Low Calorie Dieting - Beginner's Guide

Practicing Mindful Low-Calorie Living

2013-11-13T08:57:00.001+01:00

If you’re a Buddhist or you’re familiar with Buddhist philosophy, then you already have some idea about what it means to live mindfully. If you’re not familiar with mindful living, that’s okay. You don’t have to join a monastery to understand the concept. Mindful livingsimply means paying attention to what’s going on in your life right now, in this moment. That’s a no-brainer, right? What’s difficult for many people, however, is the actual practice of mindfulness. For most people, it’s a practice that takes practice.

Mindful living incorporates many useful guidelines for low-calorie living. Some of these guidelines deal directly with eating behavior and provide practical tips for changing that behavior, and others help with the psychological aspects of overeating, such as changing your thinking patterns to help ensure success.

Eating mindfully

Mindful eating is all about being aware of what and how you eat. It means thinking about your food and paying attention to your eating habits. It’s the opposite of mindlesseating, which is actually easier because it requires no thought whatsoever.

Eating mindfully prevents you from eating too much food at one sitting or putting food into your mouth all day long without even realizing that you’re eating. Perhaps the best thing about mindful eating is that it has no negative after-effects and no guilt involved. You can’t say the same about eating mindlessly!

Here are the basic steps of mindful eating to follow every time you eat:
1. Pay attention to the way you prepare your food.
2. Prepare your food carefully and thoughtfully.
3. Prepare your dining table with care and attention.
4. Pay attention to the amount of food you put on your plate.
5. Relax as you sit down to eat.
6. Look at your food, smell it, be aware of it as you eat.
7. Eat slowly.
8. Avoid interruptions and stressful conversations while you eat.
9. Pay attention to your body’s hunger level as you eat.
10. Eat no more than you need to eat to feel satisfied.
11. Spend a quiet minute or two reflecting on your meal when you’ve finished eating.

Thinking mindfully

How often have you said to yourself, “I’m too fat” or “I hate my thighs” or even “I’ll never be able to stop eating”? Mindful thinking encourages you to pay attention to this type of negative “self-talk” and the effect it has on your self-esteem and motivation.

When you think mindfully, you catch yourself in negative self-talk and allow yourself a moment to change it to something positive. Mindful thinking allows you to listen to your own brain chatter and ultimately replace negative and destructive thoughts with something more affirming.

Self-supporting statements such as “I am loving and capable” are called affirmations.They’re nothing more than soft and fluffy thoughts that are helpful for giving yourself a lift and keeping yourself motivated when the dieting gets tough. If you’re not in the habit of using affirmations, you may want to come up with a few affirmations that have meaning for you and start using them to replace the harsher thoughts you sometimes have about yourself. For instance, if you’re ready to give up before you even begin your diet, you may say to yourself, “There’s no point; I’m never going to lose weight.” Because that type of thinking doesn’t help, having an opposing affirmation handy, per-haps one that says “I’m not giving in to failure,” or at least, “I’m going to give this my best shot,” can be beneficial.

Some people think affirmations are silly and are completely turned off by them. If you’re one of those people, try to suspend your judgment and practice using affirmations in your daily life. See if they help bring you back to a positive frame of mind when you’re slipping into negative waters. See if they help you maintain a better outlook throughout the day. You may not always feel on top of your world, but at the very least you may be able to muster up something like, “I’ve had worse days” when you hit a roadblock and are tempted to give up.

Whether you’re looking in the mirror or searching your soul, focus on your best personal traits and on your successes, not on your failures. Use the following affirmations to replace negative thoughts in a variety of situations.

Instead of:	You Can Say:
I’m going to be fat forever.	It took a while to get here; it’ll take a while to get back.
I hate my body.	My body’s getting healthier every day
I’m starving.	I’m looking forward to eating healthier foods.
This diet is too hard.	Just wait. Good things take time.
It’s going too slow.	If I’m patient, I’ll be successful. I can wait as long as it takes.
I’m going to buy a candy bar.	I’m strong enough to say “no” this time.
I feel sick all the time.	I’m getting stronger and healthier every day.
I’m so ashamed of the way I look.	I’m so proud of myself for setting weight goals.
I can’t do this.	I can’t wait to see the new me.
I’m going to fail again.	Every day is a new beginning.

Weighing in on a regular basis

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Most people who are concerned about their weight own a bathroom scale. Weighing in is one way of monitoring yourself and assessing your progress. It can also be a good motivating tool, giving you the push you need to work a little harder on your goal, as long as you don’t become a slave to your scale.

The following sections tell you when to weigh yourself and how to maintain a weight-change chart.

Knowing when to weigh yourself

A scale is a useful tool for tracking weight changes and documenting progress. Weighing yourself allows you to keep a record of how far you’ve come and how far you have to go to reach your goals.

REMEMBER

When you weigh yourself, remember that your weight can fluctuate up to several pounds for any number of reasons, including hormonal changes, a rise or dip in your level of body fluids, and the type of food and drinks you consumed that day. These weight fluctuations have nothing to do with your true weight. For that reason

Weigh yourself no more than once a week.
The numbers on a scale generally don’t lie, but they may not always be an accurate reflection of your true body weight. Don’t be alarmed if the numbers move up or down in inexplicable ways. A certain amount of weight fluctuation is normal from week to week or day to day, even from hour to hour, which is why you don’t want to weight yourself too frequently.
Always weigh yourself on the same day of the week, at the same time of day. Morning is probably best for motivation, because you haven’t eaten yet and weigh less than you will at any other time of day.
Weigh yourself when you’re naked and dry. You could add up to several pounds of false weight from clothing or wet hair.

Filling in a weight-change chart
A weight-change chart (see Table 4-3) graphs your weight loss (or gain) from week to week so you can monitor your diet and exercise changes and be sure they’re working for you.

You may also begin to see a pattern of slight weight gain from time to time, and you’ll also be able to see that this weight gain levels out again after such periods. When you see the repetitive pattern on paper, you’ll be better able to accept these fluctuations as naturally occurring events and trust that they have nothing to do with real weight.

Use the following steps when using your weight-change chart (shown in Table 4-3):

1. Begin by filling in your current weight (starting weight), in the space provided, a few lines down from the top of the chart.

2. One week from now, weigh yourself.

Go to week number 1 at the top of the graph.

3. If you’ve lost weight, move down the graph until you reach the row for the number that represents your weight change for this first week.

Put an Xin the appropriate column.

For example, if you lose 2 pounds, stop at the –2 row and put an X in the Week 1 column.

4. If you gain weight, move upthe graph until you reach the row for the number that represents the number of pounds you gained.

Week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16
+5
+4
+3
+2
+1
0 Start Weight
-1
-2
-3
-4
-5
-6
-7
-8
-9
-10
-15
-20
-25
-30

Table 4-3: A weight-change chart is a handy, easy-to-use tracking too.

5. If you gain or lose a half pound, draw a diagonal line through the center of the appropriate box.

6. Repeat each week, graphing the total number of pounds you’ve lost since Week 1 or since the last time you gained weight.

If you continue to gain, graph the total number of pounds you’ve gained since you stopped losing weight. If you don’t gain or lose any weight during a given week, check the 0 row for that week.

For example, if you lost 2 pounds during Week 1 and 2 more pounds during Week 2, mark the –4 row in the Week 2 column. If you gain 1 pound the following week, mark the +1 row in the Week 3 column. If you lose 2 pounds the following week, mark the –2 row again in the Week 4 column. (But if you gain another pound during Week 4, mark the +2 column in Week 4.) Continue this way for several months to see if your weight fluctuations have a pattern. What you may find is that you lose weight steadily for a period of time, only to gain a pound or two whenever your normal schedule is interrupted or when you experience hormonal changes.

If you’re really into graphing, use dots instead of X’s, and connect the dots for a more graphic representation of your weight fluctuations. Note: This chart doesn’t graph your actual weight or your total weight loss, only the number of pounds you lose (or gain) each week and how your weight sometimes fluctuates.

Keeping a food diary

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Keeping a food diary

Whenever I counsel new clients, I ask them to keep a food diary (a record of all the food they eat) for at least three days before their first appointment. At this point, I’m asking you to do the same. Your food diary doesn’t have to include three consecutive days, but it needs to cover three days that honestly represent the way you eat. I usually suggest documenting at least two weekdays (workdays) and one weekend day (one day off).

Most people think they eat less food than they actually do, and if that’s the case, the number of calories that shows up when they start keeping track surprises them. They also think they eat less fat, sugar, and salt than they actually do. A food diary is such an important tool because it helps you see all this information. In the following sections, I show you how to keep a food diary and what you can find from the information you gather from having one.

