Healthy diet plan to reduce your food intake

Healthy diet plan to reduce your food intake
Seven suggestions to follow that can help a person eat less food during a diet and throughout life are offered.





One of the most effective methods to lose weight is to eat less, combined with an exercise regimen. Figuring out how to do that, especially when one is used to ingesting large quantities, can be exasperating.

Here are some techniques that can help.



1. Become familiar with food labels and the quantities they use.


By using cooking utensils – teaspoons, measuring cups, etc. – and a small food scale, one can learn what constitutes a serving listed on the food labels. The measured amounts also provide a means to estimate how much one puts on a plate as well, especially in restaurants.


Becoming aware of what one is eating, and its caloric count, helps a person focus on controlling his or her intake. Of course, this alone won't prevent one from overeating, if that is one's habit.


2. Choose lower fat foods.


Selecting foods with low caloric value, such as vegetables and fruits, will add bulk to one's diet, which can help make a person feel full during meals.


Some nutritionists found women reduced their average consumption by 450 calories a day by eating a large portion of such foods. Apparently, their bodies felt full following such a meal.


3. Keep a food diary.


Writing down everything one eats, with the caloric value for that amount, helps reveal exactly how much one is consuming, and consequently, where one can comfortably cut down through substitutions.


Recording all food eaten also helps a person eat less because then he or she won't have to write it down – and work at exercising to counter its effects.


4. Resolve to eat more slowly and take smaller bites.


It takes around 20 minutes for our bodies to register that we're full once we begin eating. And research has shown that people who wolf down their meals often overeat.


One technique that seems to help some people consume less is to take a bite, then put the fork down, chew the bite, swallow and then pick up the fork and select a second bite.


There is even a device available from dentists that can mechanically force a person to eat smaller bites.


5. Use smaller-sized plates.


Instead of the normal, 10" plates found in most china stores, purchase ones that are around 9" in diameter. They may be located in restaurant supply stores.


Or to really make a change, use the saucers or bread plates that come with a set of china.


By placing food on tinier plates, it appears like more than it is, helping to fool the brain into thinking that one is eating more with less food.


6. Remove from the kitchen all foods that can sabotage weight loss and maintenance.


Chips, cookies, candies all can be tempting to someone attempting to control his or her intake, especially if he or she grew up munching on them. To avoid unnecessary backsliding, just throw or give away the bags and containers of these highly processed products. Regard them more as poisons than as treats.


In their place, purchase fresh fruits to display on counters and stuff in refrigerators. Buy the common vegetables used for hors d'oeuvre (celery, carrots, radishes, etc.) and prepare them for snacking. Nuts and dried fruits can also be substituted for chips, but since they are calorie dense, their ingestion needs to be moderated.


7. Fill up on fluids instead of solids.


Drinking water or clear broth or iced tea (with sugar substitute) can help fill up one's stomach before a meal. Diet sodas can be drunk in moderation. All of this will help cut down on the consumption of more fattening solid foods.


Portion control is vital to losing and maintaining weight. Whatever system a person selects to slim down, he or she needs to make lifelong changes.


Otherwise, the strategy will succeed in the short term but fail in the long.


Instead of following current fad diets, choose to alter eating patterns that will last a lifetime. Some people decide to become vegetarians; others moderate their intake of higher fat substances, like red meats, fried foods, etc., while increasing their consumption of vegetables and fruits.


Deliberately choosing a new eating lifestyle helps ensure one of maintaining the weight loss, instead of dropping pounds only to put them back on once a specific diet is stopped.


Re-educating oneself about proper ways to eat will increase the chances of succeeding.