5 Diet Plan Saving Tips !

Guilty and frustrated from cheating on your diet plan? These diet plan saving tips will keep you on track!

mediaimage
It’s nine thirty at night and you have followed your new diet plan perfectly to a tee all day. A pizza advertisement comes on the commercial break of your favorite show and you notice it is close to your next mealtime.
Up to the kitchen you go to eat your next meal. When in the fridge pulling out your nicelyprepared diet plan meal, you notice some left over Fettuccini Alfredo your wife or roommate brought home. Sure looks good you think as you catch a little bit of saliva about to drip on your shirt!

“Just a little taste won’t hurt my diet plan,” you justify…

“ I’ve stuck to my diet plan all day……”

A little taste and before you know it you tell yourself the extra carbs and calories will be a good boost to your workout tomorrow!

An hour later your gut is stretching and Indigestion plagues you from cheating on your diet plan!!

“I should have stuck to my diet plan!” is going through your head as you lay down to have nightmares of a fat ass! “Tomorrow I’ll stick to my diet plan “, you chant in your head!But you fall from your diet plan only a day or two later!

The occasional stray from your diet plan can really add up!And billboards,tv’s, radios and people are everywhere pushing fast foods and junk to sabotage your diet plan!

Here are five diet plan saving tips to arm yourself against the onslaught of the Cheating War!

Diet Plan Tip #1 – Eat Slowly – Take your time when you sit down to eat.

The chances you will stuff yourself or overeat diminish and you will reach the point of satiety much more quickly if you eat slowly!

The more you are satisfied with what you have eaten the less likely you will continue to think of food. That chocolate Black Forest cake won’t be as tempting either!

Diet Plan Tip #2 – Have Delicious Meals That Fit Your Meal Plan Prepared Ahead Of Time.

Having meals prepared ahead of time makes it convenient to eat according to a plan and on schedule.

You can make it more convenient to stick to your diet plan than it is to eat that bag of candy by having your diet plan meals prepared and available when it is time to eat– and when you gethungry.

Diet Plan Tip #3 – Get Used To Eating For Your Purpose Instead Of For Your Taste Buds.

Satisfying your taste buds when you get the urge to gorge down a Big Mac will never develop a healthy, lean, muscular physique! Keep in mind you are eating to develop a lean, healthy muscular physique every time you open your mouth! The temporary taste satisfaction of a jelly-filled donut will be gone real fast but the empty calories you just devoured can defeat a whole day’s worth of bodybuilding effort!

Diet Plan Tip #4 – Be creative with your cooking to make sticking to your diet enjoyable.

Ideally, with proper preparation and some reciperesearch you can create delicious mouth watering meals that meet your diet plan criteria. Learn to cook. Employ spices from other parts of the world. India and China are twocountries with interesting choices to really spice up your diet plan. When you don’t have to force feed yourself with your nose plugged the chances are much higher you can stick to your diet plan more easily!

Diet Plan Tip #5 – Drink Water.

Drinking water between meals can help to reduce your hunger pains temporarily by giving a sense of fullness. For those of you that sabotage your diet plan munching here and there,keeping a water bottle with you wherever you go can really help.Just sip away when its oral satisfaction rather than hunger driving you.

Uncovering the Weight & Lifestyle Connection

However, the most common cause of delay in weight loss is actually lifestyle choices.

If you are already dieting and working out and you still aren’t seeing any progress, it’s time to do a lifestyle check to see if you have any “weight loss traps” holding you back.

What are “weight loss traps?”

Weight loss traps are habits, beliefs and general lifestyle factors that can slow down your progress in slimming down. To say that only diet and exercise are needed to slim down is an oversimplification. There are many other factors that affect a person’s weight.

Factor # 1: Daily Routines

How do our daily routines affect weight loss?Daily routines have a definite impact on the weight loss process. If people evaluated their main routines at home or at work, they would immediately see why the weight isn’t coming off.

If you grab cheeseburgers or tacos for lunch and you skip breakfast on most days, your metabolism is probably very low and your body isn’t burning calories at an optimum level.

Poor eating habits often have precedents. For example, if a person doesn’t have time in the morning to prepare breakfast, it is likely that they often sleep late and wake up in the morning with only minutes left to shower and dress for work.

It’s important that you slowly change your daily routines to fit your new lifestyle requirements. Otherwise, your body will not be able to shed fat efficiently.

Factor # 2: Stress Levels

How stressed are you on most days?

If you answered “very stressed” or “extremely stressed”, your level of stress may also be preventing you from losing weight.