Remember

If you start your food diary before you start your diet, you’ll use it to assess your current eating habits and figure out where you have room for improvement. At the end of the day, when you look at your diary, you’ll have most of the information you need to set behavior goals, reshape your diet, refigure your calorie allowance, and keep track of your progress.

How to keep a food diary

You have several ways to keep a food diary, and how you do it depends on how much you enjoy documenting your own life and how much time you can devote to record keeping. When you’re busy, a food diary can be as simple as a scrap of paper on which you write down everything you eat and how much of it you eat. You can carry a piece of paper in your wallet for each day you maintain a record.

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A better way, however, is to buy a special pad or notebook and fill it with as much information as you can about what, when, why, and how you eat. The more time you spend documenting and reviewing your diet now, the more you can discover about yourself and your diet and the less necessary it will be to write it all down as time goes on.

Generally, food diaries are meant to be kept for at least a week or two, but studies have shown that even keeping track of what we eat for a day or two can help us make positive changes to our diets.

Some people keep a food diary indefinitely to help them maintain a healthy weight range once it's helped them achieve their ideal weight.

How long we keep a food diary is going to be a matter of personal choice, the most important thing is to start using one and when we feel that we don't need to anymore, we can stop.

Let's have a look at how to fill out each field contained in each of the food diaries offered on this site (but before we do remember, we don't need to fill out every detail specified in order to get at least some benefit from these food diaries):

Download Food Diary template

Basic Food Diary

Energy Goal: Simply write down your target number of kilojoules or calories for the day.

To calculate how many kilojoules or calories you need to maintain your current weight visit our Daily Energy Needs Calculator.

Date: Write down the relevant date.

Time: Write down the time of each meal (there is an option to record up to six meals per day, including snacks).

Food/Drink Item: Write a description of what you eat and drink at each meal (e.g. Salad Sandwich).

Qty: Write down how many serves of the food/drink item you consume (e.g. 2).

Protein: (Optional) Write down how many grams of protein are contained in what you've consumed - for this information refer to the nutritional information panel printed on the packaging of the food and drink you consume or consult a set of nutritional tables.

Carbs: (Optional) Write down how many grams of carbohydrates are contained in what you've consumed - for this information refer to the nutritional information panel printed on the packaging of the food and drink you consume or consult a set of nutritional tables.

Fat: (Optional) Write down how many grams of fat are contained in what you've consumed - for this information refer to the nutritional information panel printed on the packaging of the food and drink you consume or consult a set of nutritional tables.

KJ / Cals: Write down the total number of kilojoules or calories contained in each food or drink item consumed.

Energy Subtotal: Add up all the kilojoules or calories contained in all the foods and drinks consumed for each meal and write this figure down in the far right column.

Supplements Table: Record all of the information as above for any supplements taken throughout the day.

Total Energy Intake: Add the two energy subtotal numbers together (if relevant) and write the result in the far right column.

Calculation: Write down the total energy intake number in the first field and your energy goal for the day in the second field. Now subtract the second number from the first and the result will equal your surplus (more) or deficit (less) kilojoules or calories for the day.

Water Consumed: Each time you drink a glass of water (200 - 250ml) simply tick one of the boxes provided.

Setting up your lifestyle goals

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In addition to your weight goals (see the previous section), several other types of goals are essential to the long-term success of a low-calorie lifestyle plan. They include your

Food goals: These goals are the changes you want to make to your diet, such as how much you eat, the types of food you choose to eat, and the amount of calories you consume.

Your long-term food goal is to make a low-calorie diet plan part of your permanent lifestyle.
Your intermediate-term food goal may include preparing and eating more low-cal meals at home.
In keeping with these far-reaching goals, one of your short-term food goals may be preparing a low-calorie dinner tonight. (See Chapter 14 for several ideas.)

Behavioral goals: When your long-term goals include eating better and permanent weight loss, behavior modifications are necessary for those goals to become permanent changes.

Your long-term behavioral goal may be to eat mindfully, that is, pay more attention to what and how you eat (see “Eating mindfully,” later in this chapter for details).
One intermediate-term goal may be to take your time and eat slowly.
A short-term behavioral goal toward that end may be to start practicing putting your fork down between bites at your next meal.

See “Giving Yourself a Lifestyle Makeover,” earlier in this chapter for more about changing your overall eating habits.

Psychological goals: If you’re going to change the way you eat forever, you probably have to change your emotional relationship with food.

Your long-term psychological goal may be to avoid emotional eating and overeating, the type of eating you do when you’re sad, angry, or lonely.
Your intermediate-term goal may be to find something else to do other than eat when you’re not happy or to seek professional help to make changes you can’t make alone.
Your short-term goal may be to dig out those knitting needles, paintbrushes, or toolbox, and get to work right away on a new project that can keep your hands busy tonight.

See Chapter 9 for more about adjusting your mindset.

Exercise goals: If you’re going to supplement your low-calorie diet with increased activity, exercise goals can help you pace yourself.

Your long-term goal may be to swim 15 laps at least four times a week.
Your intermediate-term goal may be rearranging your schedule so that you have time to add that much swimming to your exercise routine.
Your short-term goal may be joining a gym that has a pool or to start using the pool at the gym you already attend.

See Chapter 8 for advice about how to work more physical activity into your daily life.

Remember

When setting your goals, keep these two important points in mind:

Make sure your goals are realistic. You want to be able to complete your goals within the timeframe you give yourself. For example, if you say you’re going to cook a low-cal dinner tonight, be sure you have the ingredients on hand when you get home. If you find that any goal is unrealistic, don’t stress out. Redefine the goal.
Make sure your goals are as specific as possible. The clearer your goals, the easier it is to measure your progress along the way. For example, you don’t just want to be thinner; you want to lose 60 pounds. You don’t want to simply cut back on the number of calories you consume; you want to stick to a 1,200-calorie plan.

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Putting your goals in writing can help you clarify them. Make a goal organizer, something like the one in Table 4-1, to jot down your long-term, intermediate term, and short-term goals in each lifestyle category.

Focus	Goal	Time Framer	Step to Take	Date Reached
Food	Eat less chocolate	Short	Give away the rest of the truffles
Food
Food
Food
Behavior	Skip my morning snack	Medium	Stay away from the snack cart at work; start by skipping every other day
Behavior
Behavior
Psych	Positive attitude about self	Medium	Wake up every day and say out loud: “I can do it!”
Psych
Psych
Exercise	Start jogging	Short	Buy new running shoes this week
Exercise	Start jogging	Short	Get up earlier to jog before work every day

Table 4-1:

Writing down your goals can help you keep track of where you stand.

These pointers can help you use your organizer to its fullest potential:

Separate your goals into food, behavioral, psychological, and exercise categories. Write down any steps you can think of, big or little, that you can take to reach that goal. You can write down as many goals as you want, but remember, you don’t have to work on them all right now! Your goals reflect the changes you’re going to make over the next few days, weeks, months, and, in some cases, years.
As you reach each goal, write down the date. Doing so helps motivate you when you look back over your goals and see what you’ve accomplished.
Review your goals weekly to remind yourself which areas still need work. As you reach your current goals, you may want to establish new ones and write them down in your goal organizer.

Using Tracking Tools As You Get Started Weight Loss

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One benefit of using a self-help weight-loss method like the plan in this blog is that you have plenty of flexibility within the plan, and you don’t have to answer to a nutritionist, a group leader, or a weight-loss counselor. But because you’re going it alone, you have to do a little more thinking for yourself. You have to set yourself up on a personalized program and to do that, you need to use the same tools any professional would use to set that plan up for you. These tools include goal setting, journaling with a food diary, and keeping track of your weight.

You don’t have to use every tool in the blog or answer every question in every quiz, but the more you discover about yourself and your eating habits, the better your chances of developing a plan that works for you.

Establishing your weight goals

The amount of weight you want to lose, the lifestyle changes you’re willing to make to help you lose it, and all the little steps you’ll take along the way make up your long-term, intermediate-term, and short-term goals. (Before you settle on your goals, you can use the formulas in Chapter 2 to figure out how much weight you want to lose.)

Long-term goals: Your first long-term goal is the total amount of weight you want to lose, or, if you prefer to put it another way, the final weight you want to reach. Your primary long-term goal may also be a normal Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a measure of weight for height that may be a little more accurate than most standard weight charts. (Flip to Chapter 2 for more about BMI.)
Intermediate goals: These goals are the ones that you establish and change along the way. Right now, one of your intermediate goals may be the weight you hope to be when you’re halfway to your long-term goal. For example, if you want to lose 60 pounds by this time next year (a very reasonable long-term goal for someone with 60 pounds to lose at the recommended rate of 1 to 2 pounds a week), then two of your intermediate goals may be to lose 15 pounds in the next three months and 30 pounds six months from now.

