Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dieting. Show all posts

How To Stick With a Diet, When Everyone Else Is Enjoying Themselves?

 Do you have a hard time sticking to a diet? You're not the only one who feels this way. Some dieters find it easier to lose weight when they are alone at home. However, when they attend parties or social activities, their willpower begins to wane.

There are options available to keep you healthy and involved in your eating. Use these guidelines to discover how to diet wherever you are in order to attain your goal and acquire the body you desire.

How do you stay on track with your diet?

If you don't know why you're dieting in the first place, you'll never be able to stick to your plan. So put down your diet goals and motives for weight loss as the first stage in your diet plan.

Start a notebook and be extremely precise about why you want to lose weight. If you're not sure where to begin, consider the following questions:


  • Will decreasing weight have an impact on my health?
  • Will losing weight help me become more active?
  • Will decreasing weight make it easier for me to participate in activities that are currently tough for me?
  • Will losing weight have an impact on or improve my relationships with my family?
  • Will a thinner body make me feel more confident?


Of course, reducing weight does not ensure that your life will alter, but many successful dieters discover that it does. You can remind yourself of your goals when your devotion begins to fade if you know the exact weight reduction benefits that you are seeking to achieve.

Re-evaluate these goals as you proceed through the weight-loss process. If you start to see new or unexpected benefits from eating healthily, exercising, and living an active lifestyle, make changes and set new goals.

How can you stick to a diet while everyone else is eating?


"It's one thing to stick to a diet when you're at home."

Sticking to a diet in social situations, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. You'll be surrounded by goodies and snacks that can derail your diet at parties, happy hours, and even the business dining room. And staying away from food isn't always simple.

Since you're unlikely to have your weight-loss diary on hand for motivation, here are some clever strategies that savvy dieters employ to stick to their diets while everyone else indulges in high-protein snacks, beverages and high calories:

Food.

Keep food away from it. It may seem like a no-brainer, but you'd be shocked how often we make our way to the kitchen during parties and picnics. Make a new path instead. Have the host give a tour of the house or find a quiet area for a relaxed talk with an old friend if the party is in the kitchen surrounded by bowls of fries and other munchies.

In Front of the Table You'll have a hard time parting with the delicacies that will derail your feed if your event is in a one-room setting and the feed table is split up in half. You, on the other hand, are capable of confronting them. Standing with your back to the buffet or food tables, find a friend (ideally one who isn't eating). Then start up a discussion with someone and tell them about your misfortune.

Keep a Pack of Gum with You.

Gum chewing Chewing gum is one of the most effective ways to eliminate cravings. Choose a strong mint taste and keep it on hand. You will have fresh breath and no desire to eat sweet or salty items after chewing gum.

Conversation.

Be gregarious. It's likely that your mother taught you that talking with food in your mouth is impolite. So keep talking as much as you can; it's one of the finest methods to stick to your diet. In fact, your hungry companions may thank you for giving them extra time to eat.

Beer & Wine.

Avoid consuming alcoholic beverages. During the holidays, this technique becomes even more difficult. But the point is that drinking wine, beer, or other alcoholic beverages not only adds empty calories to your waist, but it also makes it harder to stick to a diet.

Keep a drink in your hand at all times. Even if you don't drink, you should always have a drink on hand while you're at parties, buffets, or barbecues. When one hand is occupied, eating becomes more difficult. Low-calorie or zero-calorie beverages make you feel full and fill your mouth with flavor, so you don't feel starved.

Keep Busy.

To be occupied. If you apply for a position at your next social occasion, your party host / hostess will adore you, and sticking to your diet will be much simpler. Greet visitors, prepare the table, collect jackets, organize the kids, or offer to cook. When you're busy, you don't have time to eat and instead prefer to socialize.

The Buddy System.

Make a partner to hold you accountable. Make a pledge to hold each other accountable overnight if you know someone who is also on a diet. Then, every now and then, check in with each other to keep each other motivated.

Honesty.

Be truthful. Don't be embarrassed to tell your friends, coworkers, or family that you're attempting to lose weight or eat healthier. The act of confessing can sometimes serve as a form of accountability. And your buddies may be willing to cheer you on as you make wise choices all night.

Motivation.

