TEN TIPS FOR HEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS By Patricia Nmukoso Enyi
If you feel the need to lose weight, don’t forget you didn’t gain that weight overnight. So, the best way to lose weight and keep it off, is to do it slowly over a few months. This is the best way to keep the weight from coming back. To do this, you must change the way you eat, mostly how much you eat. If you are already overweight, you know you are eating too much.In Africa, our Ancestors ate a lot of carbohydrates. This is because we were an agrarian society. Our life style and economy were based on farming. We needed the carbohydrate for the energy to do the farming work. Now most of us do not go to the farm, but we still eat like farmers. Hence, we are gaining weight and experiencing some of the side effects of excess consumption of calories.
Here are the ten tips to lose weight and keep it off.
1. Drink more water. An average bottle of water is 500 milliliters, which is equivalent to 16.9 ounces. You need to drink at least 4 bottles of water per day.
2. No soft drinks. Soft drinks have calories. And empty calories have no nutritional value. You can add some lemon or lemon juice in your water to give it taste. Lemon help burn calories, too.
3. No alcohol. It is okay to drink occasional red wine. It is good for your over all health, but not too much. For those who do not drink alcohol for religious reason, or personal reason, drink juice is a good substitute.
4. You know if you are overweight, you are taking too much food. Cut down on the amount of carbohydrates you are eating. This includes rice, bread and fufu. Start with eating half of what you used to eat, then get down to one fourth.
5. Eat more protein. You need to add protein rich food in your diet. Eat more lean meat, fish and chicken without the skin.
6. Eat more vegetable. Vegetables have fiber, and this fill you up more and make you feel full. Make sure when you fill your plate of food, vegetables are at least half of the food in your plate.
7. Take a walk or start doing light exercise at least three times a week.
8. Cut down on fried foods. If you must eat something fried, use a healthy oil that has a high smoke point. This is a lot of talk about coconut oil these days. And the talk is good. Coconut oil is a healthy oil. Also, canola oil is another good and healthy oil for cooking and frying. They both have high smoke point. This means, it will take longer for coconut oil to start smoking. Coconut oil is good for your heart. It is 86% healthy saturated fat. Olive oil is another good oil for cooking, but not for frying. It has a low smoke point. Olive oil is good for saluting food. Canola oil is probably the cheapest of the three.
9. Avoid fruits. Fruits are loaded with sugar. You can eat fruit every once in a while for best weight loss result.
10. Try to eat three meals a day and eat two healthy natural snacks in between meals. A handful of nuts, that is occasionally fruit. Only eat when you are hungry and not after 6 pm.
References
It is very important that you see a doctor before you commence on the journey of losing weight, do not say because your friend did it this way you have to follow her way, no it worked for your friend or sister does not mean it will work for you, remember we all have different body system. Don’t forget that good health is life.