Unless your weight seriously compromises your health, for example if your BMI is 30 or higher or if your doctor has told you that you’re already at risk for developing obesity-related medical problems, your goal needs to be gradual weight loss, which means losing 1 to 2 pounds a week. If your weight is putting you at immediate risk of health complications, you may want to consider faster weight loss in a medically supervised program. Speak to your doctor about your health risk and to find out what type of weight-loss program is right for you. (See Chapter 11 for more on medically supervised programs.)

Short-term goals: These goals are immediate goals you focus on from day to day. For example, you can set a goal to lose 11 ⁄2 pounds this week.

Establishing mini-short-term goals to help you reach your short-term goal and to satisfy any need you may have to do something about your weight right now is a good idea. For instance, deciding to eat steamed fish for dinner tonight is a mini-short-term goal that can help lead to your 11⁄2 pound weight loss goal for the week. Another mini-short-term goal may be to buy a pocket-size calorie count book today, make copies of the calorie counter pages in Appendix A and Appendix B, or locate calorie-count information on the Internet so you have it available wherever you are.

Checking Your Attitude When following a low calorie diet

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When following a low calorie diet and controlling your weight, attitude is everything. Well, almost everything. To succeed, you definitely need a positive attitude and a good, steady supply of resolve. That means paying as much attention to what’s in your head as you do to what’s on your plate. In the following sections, you find tips you can use to help keep your attitude happy, healthy, and in check.

Finding and maintaining your motivation

Different things motivate different people to start a low-calorie diet and stick to it. You have to find your own best personal motivators by figuring out what matters most to you and what makes you feel good about yourself. Do you want to be healthy, look good, live longer, and feel the tremendous sense of accomplishment that comes from breaking bad habits and developing good ones? The motivators you believe in are the ones that will work for you.

For example, if you believe that eating a low-calorie diet is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle, and you want to be healthy, then good health is a motivator that works for you. When you’re tempted to eat that second piece of cake, you can remind yourself that eating double helpings of dessert isn’t a healthy habit because the fat in that cake may raise your cholesterol levels. Or if you’re driven by a desire to look your best, you can remind yourself that double helpings of dessert end up as double helpings of fat on your thighs.

Loosening up

Yes, following a low-calorie diet takes a good deal of determination and self discipline, especially if you have a great deal of weight to lose and plan to stay on your diet for some time to come. You have to be strict about the amount of food you eat, and willing to follow a new set of lifestyle rules.

But at the same time, changing your thinking, eating, and exercise patterns takes flexibility and open mindedness. Be open to new ideas. After all, whatever you’ve been doing up until now hasn’t been working for you, so clearly you need to try something new.

You can help yourself adjust to the idea of change by challenging yourself in small, nonthreatening ways. For instance, if you normally eat the same breakfast every day, try something new, just for one morning. (You can find plenty of ideas in Chapters 6 and 12.) Think of ways you can be open-minded that have nothing to do with food, too. Buy a shirt in a color you don’t normally wear but that you think looks good on you and wear it. One of the things you’re teaching yourself with these types of challenges is that you can survive change, and you may even enjoy it. After you open up your mind to these smaller, temporary changes, you may feel more confident approaching the larger lifestyle changes with a low-calorie lifestyle.

Staying positive

With the right attitude, your chances of succeeding, sticking to your plan, and losing weight greatly increase. A negative attitude, on the other hand, only prevents you from pushing on and moving forward in your new lifestyle. If you have trouble replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts, the section “Thinking mindfully,” later in this chapter, can help.

Are you ready? If all or most of the following statements are true for you, then what are you waiting for? Start managing your weight today.

I can make a commitment to myself to follow through on my diet, no matter what else is going on in my life.
I can make the necessary changes in my diet and exercise program.
I can spend time at the beginning of each week planning my meals and exercise routine for that week.
I can continue to find ways to stay motivated until I reach my goal weight.
I can assess my plan from time to time to make sure it’s still working for me.
I can figure out how to accept lapses and setbacks as opportunities to come up with new goals and strategies, not to use them as excuses for giving up.

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Any “false” answers point out the areas that need special attention. To work on those areas, use the goal-setting tools in the next section.

Giving Yourself a Lifestyle Makeover

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The more you know about who you are as an individual and the better you identify your habits, the easier making those necessary changes and committing to a lifelong plan of healthier eating and living will be. The following sections help you start a low-calorie lifestyle today.

Making changes one step at a time

When you’re clear about which aspects of your life actually need to be changed, you can begin taking real steps to enact those changes.

Remember

The best place to start is with a commitment to yourself. Promise yourself that you’re never going to give up on yourself. Acknowledge now that cutting back on the amount of food you’re used to eating won’t be easy. At the same time, keep telling yourself you can do it! Be your own cheerleader. Promise yourself that you won’t kick yourself when you fall off the food wagon. Successful dieters don’t scold themselves or give up. They give themselves a pep talk and jump right back on.

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Make small changes, one at a time, at your own pace, and allow yourself to get used to one change before moving on to the next. For example, your first change may be to switch from regular salad dressings to low-calorie dressings. Or, you may decide to steam vegetables instead of stir frying them to save calories from added fat. If both of those changes appeal to you, make one change today and the other tomorrow.

When a person takes real-life steps to make permanent lifestyle changes, scientists call it behavior modification. The following examples of eating behavior modification techniques can help you start your low-cal lifestyle:

Eat before you go food shopping. When you’re hungry, you’re more likely to make impulse purchases of foods you don’t really want to eat.
Make a shopping list when you go to the grocery store and stick to the list when you get there. Don’t allow yourself to buy “indulgence” foods likes snacks and junk food that aren’t on the list. In Chapter 6 you find low-cal menus that you can work from when writing up your list.
Don’t buy “indulgence” foods or any calorie laden foods. These foods can contribute to overeating when you’re first starting a new diet. (See Chapter 5 for more tips on shopping for a low calorie diet.)
Keep healthier foods on hand and ready to eat in your refrigerator and cupboards. Doing so gives you options other than junk food when you’re looking for an easy snack or a quick meal.
Prepare strict single portions so you aren’t tempted to overeat (and consume more calories) if you’re cooking for yourself only, and not following a recipe. When you’re cooking for yourself from a recipe that makes more than one serving, wrap up the additional servings and put them in the fridge or freezer as soon as possible so you’re not tempted to go back for seconds.
Use smaller plates. Low-calorie meals tend to look lost on larger plates and may make you feel deprived.
Always sit down when you eat, even if you’re just having a quick snack, so that you pay attention to how much you eat. You can easily forget about the calories you consume when you eat on the run.
Leave the table when you’re finished eating what’s on your plate. Doing so reduces the temptation to go back for more food.
Don’t skip meals. If you do, you may overeat at your next meal or snack too much in between.

In the section “Using Tracking Tools As You Get Started,” later in this chapter, you discover how to document and evaluate your eating habits and identify those that need changing. At that point, you can figure out where to make small changes in your diet and begin to shift the eating behavior patterns that are working against you.

Knowing your diet limits

When you go to your favorite south-of-the-border restaurant, do you order the steamed fish and vegetable special? Do you get a baked potato on the side and top it with a lowfat yogurt–sour cream blend? No? I’m not surprised because, frankly, I don’t know anyone who does. Everyone I know who enjoys Mexican food goes for the gusto — the cheese nachos, the beef tacos, the chile rellenos, not to mention the margaritas and the lime-infused brew. How do you handle that on 1,000 calories a day? Very carefully, I’d advise, or not at all until you feel confident that your can order sensibly.

Some people can eat just one. No matter what they’re offered, whether it’s a tortilla chip or a chocolate chip cookie, they take a small sample and never go back for more. However, most people aren’t like that. If you’re watching your weight, you may need to avoid most convenience food stores, your supermarket’s snack section, and all Mexican restaurants.

Adjusting your food plan through the seasons

Just as you need a change of wardrobe when summer gives in to early fall, you may need to change your food plan when one season fades into another. Food availability changes with the seasons and so might your physical needs. You may be more active in spring and summer than in winter, and you may cook more in the winter than in the summer or crave heartier foods. You may routinely take your vacations midsummer and late fall, and these vacations may be opportunities to enjoy new and different foods. These seasonal, and temporary, lifestyle changes can affect the way you eat.

