Why Awareness is Essential in a Weight Loss Diet
If you want to make dieting work for you, you have to develop one very crucial trait. That characteristic is that of awareness. Awareness means being in full control and knowing everything about any activity you are currently engaged in.
Synonymous with cognizance, awareness entails full realization of all aspects of your diet plan. And because you are fully aware, you cannot make excuses in the event that you fail.
The importance of awareness in your weight loss diet lies in the fact that it actively involves you in all phases of the diet. You need to be able to understand the reasons and rationale behind food apportioning and restriction.
This also prevents you from succumbing to the false promises offered by fad or crash diets. It also leads you to question why food restriction is beneficial when it slows down your metabolism. In short, awareness leads you to become an educated dieter.
With awareness, you are taught the kinds of food to eat, how much food you can eat and the healthiest means of food preparation that would contribute best to weight loss. You understand that fruits, vegetables and whole grains should comprise majority of your meals even as you realize that cutting back on all the processed junk is necessary for losing the excess pounds. You begin to understand that no matter how many bananas or apples or celery you ingest, they won’t derail your weight loss efforts.
Conversely, you know you have to minimize, avoid if possible, highly-processed foods like pastries and French fries, if you want to lose all those excess pounds. If you are really an educated dieter, you will know that chicken meat without the skin is less fattening compared to one with the skin on. You will also prefer fish over pork meat.
Healthy cooking methods are developed with constant awareness. You can steam or boil instead of always frying everything in oil or butter.
Salad preparation can also be made healthier and less fat-laden. The health-giving goodness of vegetables in a salad can be overshadowed by its high caloric-content because of all the condiments and seasoning in it. Mayonnaise is less healthy than vinaigrette dressing and should be minimized.
Avoid any refined sugar when making your fruit or green smoothies since this could easily increase the calorie content of your drink. To sweeten the taste, use honey and not refined sugar. When you are craving for something sweet, learn how to substitute so you eat less calories but still satisfy your sweet tooth at the same time. Ice cream can be substituted with low fat yogurt or sherbet while a piece of fruit can replace a bar of chocolate or candy.
When you are aware, you know that exercise is a necessary part of your diet program for weight loss. Dieting can only help you lose the excess fats but does nothing to make you look lean or develop your strength. Flabby and yucky-looking underarms often results when you don’t incorporate exercise into your diet. Aside from shaping up your body, exercise makes you healthy and makes you burn calories and lose weight fast.
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