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End of Year Diet Tips

Some diet tips we can all use.

When it comes to losing weight and getting healthy, it’s not enough to just up and change your diet habits. It’s not because changing your diet habits is a bad idea. In point of fact, you’ll absolutely have to change your diet habits if you want to lose weight permanently. There’s simply no two ways about that.

However, what many people don’t realize is that we train our bodies to expect certain kinds of food. This is why so many diets wind up failing. It’s not necessarily because the diet is a bad diet (though in many cases it is), but because our bodies are so used to eating in a certain way and we start to crave when we don’t get that kind of food. The end result is that we find ourselves binge eating, shoving unhealthy foods into our mouths and bargaining with ourselves. We try to justify eating some type of food or another, and then before you know it, we’re off our diet and right back to our bad eating habits.

Here are some simple diet ideas to help you through the end of the year.

1. Drink Plenty Of Water

While water doesn’t have much (or any) calories, it does take up space in our stomach. By drinking plenty of water, we can trick our bodies into thinking that we’re more full than we really are.

2. Eat Plenty Of Green Vegetables

Similar to drinking water, green vegetables have little in the way of calories but take up plenty of space in the stomach.

3. Eat Whole Grains

It’s incredibly tempting to fill up on white bread and other carbohydrates that have been bleached. They taste better, after all! However, they’re also deceptively calorie dense. It doesn’t help that most baked goods tend to have a lot of sugar, as well. Try eating whole grains instead!

4. Stay Away From Sugar

Many people will say that you should avoid unhealthy sugars, and instead stock up on fruits, honey, and other “healthy” sugars. While that’s true, the simple fact is that there’s sugar in a huge number of things these days. Even 100% fresh squeezed juice is generally loaded up with sugar. So while you don’t need to go crazy trying to cut all sugar from your diet, you’re probably safest if you simply avoid going out of your way to stock up on sugar of any kind, “healthy” or otherwise.

5. Eat Smaller Meals More Often

Don’t load up on one or two big meals. Instead, eat smaller meals regularly through the day. This helps you eat fewer calories at a time, while shortening the amount of time you might be hungry.

6. Stay Away From Processed Meats

Cheap processed meat is loaded with chemicals. Go free range organic if you can.

7. Plenty Of Vitamins

While you’re learning to balance calories and nutrition, stock up on vitamins. That way, your body doesn’t run a deficit.

8. Less Alcohol

Beer has an insane number of calories, especially in the amount most people drink. Even “low-cal” options such as hard liquor can wreck havoc on the digestive system. Drink less over all, maybe no more than four drinks a week.

9. Less Caffeine

Caffeine is a natural appetite suppressant, but when it wears off your body tends to demand all the calories it forgot about. Try drinking less coffee throughout the day.

10. Stay Away From Fad Diets

Fad diets sound great, but almost all of them are based on spurious data at best. The only real way to cleanse and lose weight is to eat fewer calories, and make sure those calories are healthy. Any diet that’s based on some “new, revolutionary finding” is likely complete bunk, and will just leave you wanting.

Author
Dr. Meaghan Clemens

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