For many people, a change in seasons also means a change in mood. If you suffer from winter blues, your diet may suffer, too. The best way to prepare for any seasonal changes in your lifestyle that affect your diet is to look ahead and have a plan in place. Remember, too, that some things don’t change with the seasons. You need to drink as much water in the winter as you do in the summer, and your body needs good nutrition and a good physical workout all year round.

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When you know you won’t be satisfied with small portions of your favorite foods, stay away from them until you’re feeling stronger. Never say “never,” but definitely figure out how to say “not right now.”

Remember

Even if you’re an independent operator and you’re used to making decisions on your own, don’t be afraid to admit if you can’t handle this one alone. You can find a diet buddy or an exercise buddy, join a gym, join a weight-loss program, or seek professional counseling. Whatever it takes for you to start and stick to your low-calorie lifestyle, do it. (See Chapter 11 for more information and advice on asking for and getting the right type of help.)

Keeping your diet fresh

Initially, you have to make all sorts of changes in your diet and perhaps other areas of your life. Then what? In time, your new low-cal lifestyle will get old and you’ll have to reevaluate your plan to keep it from getting stale.

Remember

Boredom is a common trigger for overeating. Sometimes, feelings of boredom are actually a habit of your mind. You’re in the habit of telling yourself that you’re bored, so you feel bored on a regular basis. If that’s the case, you have to make a huge effort to push past those thoughts as soon as they enter your mind and find something interesting to do.

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If you spend too many nights sitting around eating and can’t think of anything else to do, sign up for an evening cooking class (preferably a healthy cooking or low-cal cooking class). With a class, you can still eat but you’ll be spending most of your time learning about food and preparing food in a social setting. You may even discover something new that can help keep your diet interesting. (For more ideas on how to keep your new diet and lifestyle fresh, check out Chapters 7 and 9.)

Playing diet games

2012-06-06T01:20:00.001+02:00

Everyone I’ve ever counseled about weight control has admitted to some type of self-defeating behavior. One time it was a woman who secretly snacks on the types of foods she knows will kick off a binge. Another time it was a guy slacking off on the exercise routine that was just beginning to show results. If you know your own weakness, you can renew your commitment to change the behavior that’s blocking your weight-loss success.

When making a commitment to losing weight, some people play destructive mind games with themselves. Here are some examples:

The “if only” game: “If only I had a faster metabolism.” “If only I had enough money to go to a spa.” “If only I were taller and could carry more weight.” “If only I had more time, I’d go to the gym more often.” These excuses really don’t fly, however, because getting fit isn’t about day dreaming. It’s about being determined, taking action, and staying motivated. No one stays in shape without having to work at it.
The blame game: This game really is a trap that prevents you from taking responsibility for yourself and your weight. Here’s how it goes: “I had a fight with my husband so I ate a large bag of potato chips.” “My kids drove me crazy all day so I devoured a pint of ice cream after they went to bed.” Sound familiar?
The “pity me” game: Feeling sorry for yourself helps you avoid committing to a fitness plan because you can just point at everything that’s wrong with you and decide you’re not worth helping. “It’s too late.” “It’s too hard.” “Why bother?” In some ways, you may even enjoy the attention you get for being “poor you” and may be reluctant to give it up.

Your diet personality is probably a lot like your overall personality with respect to how easily you make commitments and motivate yourself to approach difficult tasks. If you answer “yes” to any of the following questions, you may be standing in your own way of getting to a healthier weight:

Do you think someone else is responsible for the way you eat?
Do you believe other people lose and maintain weight easier than you?
Do you look for quick-fix solutions?
Do you live a life of deprivation, eating foods you don’t like and avoiding those foods you do in an attempt to lose or maintain weight?
Does the prospect of following a diet and losing weight overwhelm you?
Do you try to lose weight on your own, without ever seeking help?
Do you give up easily?
Do you feel like a failure when you fall off the food wagon and eat too much?

The best fitness plan is one that you fine-tune to fit your personality and lifestyle. After you answer the preceding questions, ask yourself the following questions so you can tailor the plan in this book to suit your diet personality.

Are you a joiner, or do you like to go it alone?
Are you a grazer who nibbles all day long, or do you normally sit down to three full meals and a formal snack or two?
Do you want someone to tell you what and when to eat in a prescribed plan, or would you rather have a flexible diet that allows you to make on-the-spot food decisions?

Examining Your Current Diet Habits

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You may be very open minded, and consider yourself to be quite flexible, but still, deep down, you may not be completely comfortable with the idea of changing your diet, which is normal. Change comes hard to most people because it usually means giving up something. In this case, you’re giving up precious calories. Some change is necessary and inevitable, though, if you’re going to break free once and for all from unhealthy behavior patterns like overeating, underexercising, and thinking self-defeating thoughts.

In the following sections, I show you how to recognize your unhealthy behaviors and typical dieting styles.

Recognizing problem behaviors

Sometimes you may do something for no reason other than you’ve been doing it that way for so long. You form habits — good and bad — by repetition. You may have acquired your earliest habits first from family members and later from friends, but they became embedded in your lifestyle by years of repetition.

The types of food you eat, your eating patterns, your exercise routine, the way you think about yourself, and the way you view the world around you, are all habits you’ve developed by eating the same foods, making the same choices, coming up with the same motivations and the same excuses, and thinking the same thoughts, over and over again, throughout your life. These behaviors shape who you are. They also help determine your shape!

Know thyself

Your first step toward developing healthier habits is to look inward and think hard about changing your ways. Thinking about change is an important part of the process of enacting real change, so if all you can do right now is think about it, you’re still on the right track. For more about making healthy changes, see “Giving Yourself a Lifestyle Makeover,” later in this chapter.

Remember

You’re probably wondering why you need to do all this soul searching. Why not just skip straight to Chapter 6 and go on a low-calorie diet? You need to search inside because a successful weight-loss plan is about making lifestyle changes, and you can’t change what you don’t know or understand. The better you know yourself, the better your chances of getting to the root of your weight problem to conquer it once and for all.

Breaking your bad habits

It wasn’t a banana that made you overweight. It wasn’t your grandmother’s lasagna, the slice of chocolate cake at a birthday party, or that double cheeseburger you devoured on your way home from work. No individual food is possibly responsible for your weight gain, but your habit of overeating some of these foods probably did you in.

Which of these behaviors contribute to your bad eating habits? Check the ones that apply to you.

	I eat randomly.
	I eat too much food at once.
	I eat when I’m sad.
	I eat out often.
	I routinely skip meals.
	I eat on the run.
	I eat at fast-food restaurants.
	I eat when I’m lonely.
	I eat too quickly.
	I eat when I’m not hungry.
	I eat when I’m bored.
	I eat late at night or just before I go to bed.
	I eat snacks all the time.
	I wait more than four or five hours before eating.
	I eat a lot of high-fat foods.
	I eat a lot of high-calorie foods.
	I eat when I’m angry.

The habits you checked are the eating habits you need to focus on when you’re thinking about the lifestyle changes you have to make to accommodate your low-calorie lifestyle.

Eating, exercise, and other lifestyle habits don’t change overnight. You can’t just suddenly cut your calorie intake in half without some mental preparation. You can’t just get up one morning and run a marathon if you haven’t been training. Changing the thinking patterns that dictate your behavior takes time, patience, and a fair amount of retraining.

Chapter 4: Kick-Starting Your Low Calorie Plan

2012-06-04T23:34:00.005+02:00

In This Chapter

Assessing your habits
Taking active steps to change your ways
Gearing up with a good attitude
Monitoring your progress with handy tracking tools
Being mindful of your new lifestyle

You’re probably familiar with the expression, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It’s a cousin to the saying, “Old habits die hard.” No matter how you say it, change doesn’t come easy to most people, and yet change is essential to weight-loss success. My attitude is this: I can teach anyone some new diet tricks, but some people take more time than others to get it right. And although breaking old habits isn’t always easy, if you work hard enough to replace them with new, healthier habits, doing so is certainly possible.

In this chapter, you assess your eating and exercise habits, establish your short-term and long-term weight goals, check your attitude, set up a monitoring system, and mentally prepare yourself to live a low calorie lifestyle. This chapter is the essential groundwork you need to map out a plan that can ensure your long-term success because it prepares you for making necessary changes in your eating, exercising, and thinking patterns.

Examining Your Current Diet Habits
Playing diet games
Giving Yourself a Lifestyle Makeover
Checking Your Attitude
Using Tracking Tools As You Get Started
Practicing Mindful Low-Calorie Living

Watching calories from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats

2012-06-02T22:14:00.001+02:00

After you decide a low-calorie diet is for you, you probably need to cut calories where you most indulge. For example, do you eat a big bowl (or container) of ice cream every night? Are you snacking too often on crackers and chips between meals? Does your sirloin steak take up your entire plate? Your excess calories probably aren’t coming from big bowls of salad, unless you’re filling your salad bowl with cold cuts and topping it off with gobs of dressing. And you’re probably not gaining weight from vegetable side dishes, unless the only vegetables you choose are the starchier, more caloric ones like French fried potatoes and buttered corn.