Create a good internal dialogue. It's easy to feel deprived if you believe that everyone else can eat everything they want while you are forced to forego your favorite meals or beverages. However, you may change your mindset to help you stick to your diet. Make a list of a few benefits you'll get from adhering to your diet at the party, such as increased self-confidence, a sense of accomplishment, or a guilt-free morning the next day. If you start to feel awful about missing out, remember these exceptional benefits.

It's important to keep in mind that dieting is challenging for everyone. However, with some forethought and good advice, you can adhere to your diet and reach your goal.

Resources:

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Is The Okinawa Diet Healthy

 The Okinawa diet comes from a small, ultra-centenarian island in southern Japan. It is renowned for the longevity of its inhabitants linked in large part to their diet and their way of life. This diet promotes health and longevity through a diet rich in micronutrients and Omega-3s.

Features of the Okinawa diet:

  1. Rich in vegetables, fruits and fatty fish
  2. True way of life
  3. Great principle of stopping eating before satiety
  4. Promotes health and longevity

The main principles of the regime:

The Okinawa diet is named after an archipelago in Japan where we find the longest life expectancy (86 years for women and 78 years for men) as well as the largest number of centenarians in the world. Okinawa has 400 centenarians for a population of 1.3 million inhabitants, or 34 centenarians per 100,000 inhabitants. Not only are Okinawans most likely to pass the 100-year mark, they are aging in good health. They live longer in full possession of their means. But what are they doing to achieve such results?

How does the Okinawa diet work?

The Japanese Makoto Suzuki, cardiologist and gerontologist, is one of the first to be interested in the secret of the centenarians of Okinawa. In the 1970s, he moved there in order to create a dispensary. He was then intrigued by the presence of several centenarians despite the absence of an adequate health service. His subsequent analyzes will reveal that the secret to longevity of centenarians is attributable in part to heredity, but also to a diet low in saturated fat and calories. Recently, the diet and lifestyle of Okinawan centenarians has attracted the attention of the medical world and researchers. It was twins Bradley and Craig Willcox, members of Dr. Suzuki's research team, who brought the Okinawaiian secret to longevity to the rest of the world. They have published various books on the subject: the first in 2001, The Okinawa Way, and the most recent, The Okinawa Diet Plan. This latest book offers a Western version of the Okinawan diet for those who want to lose weight.

How does the Okinawa diet make you lose weight?

The Okinawa diet is a low fat semi-vegetarian diet (less than 25% of total calories). One of the goals of this diet is to induce calorie restriction without having to count calories, in order to reach a healthy weight and age well. To achieve this, it is recommended to eat according to the principle of the energy density of food. The  energy density  corresponds to the calorific value per 100 g of food, divided by 100.

Thus, in the Okinawa diet, it is recommended to consume:

  • at will  foods with an energy density of  less than 0.7
  • in  moderation  those with an energy density of 0.8 to 1.5
  • occasionally , in small quantities, those with an energy density of 1.6 to 3
  • rarely  those with an energy density  greater than 3

Eating foods with low and very low energy density allows you to eat fewer calories, due to their high water, fiber or protein content. These foods quickly make you feel full, so you can stop eating before you are fully satisfied. Also, the calorie restriction induced by the consumption of foods with low and very low energy density generates less metabolic waste, and therefore less  free radicals . This is what would make it possible to live longer. Indeed, during the transformation of food into energy, the organism produces a lot of free radicals which, over the years, deteriorate the mitochondria (small "factories" present inside our cells which produce energy).

Calorie restriction also reduces insulin levels in the blood and estrogen levels  circulating in the body. It also causes an increase in the immune response and protects against obesity, insulin resistance, hormone - dependent cancers and atherosclerosis.

How long does the Okinawa diet last?

The Okinawa diet is more than a diet. It is a real way of life, the benefits of which increase over time. For this reason, there is no time limit. It is, on the contrary, recommended to apply the principles of this diet throughout life to be and stay in good health.

