5 Food Habits to Practice When You Want to Lose Weight

5 Food Habits to Practice When You Want to Lose Weight

There's a reason that grocery stores put all of the tempting foods at eye level and within easy reach. We like things easy and fast and when we see our favorite fattening foods, it can override our willpower.

It's even worse if we're tired, moody or bored. How tired we are, how we feel and what we're experiencing can influence food choices. Denial can also be an issue when you're thinking of changing your food habits in order to lose weight.

When most women hear the word "diet," they immediately start thinking about all of the foods they can no longer eat. Losing weight is not as much about denying yourself food as it is simply choosing to eat more good foods over the less healthy ones.

The first food habit to practice is to plan for successful weight loss. This means that you don't want to have the foods that are your weakness within easy reach. You don't want to avoid them altogether because the more off limits a food is, the more your body will have a craving for it.

If you have certain foods that are your weakness, you should still buy them, but get them only in single serving sizes. 

 

The second food habit to adopt is to use portion control.

We tend to underestimate the size of the portions on our plate and it can be too easy to stay in that super sized mindset. It's always better to measure out portions.

 

The third food habit is to learn how you're sabotaging yourself. You should ask yourself if you're truly hungry or if you're reaching for something simply because it's your fallback mechanism kicking in.

Your fallback mechanism is what you rely on when you're feeling down or worried about something or you simply have the munchies. This is when you can eat more than you intended.

The fourth food habit is to fit your weight loss eating plan into your lifestyle. This is the area that trips up many women who want to lose weight. They plan out all of their meals at home, but fail to plan for the times when they might be working late or out with friends.

It can be too tempting to think that you've blown it for one night so you might as well over-eat. Figure out ahead of time what you're going to do to eat healthy for the times when you can't make it home by dinner.

 

The fifth food habit is to monitor your hunger level. When you get hungry, this can cause you to override all of your good intentions. Keep healthy snacks on hand and eat more often than you normally would.

You can break up three large meals into six smaller ones. Not only will you feel fuller all day, but you'll eat better and keep your metabolism revved up to burn more calories.