Look at your diet to examine your food preferences and figure out if you overindulge when it comes to a particular food group. Keeping a food diary (see Chapter 4), and reviewing it with this purpose in mind, may yield some surprises about just how much of a particular type of food you actually eat.

The number of calories a food supplies depends on the amount of carbohydrate, fat, or protein in that food. That amount is shown in grams, which is a measure of weight.

A gram of carbohydrate supplies four calories.
A gram of protein supplies four calories.
A gram of fat supplies nine calories.

Keep in mind that a gram of alcohol supplies seven calories, which makes it closer in calories to fat than to protein or carbohydrates. Cutting back on calories from alcohol can help you lose weight.

When you compare carbohydrates or protein to fat, you can see that, gram for gram, fat supplies more than twice as many calories. That’s why cutting back on fat works for some people as a diet tool. But cutting fat is strictly a tool for people who are eating too much fat to begin with; it can’t work alone as a strategy for losing weight or maintaining a healthy weight.

The following sections explain how to save calories and where to cut calories from carbohydrates, fats, and protein.

Choosing the best carbs

Contrary to some popular diet myths, cutting carbohydrates from your diet will only help you lose weight in the long run if you’re eating too many carbohydrates to begin with! If you know you overdo it when it comes to cakes, cookies, pies, and even breads and pastas, then you probably already know you have to change your diet to trim some of those carbs for a better balance.

Remember

Cup for cup, starchier vegetables — potatoes, winter squash, corn, and green peas — are much higher in calories than other vegetables, but that doesn’t mean you have to avoid them. You just need to watch your portion sizes when you choose these foods as side dishes.

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On a low-calorie diet, the best carbohydrates are fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, and high-fiber grain foods. For instance, if you like to eat pasta, choose whole-wheat varieties. You can mix whole-wheat pastas with regular pasta if you don’t want to go completely whole-grain. You can also mix brown rice with white rice or mix rice with grains such as barley and cracked wheat to boost the fiber.

Increasing protein

If you eat a lot of one type of food on a calorie-controlled diet, you have to eat less of another food to stay within your calorie limit. Because fat is already limited in most sensible diets, the choice becomes whether to increase protein and decrease carbohydrates, or to eat more high-fiber carbs and fewer foods that are high in protein. A balanced diet gets 15 to 20 percent of its calories from protein. On a 1,500-calorie diet, that translates to at least 56 grams.

The best sources of protein on a low-calorie diet are seafood, poultry, lean meats, reduced-fat dairy products, and vegetarian sources such as soy foods and grain products. Chapter 5 contains plenty of information for making healthful protein choices at the supermarket.

Warning

If you tweak your low-cal diet to include more protein, know that it’s a short term solution for weight control. Like other trendy diets, a high-protein plan (a diet that gets more than 20 percent of its calories from protein) doesn’t help you control your weight in the long run and can have a negative impact on your long-term health (see “Comparing low-calorie diets to other diets,” earlier in this chapter, for more info on how it impacts your health).

Trimming fat

Fat supplies more than twice as many calories as either protein or carbohydrates, so if your diet is high in fat, you can start cutting there. You can make the cuts in more than one way. To cut down on the amount of fat in your diet, you can

Choose naturally reduced-fat and fat-free foods. In addition to naturally lowfat foods like fruits, vegetables, and leaner cuts of meat, you can take advantage of lowfat dairy products and other foods that may be lower in calories because they’ve been modified to reduce the amount of fat they contain. (Just be careful to compare labels to make sure lower-fat foods are also lower in calories.)
Eat a wider variety of foods so that fat takes up less space in your diet. Fill up on naturally lowfat foods, such as salads, broths, fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains, so that you’re not tempted to satisfy your hunger with higher fat foods.
Control your portion sizes. Doing so ensures that you’re not getting too much fat from any one food. For instance, eat 1⁄4 of a bag of French fries, not the whole thing!

Using Proven Strategies for Cutting Calories

2012-05-31T20:12:00.000+02:00

When it comes to healthy weight control, how you eat is just as important as what you eat. The “what” is all about the actual food that’s on your plate and in your mouth. The “how” is all about how much you actually eat, how many calories are in the types foods you choose, and how to make low-calorie choices within different food groups to ensure a nutritionally sound diet.

Controlling portion size

Remember

If you can control the portion sizes of the foods you eat, you can eat anything you want. For example, if you can eat one small piece of chocolate or one small scoop of ice cream or one handful of chips, you can eat those foods every day and not worry about gaining weight from them. Right now, you’re probably saying, “Yeah, right!” because you can’t imagine being able to eat such small amounts of your favorite indulgence foods and feeling satisfied. Don’t worry. It’s a process you have to discover; it doesn’t usually happen overnight.

The menu plans in Chapter 6 call for very specific amounts of foods, or in other words, portion control. When you prepare meals using these menus for guidance, you figure out how to eyeball a specific amount of food and know that it’s an appropriate amount to eat on a calorie-controlled diet. The portion sizes represent an average number of calories for each food group. In other words, you may see 1 cup of broccoli on one menu and 1 cup of mini carrots on another. You’re free to ignore both suggestions and substitute a cup of snow peas or a cup of asparagus. That’s because, as a group, a portion of one vegetable contains approximately the same number of calories as the same portion size of another vegetable.

In addition to helping you lose weight, a good weight-loss plan shows you how to eat in a way that you’ll eventually be able to maintain your weight loss without being on such a strict diet. You won’t always have to struggle with concepts like portion size, after you figure out what eating a reasonable amount of food means. The plus side to controlling your portion sizes is that by limiting the amount of each individual food you eat, you can eat several different types of foods. Eating different types of foods not only helps ensure you’re getting a balance of essential nutrients, but it also helps keep your low-calorie diet from getting boring. (See “Keeping your energy high and your diet interesting,” earlier in this chapter, for more about balance and variety in a low-calorie diet.)

However, you can go overboard, even with the good stuff. On a low-cal diet, you can eat too much of the good stuff, such as fruit and vegetables, because all foods supply calories and even the most nutritious foods add excess calories to your diet if you eat too much of them. As a result, you need to know how to control your portions when you’re on a mission to lose weight.

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When you’re home, you can portion out your food with measuring cups and spoons as a way of teaching yourself what a serving size looks like. When you’re eating out, the easiest way to figure out portion control is by using visual aids for standard serving sizes. Picture this:

A 3-ounce serving of meat or poultry is about the size of a deck of cards or the box that holds a cassette tape.
A standard muffin is about the size of a tennis ball (not a softball!).
An ounce of cheese is about the size of a pair of dice.

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An even easier strategy for measuring just about any type of food is to count on your fingers. You can use your hand to measure your favorite foods at home and to gauge your portion sizes when you’re away from your own kitchen. For instance, a standard portion of meat is about the size of the palm of your hand. Make a fist, and you’re looking at a cup of vegetables or pasta. From the tip of your thumbnail to its second joint is about the size of an ounce of cheese. The more average-size your hand, the more accurate these measurements are. But if you’re a large person, with large hands, you need to eat a little more food anyway, so this strategy still works for you. See Figure 3-1 for an illustration of this hands-on approach.

Eating “free” foods

On a low-calorie diet, you don’t always have to eat low-calorie foods. But if you want to eat large quantities of food, then you have to make low-cal choices. That’s the premise behind any diet that says you can eat great volumes of food and still lose weight. After all, if I give you permission to eat all the spinach or romaine lettuce you want on this diet, you couldn’t possibly eat enough of either of those foods to make a dent in your diet. At the same time, you could fill up on them or other leafy greens to cut your appetite and to make sure there’s not enough room left in your stomach to fill up on too much of anything else. That’s why eating a big salad (with just a little light dressing) at lunch and dinner works as a weight-loss strategy for so many people.

Figure 3-1: You can use your own hand to guesstimate portion sizes of most foods.

The same basic concept applies when you’re choosing foods for meals and snacks and you want to eat larger quantities of food. That’s when you have to make low-calorie choices at the level of individual foods. You can choose to use up your 100-calorie snack allotment by eating a small handful of fruit-flavored gum drops or jellybeans, or, for the same number of calories, you could eat half of a pineapple, five plums, or two cups of steamed green beans with a spoonful of light salad dressing for a dip.