Foods to Include in the Okinawa Diet below:

>Foods to eat at will

Energy density <0.7

  • Water, tea
  • Green
  • vegetables Watery vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers)
  • Citrus
  • fruits Red
  • fruits Low calorie fruits
  • Soy milk
  • Fresh seaweed Low- fat
  • yogurt
  • Tofu


>Foods to eat in moderation

Energy density between 0.8 and 1.5

  • Banana
  • Avocado
  • Potato
  • Lean fish
  • Shellfish
  • Poultry
  • Egg
  • Sweet potato
  • Rice
  • Pasta
  • Sushi
  • Legumes


>Foods to eat occasionally

Energy density between 1.6 and 3

  • Hummus
  • Fatty fish Whole
  • grains and derivatives
  • Lean meat
  • Dried fruits
  • Soy cheese
  • Ice cream
  • Sweet fruits: cherry, grape  


>Foods to limit

Energy density> 3

  • Oilseeds
  • Cheese
  • Biscuits
  • Donuts Cold
  • cuts
  • Oil and butter
  • Cream for
  • frying
  • Sweet and processed products

To adapt the Okinawa diet to the Western way of life, it is recommended to consume each day:

  • 7 to 13 servings of vegetables
  • 7 to 13 servings of whole grains or legumes
  • 2 to 4 fruits
  • 2 to 4 servings of soy or cabbage
  • 2 to 4 servings of foods rich in calcium (broccoli, fish, yogurt, cheese, etc.)
  • 1 to 3 servings of foods rich in omega-3s (fish, seafood, nuts and seeds)
  • Vegetable oil and condiments (herbs, spices, soy sauce) in moderation, 1 to 2 tbsp. maximum tablespoon
  • Tea
  • 8 glasses of water


*Optional, per week

  1. 0 to 7 servings of meat, poultry and eggs
  2. 0 to 3 servings of foods with added sugars
  3. Alcohol in moderation

Other main principles of the Okinawa diet:

The Okinawa diet recommends respecting other main principles characteristic of the Japanese diet and which make the success of this method:

  • The  Hara Hachi Bu  which consists in stopping eating before being completely satisfied
  • The  kuten gwa  encouraging to eat only small portions
  • The  nuchi gusui  which consists of eating while thinking that food has healing powers
  • Promote a variety of foods at once
  • Favor colors on the plate
  • Eat fresh food
  • Cook food lightly, over low heat
  • Cook and consume food separately
  • Combine raw and cooked foods
  • Avoid the microwave and barbecue

Okinawa diet: menus, diet program and recipes for vegetarians

>Traditional Okinawa diet

[MORNING MEALS]

  • Miso and tofu soup
  • Rice
  • Green tea

>Western Okinawa diet

  • Rye bread
  • Lean cheese
  • Apple
  • Tea

[LUNCH]

  • Seaweed salad
  • Grilled eggplant
  • Rice
  • Eel skewer
  • Papaya, cucumber
  • Green tea

[DINNER]

  • Rice with red beans and goya
  • Pineapple

>Western Okinawa diet

[MORNING MEALS]

  • Rye bread
  • Lean cheese
  • Apple
  • Tea

[LUNCH]

  • Brown rice
  • Spaghetti with basil and soy beans
  • Grilled chicken
  • Mushroom salad                 
  • Tea

[DINNER]

  • Italian fish
  • Spicy tofu
  • Cucumber dressing
  • Papaya
  • Tea

>Okinawa diet with recipes for vegetarians

[MORNING MEALS]

  • Soy milk and chia seed porridge
  • Red fruit soup
  • Tea

[LUNCH]

  • Cucumber salad with gomasio
  • Miso soup with flat beans, bean sprouts
  • Grilled tofu
  • Pineapple carpaccio
  • Tea

[DINNER]

  • Oriental salad with falafel, mint and grilled peppers
  • Soy yogurt and lemon sauce
  • Homemade seasonal fruit compote
  • Herbal tea


Advantages and disadvantages:

{The positives of the Okinawa diet}

  • Satiety provided by a good intake of fiber and protein
  • Western version easy to follow in the long run
  • Compatible with an active social life
  • Low priority but often diet-induced weight loss
  • Balanced, diverse and healthy diet
  • No food prohibitions or deprivation
  • The negative points of the diet
  • It can be difficult not to eat until you are full
  • Origin foods sometimes difficult to find in the West
  • Requires an effort of cultural adaptation

Recommendations and precautions to be taken:

Are there any risks?

