add fiber, but be aware of the addi­tional calo­ries
• Add bran (1 to 3 table­spoons) into your daily diet. Mix it with cere­als, casseroles, tuna salad, and muffins