Top 7 Nutrition Strategies for Shedding Fat
Written on November 12, 2007 – 6:04 pm | by Jeff Ainslie
Proper nutrition is really the key to overall health and especially fat loss. Keep in mind that you need to control your portion sizes to control your weight, but these strategies will turbo-charge your weight loss.
1. Prepare most of your meals in advance and have healthy snacks on hand.
If you have some healthy staple foods in the fridge, such as cooked turkey, chicken, and raw veggies, it is easy to stick to your eating plan. Don’t get stuck without food and have to choose bad choices such as fast food. If you prepare your own food, you can control how it is prepared, the quality, and the portion size. If you are hungry and are tempted to snack, make sure you have something healthy ready – just because you had an extra snack doesn’t mean that it has to be a disaster.
2. Try to eat every 3 hours.
If you don’t have the time for 5 or 6 quality meals, have 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks. This speeds up your metabolism. It keeps your blood sugar levels at a near constant level through-out the day and keeps you from being hungry. Eating small frequent meals actually fires up your fat burning furnace. Remember, Sumo wrestlers eat only 1 or 2 times per day. Their metabolisms greatly slow down between their meals and it is easier for them to put on fat.
3. Do not eat until you are full.
By the time you realize you are full, you have already over-eaten. A large meal will have excess calories that can be stored as fat. Get used to eating smaller meals, but more often.
4. Have a lean protein with every meal.
Protein is what your body is made of. It is used to build and repair your muscles, tissues, organs etc. It only stays in your blood stream for about 3 hours, so you need to eat it often. Another benefit of protein is that it takes more energy to digest than carbs or fat, so your Net Calories from eating protein is a little lower. Just make sure that you are eating lean proteins such as chicken breasts, white turkey, or egg whites.
5. Eat natural foods from Mother Nature, not a box.
Any processing of food reduces the quality of that food. Mother Nature does make it best. That is the easiest way to avoid things such as trans fats and excess sodium.
6. Do not drink your calories.
Eat an apple instead of apple juice. With an apple you get more nutrients and fiber and less calories than drinking apple juice. Calories in liquids don’t satisfy you like some “real” food does. If you drink a sugary soft drink with a meal, you generally don’t eat any less.
7. Give yourself one cheat meal per week.
If you are eating 6 quality meals per day, you are eating 42 meals per week. Having one meal “off” per week is good for your sanity and your social life. Just keep that meal reasonable, and don’t let a cheat meal become a cheat day!
Tags: Eat Often, Fat Loss, Nutrition Strategies, Shedding Fat, Weight loss, Weight Loss Strategies
5 Responses to “Top 7 Nutrition Strategies for Shedding Fat”
By MCamp on Dec 8, 2007 | Reply
I really look forward to your podcasts – they help to make sense of all the propaganda out there.
But one thing I have been reading about recently suggests that multiple mini-meals wreck havoc with our insulin response. I read that in the book titled “Mastering Leptin”, by Byron Richards, which I am only half-way through at this point.
What do you think? As always, I look to those who are working with their own weight loss issues, rather than believe 100% what authors write. I trust what I can see, I suppose.
By Amy on Jan 6, 2008 | Reply
I am debating the route I want to go to control my daily diet: do I count calories and eat more of the healthier foods out there, or do I eat whole foods and not worry about counting calories? I have been told and read that if you eat whole foods until you are satisfied you do not have to worry about counting calories and your body will eventually balance out to the weight you are supposed to be. Is there any truth to that? If there is would you naturally eat more frequently throughout the day? I am really dreading becoming one of those people who have to obsess (sorry about spelling) about how many calories are in every thing they eat and drink. Please help. (I love the new podcast btw)
By divya on Jan 25, 2009 | Reply
ALL THOSE ARTICLES FOUND IN THE ABOVE WAS SO USEFUL FOR ME AS IM A FAT KID BY NATURE,nOW IM TRYIN TO LOSE MIU WEIGHT BT I DIDN GET PROPER RESULTS EVEN I TOOK MANY DIETS.