{The Okinawa diet may carry certain risks for uninformed people:}

  1. Reducing your calorie intake over the long term without being overweight and unattended can pose certain health risks, including leading to nutritional deficiencies. The supervision of a doctor and a nutritionist is advised.
  2. Consumption of seaweed by people with hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism can be harmful to their health
  3. The Okinawa diet has certain dietary restrictions that could push the individual following it into a period of excess that is difficult to control.

Is this a diet for you?

You can benefit from the Okinawa diet if you want to develop better long-term eating habits. This diet promotes the consumption of foods close to nature, beneficial to health and with great nutritional qualities. Listening to oneself and the philosophy of life are also pillars of this method. It is important to note that losing weight is not the goal of this diet.

Is it a diet compatible with sport?

Yes, physical activity is also a pillar of the Okinawan way of life. It is essential to maintain the body in good health and prevent various pathologies. It acts in synergy with food.

How not to gain weight? 

The Okinawa diet is not particularly restrictive and not intended to lose weight, there is no reason to notice a weight gain when stopping the diet. Especially since this lifestyle is supposed to be adopted in the very long term to promote health and longevity.

Some figures to go further:

It is true that Okinawan centenarians consume few calories. In a 1996 study, the calorie intake of centennial men and women in Okinawa was about 1,100 calories per day, which is less than the recommended calorie intake in the West. Eating sufficient servings of low energy density foods provides satiety. It can indeed help to lose weight. In animals, calorie restriction has been shown to improve longevity. In humans, in the short term, calorie restriction brings certain benefits, in particular an improvement in the lipid balance (cholesterol, triglycerides). A  prospective study , published in  The Journal of Gerontology in 2004, even found that men who consume 15% to 50% fewer calories than average reduce their risk of death from all causes.

There is no scientific data regarding the long-term effect of calorie restriction on humans. Some researchers are concerned about possible negative consequences, including the risk of nutritional deficiencies.

The results of another study showed that foods traditionally eaten in the Okinawa region have higher anti-cancer properties than those eaten in the rest of Japan. Let us also remember that the secret to the longevity of the inhabitants of Okinawa lies not only in their diet and their level of physical activity, but also in socio-cultural, psychological and hereditary factors.

Here are some thoughts by Dietitian's on the Okinawa diet:

The Okinawa diet is very interesting for several reasons. First, it promotes exceptional nutritional quality through the consumption of fruits, vegetables, fatty fish and whole grains. It is one of the richest diets in micronutrients and Omega-3. Then, its beneficial effects on the prevention of diseases of civilization, on obesity and on longevity have been demonstrated on several occasions. Finally, it encourages us to question deep eating behaviors and adopt long-term healthy lifestyle habits (listen to hunger signals, celebrate the powers of food, etc.). I particularly like this diet and I encourage you to apply some of its main principles, without ever going overboard.

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Are the barriers of dieting psychological or physical?

On the last count the word ‘diet’ produced in excess of 157 million web pages of diet plans, pills, potions and dieting tips from health institutions, diet companies, nutritional professionals and otherwise - from all over the world.  And yet we are approaching the peak of an obesity epidemic which is causing untold mental misery and depression, aside from the ever increasing debilitating diseases being linked to those overweight or obese.  With such an abundance of information available -  how can this be?

The trend is unforgiving and is second only to smoking in terms of the cause of self-inflicted premature loss of life, but left to its own devices within the next five years obesity is sure to take the number one slot.  Mother Nature is ruthless in her approach to life, in that she only allows the fittest to survive and the trend we see today is her reaction to the effects of a diet that is clearly not suited to the well-being of the human body and mind.  We only have to stop, take a step in back and look around us to see that there is one hell of a serious problem.  There is no need for statistics, reports or media news to tell us such.  It's clear that we as individuals have to make a change in what we do if we have any intention to reverse the current obesity trend.  The ultimate responsibility lies with each and every one of us to act for the benefit of ourselves.

We have to accept the fact that the grocery industry is a host of contradiction in that it sells both dietary products along side the very products that cause us to be overweight or obese in the first instance. This is so obvious in our supermarkets today.  It has become human nature that profit has a higher weighting than human health, and this is evident in many industries around the world, and is far from unique within dieting circles.  We must also bear in mind the diet companies, whilst they portray an air of interest and concern, in reality they are totally dependent on your failure to diet for their very own business survival.  If they were good at what they do – their businesses would surely fail. So who can we trust aside from ourselves.  The evidence is clear -there is no debate.

