simplified fitness - part 3 - to eat or not to eat

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Like I mentioned earlier, if you want to lose fat, your total calorie intake must be less than the total calories needed during the day. This can be done in two ways, through a change in your diet and/or through exercise. Personally I would combine the two because the two adds together which means less dramatic changes and exercise brings other positives with it such as more muscles which helps you burn calories when doing nothing. But this part is about how you should eat to lose weight.

There are several different diets out there, they all say "do this and you will lose weight"...cut fat, cut carbs, live on air...yeah sure, they might work...it all depends on how YOU react to the diet...I'm not gonna tell you to try this or that diet, this is a journey you will have to make to see what works for you.

I don't do a specific diet myself and eat pretty much anything. I just use a bit of common sense and a couple of tricks that works really well for me.

First of all, I hate the feeling of being hungry. So what makes you feel hungry?
I've read up on this since I wrote my 'for the ladies' post and I now know that it is the gremlin...hrm ghrelin, sorry I just couldn't resist :)
It's a chemical/hormone in your brain that makes you feel hungry. If your ghrelin levels are high it's no longer a matter of willpower, you will eventually give in.

So what can you do to keep from feeling hungry and burn more fat?
First of all eat often, it's recommended to eat at least 5 times per day, 3 main meals and smaller meals in between. This will keep your metabolic rate even throughout the day. Try to include protein, fat and carbohydrates in all your meals.
Try to avoid getting to the point where you get really hungry, once you're there your body will lower the metabolic rate and if you still don't eat your body will go into starvation mode which means it pretty much hibernates and once it gets access to food again it will make up for what it lost and add a bit more to be ready for next time this happens.
I always keep a protein or nut bar with me in case I start to feel a bit hungry.

Cut down on fat, cut off visible fat from your steak, don't eat the skin of the chicken and so on...Fat actually plays an important part in the functionality of your body so don't cut them out completely, instead swap out the bad trans and saturated fats to good unsaturated fats.

Take a 100 grams of almonds for example, if you look at the fat content of that amount you would end up eating 50 grams of fat...but it's only 4 grams out of those 50 grams that is saturated fat. So read the labels on the products you buy.
Nuts and seeds are excellent snacks in between the bigger meals, they keep you full for longer and also contains loads of other goodies.

Drink a lot of water, it's probably the best supplement there is.
It increases your mental and physical performance, helps transporting toxins and waste from your body, it is an important part of the fat burning process and it keeps your skin hydrated and healthy.
Drinking is one of my biggest problems though, I simply don't feel thirsty. So to remind myself I have water bottles and cups here and there and everywhere.
If you want to you can make the water a bit more interesting by putting lemon or something else that you like in the water.
Remember thought that too much of anything is bad so don't drink too much as it could flush out important minerals and vitamins. A good amount to strive for is at least 2 liters per day. This of course all depends on how big your are, weather and if you exercise. A good indicator is the color of your urine, it should only be slightly colored and if it is dark you should drink more. If you know that you've had lots to drink, the colorization could be caused by something you've eaten...Dehydration can cause headaches, dizziness, dry skin, decreased blood pressure and more.
Coffee, black tea and other drinks with caffeine should not be included in the total amount of water you've had since it draws water from your body rather than adding to it.

Sometimes the body mistakes thirst for hunger, so if you're hungry, drink a glass of water and if that doesn't help, eat something.

Swap out some of your carbohydrates with protein, why? First of all it will help you to keep your muscle mass...so by eating protein your body will use that rather than your muscles. Secondly because protein has a higher thermic effect. Thermic effect means that the body require energy to turn protein into energy. Everything you eat has a thermic effect but when it comes to fat and carbohydrates it's pretty low. But when it comes to protein, that's a whole other story...lets say you eat 100 calories of protein, of those 100, your body uses about 30% to transform the protein to energy in the form it can use to fuel itself.

Watch out for carbohydrates with high GI...I'm sure you've heard of GI, the higher the number the faster your body digest it. The problem with this is that the faster your body digest it the faster you will feel hungry again.
One of the quickest sugars is fructose and you should be extra careful with this one. If you eat regular food, your brain realizes this and send signals of being full. But with sugars and especially fructose your brain never sends those signals.
Have you ever noticed that when you eat a fruit because you're hungry, soon after instead of feeling full you're twice as hungry as before you had the fruit!
This can easily be fixed by eating slower carbs or protein with the fruit, you get the boost and vitamins from the fruit and your brain sending those signals.
I'm not saying fruits are bad for you, but it is good to be aware of what I just told you.

And now to my final tip, the one that has made a huge difference for me. I call it carbohydrate distribution. This is a technique for those who believe that you metabolic rate changes throughout the day, being high in the morning, during the day and then decreases in the afternoon and evening.
What you do is that you eat most of your carbs in the morning and during the day and then stop completely or decrease the amount the later it gets.
When I'm in health mode I try to avoid as much carbs as I can after 3 pm.

What to think of diet wise if you want to gain weight is a whole chapter by itself and it is on my list of things to write about, so look out for that one.

Thats it for part three.
I will be away for a week and a bit now so I won't be updating this place for while. When I get back I will continue to write on this simplified fitness series and next one up is 'measure the progress'.

Be safe.