Of course, if what you want to eat is a handful of jellybeans, then don’t force yourself to eat fruit or vegetables. But these examples serve to show how choosing lower calorie foods on a regular basis can make room for those occasional indulgences.

When you’re dieting to lose weight, sitting down to a large quantity of food is certainly more satisfying and less discouraging than sitting down to a plate that contains only small portions. Whenever you need more than your calorie limit allows or you need to “cheat” on your diet for any reason, feel free to choose foods from this list to help fill up your plate:

Bouillon or fat-free broth
Cabbage
Celery
Cucumber
Green or red onions
Greens: escarole, mustard, collard, dandelion
Lettuce (any kind)
Mushrooms
Plain coffee or tea, including herb teas
Radishes
Seltzer, club soda, sparkling water, or other calorie-free drinks
Spinach
Unsweetened pickles, such as dill, “new,” or half-sour
Zucchini or yellow summer squash

To add flavor to “free” foods, use “free” condiments such as mustard, horseradish, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, lemon juice, lime juice, or vinegar, or sprinkle your free foods with fresh or dried herbs and spices. Garlic, onion, and hot peppers go a long way toward seasoning steamed vegetables without adding any notable calories.

Keeping your energy high and your diet interesting

2012-05-30T00:18:00.000+02:00

What’s different about low-calorie nutrition and regular nutrition, you may ask? When you’re on a low-calorie diet, you need to make smart food choices because getting all the energy and nutrients you need from food is more difficult than when you’re consuming more calories.

Creating balance

A nutritionally balanced meal contains mostly carbohydrates from grains, fruits, and vegetables; some protein from meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, beans, nuts, or eggs; and a small amount of fat. With the exception of most fruits and vegetables, most foods have at least a little bit of fat, so you’re automatically getting some fat in a balanced meal. Small amounts of added fat also help balance the meal.

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You can easily determine if you’re eating a balanced meal. When you look at your plate, more than half needs to be covered with foods that are high in carbohydrates, and less than half with foods high in protein.

Remember

Balance is particularly important in a low-calorie meal plan because a balanced diet helps ensure sustained energy as your body absorbs different types of foods and different combinations of foods and converts them to energy at different rates. Foods that are high in simple sugars move more quickly into your system and are metabolized and converted to energy more immediately. Foods that are digested more slowly, such as some complex carbohydrates and fats, provide energy later in the day.

Eating a variety of foods

After you balance the major food groups, choosing a variety of different foods within those groups helps ensure a good balance of vitamins, minerals, and other substances in food that keep you healthy.

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One way to know whether or not your diet contains enough variety is to look at the colors on your plate. The more colors you see, the better variety of nutrients you’re getting from your meal. Eating a variety of foods also helps keep your low-calorie diet more interesting and more appealing so that you stick with it.

Getting the nutrients you need: Phytochemicals

2012-05-29T23:35:00.001+02:00

When phytochemicals first came on the nutrition scene in the early 1990s, many people thought they were miracle substances. They weren’t vitamins or minerals. Health experts described phytochemicals as non-nutrients found in fresh foods that could help prevent and fight cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Scientists estimate that hundreds, if not thousands, of them exist in foods, most commonly in fruits and vegetables.

Researchers still have a lot to discover about phytochemicals and their specific roles in fighting disease. The jury is also out as to whether or not phytochemicals work when they’re isolated from foods and put into a capsule or pill and sold as supplements. What experts do know is that many health promoting substances are found in foods, some with rather unnatural sounding names like lycopene, flavanoid, indole, genestein, and carotenoid, that may save or extend your life. When you’re following a low-calorie diet, eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables is important to ensure you get as many phytochemicals into your diet as you can.

Phytochemicals work together with nutrients to promote health and prevent disease. When you eat some broccoli or a tomato, you get all of these phytochemicals. So, can't you just take a supplement? You could, but first of all, scientists have isolated only a few of the phytochemicals in foods. But these work best in combination, so taking just one, isolated phytochemical is not anywhere near as effective.

For example, let's look at lycopene. It is found in tomatoes and is an antioxidant. Antioxidants are a large and important subject, but for now, let's just simplify and say that antioxidants help to repair cellular damage.

Scientists did studies and found that tomatoes had a noticeable effect against prostate cancer. They analyzed the tomato and isolated lycopene. Then the scientists did more studies, using lycopene. The effect on prostate cancer was much less. Does this mean that lycopene doesn't work?

No, it means that it works best in combination with all the other phytochemicals in tomatoes, and the nutrients. You don't get that from a chemically identical, but lab-created, lycopene.

Eating a tomato is good for you, of course. But eating all the tomatoes you would need to get what you need from them would be quite a task. So, a whole foods powder that I use, Berry Greens, offers freeze dried tomatoes, in a form that retains the nutrients. And a whole lot of other vegetables and fruits as well. You get all the benefits of eating all those fruits and vegetables, without having to consume all that food.

Most foods have not been analyzed and even those that have been, scientists have only been able to isolate a few of the phytochemicals. Most vegetables have hundreds of phytochemicals, and it's not likely they will all be isolated, analyzed and understood any time soon. We do know now, though, that they do work together to provide real health for us.

Getting the nutrients you need: Water

2012-05-29T22:53:00.000+02:00

Water is calorie-free. No other natural substance can make that claim, so drink up! When you’re trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, you certainly don’t want to waste precious calories on other drinks.

Of course you also need to drink plenty of water for other reasons. For one thing, you can’t live long without it. You need a constant flow of water coming in to replace the water that goes out through breathing, perspiration, and excretion. Water keeps your muscles moving, your blood flowing, and your joints bending. Even your bones need water to stay healthy.

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Drinking more water is a matter of developing new habits. The following are just a few ways to bring more water into your life on a regular basis:

Keep a bottle of water nearby at work.
Carry a water bottle with you wherever you go.
Whenever you see a water fountain, take a sip.
Always ask for water when you sit down at a restaurant. Not only does asking help you fill your water needs, but it also can help fill your tummy and curb your appetite as well.

Remember

Most people need to aim for 8 to 10 cups of water a day. If your diet is high in fiber or sodium (salt), you may need more. If your diet is high in watery foods like lettuce, tomatoes, oranges, watermelon, milk, and yogurt, you can probably drink less because the water from these foods counts toward your daily requirement.

Getting the nutrients you need: Fiber

2012-05-29T20:09:00.002+02:00

Fiber is a carbohydrate found in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, but it’s a unique type of carb that your body can’t digest. You eat it and it passes out of your body unchanged. Because of the way fiber works (or doesn’t work) in your body, it keeps your digestive system healthy and also helps regulate blood cholesterol and sugar levels. Those contributions are noteworthy for a substance that, technically, isn’t even a nutrient.

Fiber also has other benefits. It can help you shed excess pounds. And as soon as you lose weight, fiber can help you maintain the loss. It’s sounding better and better all the time, isn’t it? High-fiber foods can help you stick to a low-calorie diet and make that diet work for you. Do you want to know how?

Read the following list:

High-fiber foods are bulky so you feel satisfied after you eat them.
High-fiber foods take longer to digest than other foods, so they stay in your stomach longer, helping to prevent hunger from striking too soon again.
High-fiber foods are naturally lowfat, and fat contains more calories than carbohydrates and protein.

Nutrition experts recommend that adults get at least 25 grams of fiber each day. In Table 3-2, you see how some foods stack up in terms of their fiber content. In Chapter 7, you can find a full-day’s menu that emphasizes fiber at each meal. In Chapter 12, you can find a list of high-fiber foods commonly eaten for breakfast.

**Table 3-2 Fiber Amounts in Common Foods**
Food (1/2 cup cooked)	Fiber (grams)
Beans (such as kidney, black, pinto)	7 to 10
Barley	5
Bulgur	5
Lentils	5
Pear, medium	4
Broccoli	3
Winter squash	3
Brown rice	2
Strawberries (1/2 cup raw)	2

If you plan to increase the amount of fiber in your diet, do it slowly! Adding too much, too soon, can wreak havoc on your digestive system in the form of gas, cramping, or diarrhea. Your best bet is to add a gram or two of fiber at a time, every few days over a period of several weeks, and be sure to drink plenty of extra water as you go along. Fiber soaks up liquids like a sponge in your stomach, and if you don’t have enough extra water to help move it along, your plumbing will jam up.

Getting the nutrients you need: Vitamins and minerals

2012-05-29T10:42:00.001+02:00

Each and every known vitamin is essential to good health and you need them all in your diet, but you only need them in small amounts. That’s good news for low-calorie dieters who are only eating small amounts of food!