In addition to the mental strain that stress creates, physiological stress also affects cardiorespiratory efficiency, nerve health and even your digestive health. In short, when you are mentally stressed, your body (including your vital organs) is stressed too.

In this situation, the only viable option is stress management.

There are many stress management techniques available, from meditation to massage therapy. Some individuals like playing subliminal recordings with ambient sounds to relieve themselves of stress. Explore your options and see which technique will be the most beneficial for you.

Factor # 3: Sleep Quality

Sleep is the only time that the body can start renewing and repairing itself. When you are actively losing extra weight, your body needs even more sleep so that your muscles and organs can repair and reconfigure themselves to function more efficiently.

What happens when you don’t get enough sleep at night?

Lack of sleep or poor sleep quality can affect your ability to exercise. Your metabolism is also slower and the digestion and absorption of nutrients also slow down.

Having less than 6 hours of sleep every night can also cause physical stress which further reduces your metabolic efficiency. In short, if you want to melt away those extra inches, you have to give your “fat burning machine” the rest that it needs.

How can you get better sleep at night?

No Gadgets – If you are going to sleep, leave your tablet computer and smartphone on the bedside table or even farther away. Watching TV is also a bad idea as it makes your mind more active, making sleep harder to come.
Aromatherapy – Starting with the ability to relax your mind and body, aromatherapy can vastly improve your sleep habits. Getting to sleep, staying asleep, the quality of sleep you are getting, and the ability to wake up refreshed are all quality sleep habits that aromatherapy can help you with.
Lights Off – Current research shows that having even a small amount of light present during bedtime can affect sleep quality. It appears that we instinctually associate any form of light with sunlight and therefore, wakefulness.

A Quick Look at Some of Today’s Most Effective Diets

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

mediaimage
The Idiot-Proof Diet

The idiot-proof diet is all about calorie shifting. That is, in this diet, you shift your food intake throughout the day instead of eating just 3 meals a day. The diet is popular because it’s actually very easy to follow and there are hardly any restrictions when it comes to the types of food you can eat.

The ‘calorie shifting’ model takes place because you eat every two and half hours. The theory is that because your body is consuming calories (energy) constantly throughout the day, it’s always in ‘burning calories’ mode instead of the ‘saving calories’ mode.

When you sign up for the diet, you get access to a diet handbook, an 11-day diet-plan and a diet calculator. You get to pick what foods you like to eat so don’t think that you’ll be tarving in this diet!

NutriSystem

The NutriSystem way of dieting is all about proper meal planning. People love this diet because it takes away the burden of trying to figure out what to eat during their dieting phase. You see, a lot of people actually get confused as to what they can eat when they want to lose weight. That’s not really surprising because there’s so much information out there and for every yay sayer, there is a nay sayer so it’s really tough to know what to eat.

However, with NurtiSystem, they do all the meal planning and portion controlling for you. You just need to sign up to any of their diet programs (e.g., Women’s Program, Men’s Program, Vegetarian Program, etc.) and order a multi-day (usually for 28 days) diet program.

After you choose your diet program, a menu is presented to you and you simply choose what you want to eat. The meals are then delivered to your doorstep at various intervals during your diet program.

The South Beach Diet

The South Beach Diet is popular because the name alone conjures bikini-clad bodies! Add to that the fact that it was founded by a cardiologist, Dr. Arthur Agatston, then you have a sort of ‘doctor recommended, doctor approved’ seal on the diet as well.

At first glance, the South Beach Diet looks a lot like the Atkins Diet in the sense that it restricts carbohydrates during the initial phase of the program (there are 3 phases). The first phase (14 days) encourages ‘normal eating’ in the sense that you can pretty much eat whatever you want but you must NOT eat bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, or baked goods. Fruit is also not allowed. No sugar. No alcohol.

The second phase allows you to SLOWLY introduce these items back into your diet but at lesser levels that you consumed them before of course. The third phase is more about general maintenance.

Weight Watchers

Probably one of the longest running diet programs out there is Weight Watchers. It believes in the overall approach where food, exercise, behavior and support are addressed.

Weight Watchers is known for advocating a point system for foods. Using this system, one calculates the calorie intake of the foods he or she eats. The number of points you can have in a day varies depending on your weight. The beauty of the program is that there are no gut-wrenching food restrictions so you never feel deprived of anything. However, the point system teaches you how to balance your meals so that even if you indulge on one food item, you don’t go overboard and consume too much in a day.