The vast majority of overweight and obese people wish they weren’t. Most try diet after diet and meal plan after meal plan in an attempt to lose their excess weight. However, not all diets are healthy and able to be sustained over the long term. Ideally, all dieters should find a healthy way to lose weight, that won’t compromise their long term health for some short term (and usually temporary) results.
In any eating plan that advocates a healthy way to lose weight, there has to be a good variety of high quality foods. There also has to be enough protein, carbohydrates and fats for healthy bodily function, as well as all the necessary vitamins and minerals the body needs to function at its best.
Many people foolishly believe that shakes and powders, with added vitamins and minerals provide the answer, but they’re wrong. Although you may be getting the minimum requirement for nutrients with these meal replacement drinks or bars, they’re definitely not a long term answer to weight loss.
For starters, they don’t help teach proper eating habits (as the last thing anyone wants is to maintain this sort of restrictive dietary regimen for the rest of their lives). Proper eating habits involve not only eating healthily in order to lose weight, but in order to remain healthy for a lifetime.
It involves food selection and preparation practices, it involves knowing how much to eat at any time, and recognizing the difference between real hunger and cravings.
For many years, weight loss eluded me. At my worst I was about fifty pounds over my ideal weight, and I tried many, many things to lose it! I managed to successfully regain a healthy weight at one point by relying on a combination of diet drinks and prescription diet pills. Once I stopped taking the pills (which were expensive and weren’t recommended for long term consumption) the weight gradually crept back on. I then tried diet drinks and bars alone, but found myself craving other foods, and breaking my diet. Inevitably, I managed to reach a higher weight than ever before!
I then experimented with several healthy ways to lose weight, but was often bored by the foods I selected, and craved sugars and fats. Then I discovered The Mediterranean Diet. Through following this program of eating, which included many delicious fresh vegetables and tasty dishes, I managed to lose the excess weight over a number of months. The main reason I was able to stick to this eating plan was that I didn’t feel as if I was missing out on eating tasty food, and I wasn’t hungry.
Although some people report very fast weight loss while following The Mediterranean Diet, my weight loss was more gradual. I lost about 4 pounds in my first week, and for the next few weeks consistently lost around 1 to 2 pounds a week. After losing the majority of my excess pounds, my weight loss dropped to half a pound a week, sometimes less, but eventually I reached my goal weight, which I have been able to maintain with ease ever since.
If you are looking for a healthy way to lose weight, that will not only help you drop those excess pounds (no matter how many extra you have), then this is a diet that’s tasty and easy to stick to, and which you’ll be able to follow for the rest of your life. It’s not some “drop 20 pounds in two weeks” fad diet, either, so you’re unlikely to suffer any ill effects from following it. Best of all, you’ll no longer need to spend a fortune on useless pills, powders and bars.
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