Vitamins comprise the two following categories:

Water-soluble vitamins: These include vitamin C, all the B vitamins, and beta carotene, which your body converts to the fat-soluble vitamin A. To ensure you get plenty of vitamin C and beta carotene, eat a variety of fruits, veggies, and whole-grains. Meat and dairy products supply the B vitamins.

Fat-soluble vitamins: These include vitamins A, D, E, and K. You get D from egg yolks and dairy foods, E from vegetable oils, nuts, and wheat germ, and K from leafy green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli. You get vitamin A from yellow, orange, and dark green vegetables.

You don’t get energy from vitamins; you can only get energy from carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. But your body uses vitamins, specifically the B vitamins, to metabolize carbohydrates, fats, and proteins and produce energy. Like protein, vitamins also play a huge role in the growth, maintenance, and repair of most of your body cells.

Like vitamins, minerals help keep your body healthy by keeping your bones dense, your heart pumping, your immune system strong, and all other body systems functioning properly. Scientists know of 22 minerals that are essential for good health. You can find some minerals, such as iron and zinc, in meat and seafood, others such as calcium and magnesium in dairy products, and still others, such as potassium and selenium, from fruits, vegetables, and grains. Minerals are just another reason to eat a varied diet!

Getting the nutrients you need: Fat

2012-05-27T19:43:00.000+02:00

There are many different types of dietary fats and some act very differently in your body than others. If all you care about are calories, then the type of fat or oil you use to prepare or flavor food doesn’t matter, because they all contain 9 calories per gram or approximately 100 calories per tablespoon. But if you’re concerned about your overall health, and I hope you are, then the type of fat you use matters very much.

The most healthful fats are in liquid form. Olive oil, canola oil, corn oil, and other liquid fats are thought to be best because they can help keep your blood cholesterol and blood fats at acceptable levels. The fats to watch out for are the hydrogenated fats (oils that have been chemically converted to solid fats), which are listed on the ingredient labels of many processed foods such as crackers and pastries, and the saturated fats found mainly in animal products such as meats, butter, and whole milk dairy products. In the case of animal foods, you can easily trim away excess fat from meats and choose leaner cuts of meat and reduced fat dairy foods.

Remember

Your body needs some fat (at least 20 grams) to help absorb and transport fat soluble vitamins, such as vitamins A and E; your skin and hair need fat to look alive; and your brain and nervous system need fat to function effectively. But eating too many foods that are high in any type of fat can, and probably will, cause you to gain weight and affect your health. Medical experts say that no more than 30 percent of your daily calories should come from fat and many recommend even less. On a 1,500-calorie diet, 30 percent is about 50 grams of fat. The smart thing to do, overall, is to eat small amounts of the right types of fat.

Warning

Don’t be fooled into thinking that all lowfat foods are low in calories. Some are, but many aren’t. Check and compare the calorie counts on the labels of similar products to be sure you’re getting a lower calorie food. For instance, many reduced fat cheeses contain one-third to half the amount of calories of their full-fat cousins. But the same can’t be said for some flavored yogurt products and other foods, like peanut butter or cookies, that may have the fat removed but are sweetened with enough sugar to make up the calorie difference.

Getting the nutrients you need: Protein

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When discussing protein, you first need to know about amino acids, which are the chemical “building blocks” of protein found in food. After you eat the amino acids in say, a hamburger, your body absorbs them via your blood stream where they spend most of their time connecting and reconnecting with each other to form thousands of different proteins that do thousands of different jobs in your body. Some of the most important roles amino acids and proteins play in your body include

Antibodies: These proteins protect you from bacteria, viruses, toxins, and allergens.
Hormones: Protein is an essential component of many of your body’s most important regulating hormones, including those that regulate food intake and metabolism, such as insulin and leptin.
Repair: Protein is essential for mending muscles, bones, and skin, and for pregnancy and growth.
Replacement: When you wash your body, comb your hair, or clip your fingernails, you’re losing body cells that contain protein that needs to be replaced so that new skin cells, hair, and nails can grow.

Adult women who are at a healthy weight need approximately 45 to 60 grams of protein in their daily diets; most men who are at a healthy weight need at least 60 to 65 grams. Because most foods contain some protein, reaching or exceeding those amounts from day to day is easy. Meat, poultry, fish, egg whites, and reduced-fat dairy products are all especially good sources of high-quality protein in a low-calorie diet, but vegetarians and near vegetarians have nothing to fear about getting enough protein. Legumes, nuts, breads, pastas, and soy foods are also good sources, and even most fruits and vegetables, which are almost pure carbohydrate, contribute a gram or two.

Check out Table 3-1 for a list of some common foods and their protein scores.

Table 3-1 Protein Counts in Common Foods

Food	Protein (grams)
Turkey, light meat (4 ounces)	34
Hamburger, lean (4 ounces)	32
Flounder (4 ounces)	27
Tuna, canned in water (3 ounces)	22
Yogurt (8 ounces)	12
Tofu (1/2 cup)	10
Milk, skim (8 ounces)	9
Black beans (1⁄2 cup)	8
Peanut butter (2 tablespoons)	8
Cheese, reduced fat or part-skim (1 ounce)	8
Cheese, regular (1 ounce)	7
Pasta, cooked (1 cup)	7
Soy milk (8 ounces)	7
Bagel (31⁄2-inch diameter)	7
Oatmeal (1 cup)	6

Getting the nutrients you need: Carbohydrates

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The bulk of your calories — a little more than half, or 55 to 60 percent — should come from foods high in carbohydrates. You may have heard about the two types of carbs — good carbs and bad carbs. The following bulleted list explains each more in-depth and tells you why most of your carbohydrate calories should come from good carbs.

Simple carbohydrates: Foods high in “bad” or simple carbohydrates are candies, cookies, chips, cakes, pies, sodas, and many of your other favorite foods that supply plenty of calories from sugar and refined flours, but not much in the way of good nutrition.

Simple carbohydrates are just that: simple. They’re not as complicated, chemically speaking, as complex carbohydrates. Foods high in simple carbohydrates, for the most part, supply mostly calories and little or none of the good stuff. That’s why dietitians refer to these foods as “empty calorie” foods.

Complex carbohydrates: Foods high in “good” complex carbohydrates include whole grains, beans, and vegetables.

Foods high in complex carbohydrates are better for you because they contain vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals (substances found in plant foods that are neither vitamins nor minerals, but are thought to convey health benefits).

Fruit is the exception to the rule. Fruit contains plenty of simple sugars, but it also contains valuable nutrients, including many of the disease-fighting antioxidant vitamins and phytochemicals. Dietitians and other nutrition experts always put fresh fruit in the “good” carb group.

If you’re eating simple carbohydrates such as cookies, pastries, and fried chips in place of healthier foods, or if you’re simply eating so many of these foods in addition to healthier foods that you’re gaining weight, then junk food is a problem for you. Eating these foods is okay, however, if you only eat them some of the time and in small amounts. In Chapter 15, you can find tips and recipes for fitting simple sugars into a healthful low calorie diet.

Understanding the Nutritional Nuts and Bolts of a Low Calorie Diet

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Right now, you’re probably thinking more about losing weight than you are about protecting your health while you’re following a low calorie diet. As a dietitian, I have to look at you more holistically. I have to look at the effects of the food choices you make on your current and long-term health. That’s why I’m including this primer on all the important nutrients you need in your diet and the foods that provide them. Think of this section as a freshman level course in basic nutrition with an emphasis on calorie control.

Getting the nutrients you need

In the old days, dietitians were trained to say “There are no good foods and no bad foods, just too much of some foods.” That’s still true to a certain extent, but dietitians know better now. Some foods are much better for you than others and, for many people, some foods seem to have an addictive quality that makes it impossible to resist eating more, after you’ve had a taste. That quality doesn’t make them bad foods, but those foods aren’t good for you until you gain better control over the amount you eat.

This section discusses good food sources of all the nutrients that are essential to a healthful low calorie diet. You also figure out how to make smarter choices with treats and sweets, and how some junk food can still play a role in a healthy low-cal diet.

Carbohydrates
Protein
Fat
Vitamins and minerals
Fiber
Water
Phytochemicals

Body Mass Index Calculator

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Body Mass Index
cm/kgin/lb
Height:
Weight:

BMI:

The healthy weight range is based on a measurement known as the body mass index (BMI). This can be determined if you know your weight and your height.

Body Mass Index is an established system to judge people obesity.
According to the most popular scheme:
You are SLIM if your BMI is below 20.
You are the in the ideal weight range if between 20 and 25.
You are slightly overweight between 25 and 30.
You are Overweight if over 30.

