Diet Tips on Eating Healthy

Know What You're Eating

• It is better to eat 5 meals of 200 calories each in one day than 2 meals of 500 calories each. This will speed up your metabolism.

• To give your body a fat-burning boost, you can try incorporating more food from the negative calorie food list. Negative calorie foods means that the body burns more calories digesting the food than the calorie content of the food! These include Cauliflower,carrots, celery, garlic, cucumbers, hot chilli, lemons, strawberrys, tomatoes and watermelon.

• Variety- Whatever diet you're on, mix and mach as many different things as you can. If you can eat fish, theres an army of variety. You are likely to get bored of your diet quick if you think the food you are eating tastes bland or is too much of the same. Many herbs and spices are low cal, and they make SUCH a difference to the tastes of your foods. Don't be afraid to experiment. I love chilli and I put it on everything! The way you cook veggies can also affect the taste. In winter it's great to eat soups, they taste great and warm you up. Liquidizing veggies into soups tastes great, especially if you add the right ingredients. Don't be afraid to look up health recipes on the internet. There are a ton!

• Try eating your food out of smaller plates, sometimes we just eat how much ever food a plate contains.

• Drink water if you are tempted to eat, this will give you a fuller sensation.

• Make sure you have low sugar or low fat chewing gum (if it is applicable for your diet). Gum can surpress hunger because you can chew it for so long.

• If you are on a diet that involves counting calories, make sure not to eat less than the minimum amount of calories your body needs. If this happens, you are slowing down the natural fat burning process of your body, and you might even engage into starvation mode, which can have bad side effects to your organs.(you can check how many calories your body needs from your nutritionist. Also ,if you search around some nutrition websites provide calorie counters that can give you an average of what your calorie intake needs to be)

• If you are counting calories remember to write down the amount of calories you ate after each meal or snack! While doing this you are ensuring that you have the right knowledge of each food type and also it is much easer to add up your calories like that at the end of the day. What i usually do is leave Notepad.exe open at work, write down everything i've eaten, e-mail the file to myself, then write dinner down on my home pc. I do this because i am very likely to lose small bits of paper :). On the other hand, if you are more organised than I am, I suggest you keep a small journal that you can carry around with you.

• Remember that different brands of the same kind of food have different amount of calories. Some companies put extra sugars or sodium in their products to make them more tasty. Be sure to check the nutritional information on the packet of food for the correct amount of calories. If you are unsure, remember that there are many lists available on the internet with the relevant information.

• You can start off a diet simply by replacing your sugary sodas, iced teas, beer and alcohol with water, diet sodas, skimmed milk and green tea. Also note that not all fruit juices are good for you, what I mean is some of them are just loaded with sugar. Always read the labels of an unfamiliar product.

• If you are used to snacking bits of food often, prepare a large cold salad in the morning or prepare a big bowl of grapes and berries, and snack on those every time you feel hungry.

• If you are a carb-counter, remember that most diets recommend that you get 75% of your daily carb intake from fruit and/or veg. If you consume all your carbs from sugary foods will have a negative effect and might slow down your metabolism.

• If you eat a meal at fast food restaurants, you'd be surprised to find out that soda and chips have more calories than the burger itself.

• If you have a slow metabolism, try incorporating more citrus fruits, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, spinach and beans.

• Drink iced water often! try to make this a habbit in summer, as your body burns calories to turn the water back to body temperature. Do not assume that this will make you lose weight fast, though making this into a habit will certainly help.

• If you are on a night out, try steering away from beer or cider. Instead of mixing vodka with redbull, try mixing it with diet coke, its much less fattening!
  

• If you carry around alot of water weight, remember to cut down on the carbohydrates, especially white bread, pastas and noodles. Extra sodium can result into extra water weight too. Drinking tall glasses of water on a regular basis helps, sounds funny but it works.

• Do not eat before going to bed. Stay clear of food, at least 2 hours before bed time, same goes for large amounts of liquids. It's ok to have small snacks during this period, but avoid large meals or high fat food. When you do this you are basically giving your body alot of energy that it's not going to burn because a) you're going to bed, and b) the metabolism tends to slow down in the evening, and thus the food will be stored as fat.