Regardless of whether you want to lose a few tens of kilograms, or just a couple or two, the most effective and reasonable way to achieve this is to reduce your calorie intake. Many people are sure that for successful weight loss, you need to switch to low-fat foods and reduce fat consumption to a minimum, give up sweet and flour… But in fact, it is much more important to reduce the calorie content of your daily diet. Not fats and carbohydrates are deposited in fat — all the calories unclaimed by your body are processed into it. And if you spend fewer calories than you get with food and drinks, you inevitably get fat. This is an axiom. And if your lifestyle does not involve intensive physical training, and work is not associated with constant running around the floors and offices, then limiting the calorie content of your daily diet is the only way to lose weight and not get better after that again. So how do you reduce the number of calories to lose weight?
Below are some simple strategies that will make it easier for you to control the calorie content of the foods you eat.
Use small-sized dishes
It is a well-known fact: the larger the diameter of the plate, the smaller the portion looks on it. As a result: we eat more than we need. This is especially true at guests and at buffet banquets. Therefore, serve your food in plates with a smaller diameter than is customary. For example, use dessert or salad plates for serving. This psychological maneuver helps to better control portion sizes and avoid overeating.
Take yourself a baby portion
If you periodically go to cafes and restaurants, if you can’t completely give up fast food, then at least order yourself not an adult, but a children’s portion. For example, if you can’t imagine going to the cinema without a bag of popcorn, then keep in mind that a child’s portion contains about 150-200 kcal, whereas an adult «bucket» can exceed 1000 kcal, and this is without toppings (and without drinks that you will buy there to quench your thirst). A child’s portion of soda contains an average of 100 kcal, while an adult reaches 400 kcal.
By the way, now in many restaurants it is possible to order not a whole portion of a dish, but only half.
Do not eat food directly from the packaging
You’ve probably noticed how quickly an open pack of cookies ends when it remains on the table, or an opened bar of chocolate. And how quickly does the package with nuts and candied fruits lying at hand melt, and at what speed does a liter bottle of soda that is standing next to you drink? You can stop uncontrolled eating from bags only by putting it on your plate or pouring into a glass exactly as much as you plan to eat / drink. Then the two cookies scheduled for eating will not be followed by the rest of the pack, the whole tile will not disappear after a couple of squares of chocolate, and a glass of cola will not be bottomless.
Don’t eat in the kitchen
This is another clever move that helps not to overeat. The kitchen is the concentration of food. It’s everywhere here and freely available. How easy it is, after eating a plate of something delicious, to get into a saucepan for an extra portion… But in order to go to another room to eat, you will have to immediately put everything you planned to eat on a tray, and no more. And in this case, you will not be tempted to run to the kitchen for a supplement (at least, you will be too lazy to do it). If you use the following rule, then you will not want this extra portion of food.
Eat slowly
It takes your brain 20 minutes to realize the fact that your stomach is already full. Therefore, the slower you eat, the more likely you are to realize that you are full before you overeat. One of the tricks to eat more slowly is not to fill your spoon/fork before you chew and swallow what is in your mouth. Another trick is to put a glass of clean water next to you and take small sips after each swallowed piece of food.
«Fill» the stomach with vegetable food
Fruits, vegetables, whole-grain dishes (without oil), salad greens can literally «stuff» your stomach with low-calorie food, leaving very little space for high-calorie foods. In addition, food of plant origin has to be chewed for longer, which also helps to feel full before you eat more than you need.
Just imagine that one small piece of butter contains as many calories as three bowls of broccoli, and the calorie content of a small cube of hard cheese is comparable to the energy value of a large glass of oatmeal.
Read the labels on the products
Make it a rule to read what is indicated in the «nutritional value» column on the labels of those products that you are going to buy. What is the caloric content of the product, how much fat and carbohydrates it contains. Some foods seem harmless to us, but in fact they contain unexpectedly many calories and fat. Take, for example, the glazed cheeses beloved by many as a snack. They contain an average of 400-420 kcal per 100 g. The weight of one cheese is 40-50 g, depending on the manufacturer. That is, one serving contains about 200 kcal. And 100 g of glazed cheese contains 27 g of fat. Thus, one cheese covers from a third to half of the daily fat allowance in an adult. If you don’t want to deprive yourself of this delicacy, think about how you can afford it. On the same day, you will definitely not be able to eat cheese, a piece of chocolate, and a sweet bun. Most likely, you will have to dilute this company with boiled lean meat, vegetables and fruits.
Read the energy composition of all your favorite snack foods, recalculate the calorie content per serving (a small portion size can be deceptive), and either reduce the portion or give them up, finding them a delicious, but less caloric alternative.
And how much to hang in grams?
A reasonable question arises — how many calories are optimally needed per day in order not to get fat? Most nutritionists say that a woman needs about 2000 calories per day, but with age their number should decrease: from 26 to 50 years it is better to consume 1800 kcal, and after 50 years — no more than 1600. However, with active physical activity, the total number of calories per day can be increased. Men have a faster metabolism, so they are prescribed to consume about 2400 kcal per day before the age of 30, from 31 to 50 years – 2200, after 50 years — 2200-2400.
Everything that is not water contains calories
Pay attention to the calorie content of juices, fruit drinks, drinking yoghurts and soft drinks such as iced tea, cola and other things — even with a calorie content of 50-120 kcal per 100 g, you risk going over calories if you drink these drinks in bags and bottles.
Despite the fact that alcoholic beverages do not contain fats, the calories coming from them tend to be deposited in the form of fats on the stomach. The best proof of this is the beer bellies of beer lovers. In addition, the sweeter the wine, the more calories it has; the stronger the drink, the more calories it contains per 100 g. For example, a glass (300 ml) of dry wine is, on average, 200 kcal, a glass of dessert wine is 300-450 kcal.
A separate conversation about liqueurs: depending on the composition, they may contain fat. For example, 100 g of Baileys liqueur contains 13 g of fat and 327 kcal.
Don’t be fooled by «fat-free» desserts
Fat-free and fat-free products are extremely fashionable now. It seems to us that if we don’t eat fatty foods, we don’t get fat. But this is not the case. We get fat from high-calorie food, no matter what it consists of. Always pay attention to the calorie content, even if you are holding a «low-fat» dessert yogurt, «low-fat» ice cream or marshmallows. Any sweet dessert contains sugar (or fructose, which is not better). In 100 g of marshmallows or marshmallows, for example, 300 to 400 kcal are hidden.