We may have one reprieve but it will be sometime in the future, but not now.  Science and technology is getting nearer and nearer to the possibility of a wonder drug with the ever-increasing understanding of the human genotype and genetic engineering.  But in reality, who would ever wish or want to be dependent on diet drugs,  potentially an ongoing daily basis, simply because of a lack of understanding about the relationship between the food our body has been designed for, and the food we eat.  Why is it, we knowingly overeat when we know it is bad for us and that we are doing harm to ourselves?  Why is it, that the only time we choose to ignore our food is the time when we are eating it!

So, is it a psychological thing, a physical thing or is it both?

In order to answer this we must first look at the change in our diet over the last 50 years. Consumption trends of refined carbohydrates such as sugar has risen dramatically, but at the same time the consumption of fats and proteins has remained reasonably stable.  Saturated fats has indeed become and still is a problem although thankfully now overall consumption of saturated fats has dropped slightly, but still remains an issue.

Many studies particularly those associated with research in how the Atkins diet worked revealed that the effect of refined carbohydrates and fats both have a form of addiction associated with them.  Studies have shown that refined sugars have the effect of playing havoc with the fine balance of maintaining the level of glucose in the bloodstream.  This in turn has a detrimental effect on our hormonal activity, such as insulin and glucagon which are both responsible for maintaining the level of glucose to its normal level following a ‘surge’ intake of refined carbohydrates in our diet.  These acceptable levels of glucose in the bloodstream are maintained at surprisingly narrow margins.

Refined sugars therefore induces excessive hormonal activity in its attempt to restore homeostasis. These unnatural  ‘swings’ in hormonal activity often cause differing mood swings from that of being happy and content to being sad, on edge, and even feelings of anxiety or panic.  Prolonged exposure to these hormonal swings can often lead to the whole process becoming less effective and subsequently diabetes can be the end result.

Other studies have shown surprisingly that the effect of eating significant quantities of fats actually leads to an unexpected human reaction in terms of nutrition.  You would think that eating food rich in fats would have the effect of satisfying feeling of hunger. But amazingly medical research has shown the opposite to be true.  Clinical trials have shown that foods rich in fats actually induces people to eat more not less.  At the time the results from such experiments were groundbreaking as they completely contradicted the nutritional thinking of the time.

It is also interesting to learn that further medical studies have suggested that foods rich in protein have been linked to the response that indicates that you have consumed sufficient food. In other words, it is believed that proteins in some way, triggers the ‘I am full’ response.

And then of course there is the massive change in our energy expenditure. We used to hunt and gather food but now we happily pop to the local supermarket to buy it, or at worse, have it delivered to our front door. Food has changed from being scarce to being in abundance (at least for us), and we have changed from being ‘active’ to relatively ‘dormant’. Move less and eat more…what should we expect?

And many believe that even the act of not exercising can trigger the bodily response to lower the metabolism and build fat layers under the skin for 2 key reasons, both being linked to human survival.  In evolutionary terms, it may be that you are unable to ‘hunt’ and therefore unable to secure food. Reducing the metabolic rate of your body makes total sense to preserve energy. Secondly, if food is available during a spell of non activity, does it not make a whole load of sense to lay down fat layers under the skin to retain bodily heat and secure an energy source during potential ‘lean times’. Perfect sense, perfect design and yet we don’t understand ourselves and if we do, many choose to ignore the warning signs out body is offering.

In essence therefore, it is very clear that part of the problem within the dieting world that we humans face is certainly a physical one that is linked to the interaction of the food types we eat with that of our body.  And clearly, over the last 50 odd years our diet has changed out of all recognition and yet our body is doing the same as it has been doing for well over the last 100,000 years.  We are in the 21st century, our body is still in the ‘Stone Age’. Evolution is a slow slow process but over millions of years the relationship and reaction of chemicals in our food with the cells of the human body has been cemented and cast, for eons of time.

So, it is us that need to change…because Mother Nature will not entertain us for thousands of years to come…

Run with it, eat what your body has been designed for and successful weight loss will follow for sure.

Resources:

The 2 Week Diet System - Click Here