You can lose weight by following a low carb low fat diet. Why would you want to lose weight? Well apart from the obvious affect on your appearance, did you know that carrying excess pounds increases your risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Not to mention the aches and pains caused by the strain of carrying the increase in weight.
Before embarking on a weight loss plan, go see your doctor and find out what your ideal weight is. Despite the huge number of skinny celebrities, this is not a healthy look and not one that you should aspire to. Your individual optimum weight will depend on your height, your build and to a lesser extent your genetics.
So what is the best way to lose weight? It is really via education. You would need to be living under a rock not to know that eating fast food takeouts every night for dinner is causing you to pile on the pounds. Yet we still do it. We go into our favorite restaurants and ask for larger meal sizes as they seem better value.
We know we should exercise more yet we sit on the couch watching our favorite TV shows. Why have sales of games like Wii fit exploded over recent years? They allow us to sit on the couch but pretend we are being active!
If you try a low carb, low fat diet today then do yourself a favour and set yourself up for success. You cannot just suddenly change your diet habits in one day. You need to be prepared. Go shopping and stock up on the types of foods you will be eating. Bin the white bread, pasta, rice, sugar coated cereals and juices. You will be eating wholegrain or granary breads from now on and unless it is brown pasta or brown rice it won’t be part of your new diet.
Keeping a food diary is a great way to keep track of your progress. You can easily see where your weak spots are and will then know how best to avoid them. We often delude ourselves into thinking we are eating less. Writing it down makes it harder to lie to ourselves.
When eating at home, try to cook your meals from scratch. Yes I know we are all short on time but pre-packed meals tend to be high in fats and sugars and low in nutrients. Even the low fat varieties contain a lot of sugar and salt mainly added to make them taste better.
If time is a major factor then try bulk cooking. When you do cook, make three times the amount you need and freeze the extra portions. You can have a home cooked meal every night by taking out a dinner from the freezer prior to going to work.