Dieting hell!

[sharon_33]

I find it so hard to cut out so called 'bad' foods from my diet. Like most women I love sweet treats. I find my sweet tooth undoes all my good eating. Is there anything I can eat as a low fat / low sugar substitute?

[fitbird]

Sharon,

Instead of trying to replace the foods you love why not eat them!!! Ok, ok, I don't mean ALWAYS eat them.

Simply chosen something you love and eat it in moderation during the evening at home. Make sure you're good for the rest of the day though - no fatty / sugary foods, no picking etc and use the evening treat as a way of rewarding yourself and your hard work.

Good luck!!

fitbird

[nigel]

Try to avoid such foods for FULL DAY at least once a week. You can try and It really works day by day.

Drink plenty of water, if little cycling would do best. Keep yourself away from such Foods as far as possible.

Good luck

[phillips-fit]

Sharon, a sure way to succeed in maintaining a healthy weight/lifestyle is to follow the 90/10 rule; that's 90% of the time consuming whole, real, nutritious foods that have grown or lived before they hit your plate and not been processed or treated by man and 10% of the time allow for eating crap; i.e. sweets, chocolate, crisps or anything man-made and processed. If you follow this rule and control your insulin levels and don't go longer than 3 hours without eating something (nutritious), you will find that your sugary cravings will subside! By continually giving in to your cravings for the sweets etc you are just adding fuel to the fire, fuelling your sweet tooth and locking into a vicious circle. Here's where the 10% bit comes in because if you went "T" total, the depravation would eventually get the better of you and you'd end up blowing out completely! 10% is just enough to reduce your chances of this happening and allowing for great progress. Be in control of your food not let it be in control of you.

Here's a great healthy sweet snack for you; two heaped tbsp of Natural Live Bio Yoghurt (not the low fat one!) with a tbsp of mixed dried fruit/berries and this falls into your 90% bit, how cool is that! :cool:

[Tom@foresight]

I would totally agree with philips-fit, alot of top athletes make use of cheat days where they can stray away from thier normal eating pattern have some of those treats!

The use of a cheat day or iteams of food can also be used as a great motivator to stick to your programs during the rest of the week.

TOM

[sharon_33]

These are all good tips and I've been impelementing the idea of a cheat day were I can eat what I want (within reason!!). Funnily enough I picked up an old Men's Health magazine in the dentists this week and it said that Daniel Craig did the same thing when getting into shape for the Kames Bond film Casino Royale. He even drink as much Guiness as he could on the days when he wasn't exercising and if he can look that good (maybe the trunks helped!) then I' sure I can lose a little more weight whilst eating a few treats every now and again.

Shaz

[Tom@foresight]

Thing you have to remember is that we are all human, we need those days when we don't beat ourselves up for having a relaxing day and eating foods we would normally avoid.

I strongly belive that this kind of routine will help you to maintain your current training. But as you have said even the cheat days need to me within reason!

TOM

[phillips-fit]

"But as you have said even the cheat days need to me within reason!"

That's a great point by Tom, I have had problems in the past with clients when given the option of a "cheat day". They'll get in the mind set that its a cheat day so anything goes and I'm gonna make the most of it and "cheat" real good! This then leads them to consuming so many calories that they end up wiping out the calorie deficit they had created over the 6 "good" days, resulting in ZERO fat loss!

Hence I have found that the 90/10 rule works best. Add up how many meals you eat per week then multiply that by 10% which gives you how many "cheat" meals you are allowed per week. For example, for me I eat 42 meals per week, so I allow myself to eat crap just 4 times per week and NO more! This is a great long term strategy for achieving and maintaining the body of your dreams...

[Tom@foresight]

Great one Philllips!

Like teh application of the 90/10 rule!

TOM

[Heart Ace]

great tips !

[SValienteZZZZZ]

Iv read a few times that its best to tackle one thing at a time when it comes to smoking and dieting.

I really want to lose weight and I also want to quit smoking. I know smoking raises your metabolism iv read about it....but not sure if its true. Obviosly it raises it in a bad way....and im nervous that if I try to lose weight and stop smoking at the same time.... that I will not see results for a lil bit.

Do you guys think it will be better if I just stick to the diet for a lil bit until I lose some weight and then tackle the smoking problem?

What are some of your experiences if you tried to quit?