Using another formula for weight loss

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If you know exactly how many calories you normally consume each day (and you can figure that out by keeping track of your calories in a food diary, as demonstrated in Chapter 4), use this shortcut to find out how many calories you need to cut from your daily diet. To lose a pound of body weight in a week without doing any additional exercise, you have to cut 3,500 calories from your diet that week, or an average of 500 calories a day. So, if you currently consume about 2,000 calories a day, you have to cut your daily calorie allowance by 500 calories, to 1,500, to start losing a pound a week.

At some point, the number of calories you can eat and still lose weight will get too low and you’ll have to stop cutting calories. Your only option at that point is to exercise more. That’s why losing weight initially is much easier when you have a lot to lose and much more difficult when you’re down to those last 10 pounds and you don’t have many calories left to cut.

In the following sections, I give you a couple of strategies, based on the formulas in this chapter, for choosing a calorie range that can help you lose weight or maintain your current weight and prevent more gain.

Finding your weight loss range

Everyone has a range of calories within which they can lose weight. If, through your calculations, you determine that you can lose a pound or two a week if you stick to a 1,500 calorie diet, you’ll find that you can lose that same amount of weight on a 1,400- or 1,600 calorie diet.

Sometimes the best way to find your personal calorie range for losing weight is by trial and error. If you want, you can skip all the formulas and calculations in this chapter, go right to Chapter 6 (featuring a variety of menu plans), and put yourself on a 1,500-calorie-a-day diet plan. That level may or may not help, but it won’t hurt you. If you find it impossible to stick with, or if you stick with it and lose more than 2 pounds the first week, you may consider adding 100 or more calories to your days. (A safe limit when you’re losing weight is 2 pounds a week. If you lose more than 2 pounds, you’re losing too quickly. If you lose too much weight early on, you’re more likely to gain back some or all of it.) If you don’t lose any weight at all, skip down to a 1,200 calorie plan and see what happens at the end of a week.

Remember

After you master the art of eating low-calorie meals and sticking to a prescribed number of calories every day, you may see that you can “cheat” a little on your diet by occasionally indulging in some of your favorite higher calorie foods and still lose or maintain weight. Eventually you can figure out how to balance your calorie intake over the course of several days, or even a week, rather than focusing on one day at a time.

Preventing weight gain

If you’ve recently been gaining weight, or you’re not quite ready to commit to the lifestyle changes required to lose weight, you first want to avoid any further weight gain. Doing so can be a huge accomplishment in and of itself. After you stop gaining and your weight levels off, you can move on to the next stage of your plan, which is to start losing weight.

Tipp

To stop weight gain in its tracks, use the quickest formula for figuring out how many calories you need to stay at your current weight and possibly start losing weight: Multiply your weight times ten. Stick to within 100 calories of that amount on most days so you can stabilize your weight until you’re ready to embark on a sensible, long-term plan.

Determining the number of calories you need

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Your body needs a minimum number of calories to have enough energy to be healthy, which is called your resting metabolic rate. By figuring your resting metabolic rate, you can determine the amount of calories your body needs just to keep your heart pumping, your brain thinking, your kidneys clearing, and all your other body systems operating properly.

1. Calculate your body’s basic calorie needs.

To do so, take your healthy weight (if you don’t know it, choose a midrange weight from the healthy weight range chart in Chapter 2), or the weight you want to be, and multiply it by 10 if you’re a woman or 11 if you’re a man. (Men get more calories in their calculations because they tend to be taller and have a higher ratio of muscle to fat than women.)

(Healthy weight) × (10 or 11) = Your basic calorie needs

So, for example, if you’re a woman who is 5-feet, 5-inches, your weight goal may be 140 pounds. Using the formula, 140 × 10 = 1,400, which amounts to your basic calorie needs for a day.

Along with your basic calorie needs, the next three steps can help you figure out the maximum number of calories you can eat while you’re trying to get to your goal weight.

2. Figure out how many calories you need for the amount of exercise you get.

Read the following descriptions and then multiply your basic calorie needs from the previous section by the percentage that matches your activity level.

Sedentary (20 percent): You sit, drive, lie down, or stand in one place for most of the day and don’t do any type of formal exercise. Multiply by 0.20.

Light Activity (30 percent): You walk for exercise, up to two hours every day. Multiply by 0.30.

Moderate Activity (40 percent): You take exercise classes, dance, do a lot of housework, swim, or ride a bicycle most days. You do very little sitting. Multiply by 0.40.

Heavy Activity (50 percent): You play physical sports, have a labor-intensive job, or engage in heavy workouts at the gym almost every day. Multiply by 0.50.

(Basic calorie needs) × (Percent activity level) = Activity calorie needs

To continue with the example, take your basic calorie needs (1,400) and multiply that figure by .40. (Just suppose that you take a couple exercise classes a week and go with your kids for a couple of bike rides a week.)

Your activity calorie needs are 560.

3. Figure out how many calories you need for normal digestion and metabolism of food.

Yes! It’s true! You burn calories digesting and absorbing the food you eat. Add your basic calorie needs from Step 1 and your activity calorie needs from Step 2, and then multiply the total by 10 percent (0.10).

(Basic calorie needs) + (Basic activity needs) × 0.10 = Calories for digestion

With the example, your basic calorie needs (1,400) plus your activity needs (560) equals 1,960 calories. Multiply that by 0.10 and you get the calories you burn for digestion: 196.

4. Add your basic calorie needs, your activity calorie needs, and your calorie needs for digestion.

The resulting figure represents your total energy needs in calories.

(Basic calorie needs) + (Activity calorie needs) + (Digestion calorie needs) = Total calorie needs

To finish the previous example, your basic calorie needs (1,400) + your

activity needs (560) + your calorie needs for digestion (196) = your total calorie needs (2,156).

This number - your total calorie needs - represents the number of calories you can eat every day to maintain a healthy weight at the activity level you’ve chosen. When you’re trying to lose weight to get to a healthy weight, this number is a good guide to the maximum number of calories you can eat on any given day while you’re dieting. But remember: This number is just a guide. The actual number of calories that works for you depends on how much you exercise as well as other individual factors, such as your age and your individual metabolic rate.

Focusing on Formulas for Low Calorie Living

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The first thing any dieter wants to know is “How much food can I eat?,” which is the same as asking, “How many calories can I have?” The answer is simple: To lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than you’re eating now. Yes, you can burn some of your extra calories off through physical activity, and in fact you can burn off a lot of extra calories if you’re an avid exerciser or plan to become one. But to lose weight, most people also have to cut some, and often, many, calories from their diet.

If you like math, then the formulas you find in this section are for you. Dietitians and other weight experts sometimes use these formulas to help dieters determine a sensible range of calories within which they can safely lose or maintain weight.

Remember

You can use these formulas to figure out approximately how many calories you can eat every day to prevent further weight gain or to get to a healthier weight. After you establish your calorie allowance, you can work with the menu plans in Chapter 6, which are also designed to help you work within a range of calories to start losing weight right away. All weight loss formulas are limited, however, and the results they give are very general guidelines, not absolute numbers to live by every day.

Determining the number of calories you need
Using another formula for weight loss

Low Calorie Dieting - Beginner's Guide

Practicing Mindful Low-Calorie Living

Eating mindfully

Thinking mindfully

Weighing in on a regular basis

Knowing when to weigh yourself

Keeping a food diary

Related articles

Setting up your lifestyle goals

Related articles

Using Tracking Tools As You Get Started Weight Loss

Establishing your weight goals

Related articles

Checking Your Attitude When following a low calorie diet

Finding and maintaining your motivation

Loosening up

Staying positive

Giving Yourself a Lifestyle Makeover

Making changes one step at a time

Knowing your diet limits

Keeping your diet fresh

Playing diet games

Examining Your Current Diet Habits

Recognizing problem behaviors

Chapter 4: Kick-Starting Your Low Calorie Plan

Watching calories from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats

Choosing the best carbs

Increasing protein

Trimming fat

Using Proven Strategies for Cutting Calories

Controlling portion size

Eating “free” foods

Keeping your energy high and your diet interesting

Creating balance

Eating a variety of foods

Getting the nutrients you need: Phytochemicals

Getting the nutrients you need: Water

Getting the nutrients you need: Fiber

Getting the nutrients you need: Vitamins and minerals

Getting the nutrients you need: Fat

Getting the nutrients you need: Protein

Getting the nutrients you need: Carbohydrates

Understanding the Nutritional Nuts and Bolts of a Low Calorie Diet

Getting the nutrients you need

Body Mass Index Calculator

Using another formula for weight loss

Determining the number of calories you need

Focusing on Formulas for Low Calorie Living