Weight Management
The 7 Best Weight Loss Tips
We scoured scores of weight loss tips and found the cream of the crop to help you shed that flab for good. (continued)
4. Address your mental state. Without realizing it, many people use food as a comfort, distraction, pleasure, or as a buffer for stress and other negative emotions. Similar to smokers and alcoholics, some people are psychologically “addicted” to food, and they use it as a way of self-medicating an underlying problem. If you think you habitually use food to make yourself feel better, talk to a mental health counselor.
5. Add to your repertoire. Instead of focusing on the things you must limit or deny yourself in order to lose body fat, celebrate new foods that you can add to shake up your meal plans. Try to adopt a new whole grain, fruit, or vegetable every week. Maybe it’s kasha (buckwheat groats), spaghetti squash, or papaya. Keep a running list of favorites that you can refer to when you find yourself drifting back to broccoli and carrots.
6. Choose foods that take time. This is a great tip for anyone trying to lose some weight, but especially for people who eat too fast (a surefire way of consuming too many calories without realizing it). While expanding your culinary repertoire to include more healthy choices, add foods that force you to slow down. Think of foods you have to peel or pick apart — artichokes, pomegranate, kiwi, crab and other shellfish, or even a hard-boiled egg.
7. Retrain your taste buds. It is a well-known fact that when people give up salt, even lightly salted foods begin to taste terribly over-salty. The same is true for people who give up sugar — things start tasting cloyingly sweet. (This makes a good case for giving up diet soda and other artificially sweetened foods and drinks. Without them, your taste buds will adjust to not needing as much sweetness.) Now, extend this concept to foods made with white flour, and you may find yourself losing your taste — or at least your cravings — for white breads, bagels, rolls, pasta, and the like.
Have any great weight loss tips? We want to hear! Post your ideas in the dLife Kitchen forum, Food Talk.
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Reviewed by Susan Weiner, R.D., M.S., C.D.E., C.D.N. 3/08