Becoming thin is often a state of mind–the wish to get thin overpowers the desire to eat too much, too often. The comfort zone of feeling full and possibly sluggish after a heavy meal becomes disagreeable and kicks into the new paradigm of enjoying feeling thin and energetic after lighter fare.
Ten Tips to create a Thinner You
1. Desire Thinness and Make It Happen. You must earnestly want to become thinner. To accomplish that goal, you must develop a wholesome discipline in your eating habits.
2. Meal Size. Moderate the amount of food you put on your plate. Don’t count the calories of favorite foods, such as pasta or meat and potatoes. Don’t replace them with low-fat substitutes. Don’t drop them from your menu. Just consume them in smaller quantities.
Don’t take a second helping unless you have a psychological need for it. If so, you must fool yourself by further reducing the first helping so that a second one will not increase your meal size beyond your new standard.
Chew food thoroughly since most of the digestion process occurs in the mouth rather than in the stomach. An added benefit in chewing food well is that you will eat more slowly, thus giving the stomach a chance to catch up with the food intake–and you will feel more satisfied by a smaller meal than you would by a large meal eaten quickly.
3. Desserts. If you are a dessert person, eat just one dessert a day and keep it small–for example, eat half a slice of cake instead of a whole one. Have it during the mealtime at which you are most susceptible to craving sweets.
4. Meal Times. Eat breakfast, lunch, and an early supper. The main meal is best digested at noontime when the sun is at its highest. However, it’s important to relax when eating. So, if you usually must rush your lunch, then consider having your main meal in the evening–providing you have a few hours of digestion before going to bed.
5. Meal Frequency. Keep a minimum of four hours in-between meals. If you are deskbound, take just two meals a day–lunch and supper–along with a healthy drink (a juice blend of carrots and celery perhaps) first thing in the morning or mid morning.
If you become more physically active daily, then either increase your meal size or eat an extra meal. Some bodybuilders eat six small healthy meals a day. The key words are small and healthy.
6. Snacking. Don’t snack. But if you must, then drink an herbal tea for flavor–sometimes just a flavor will satisfy a hunger twinge–or eat some fresh fruit. You can eat as many grapes as you like (within reason) and not gain weight. The best type would be organic, seeded, ripe, and fresh. Don’t eat fruits that are either under-ripe or overripe.
7. Liquids. Drink plenty of distilled or spring water–two liters a day suits many people. Some health experts say distilled water depletes minerals in the body; others say spring water causes mineral buildup in the joints. So, choose the water type you feel safe with–or drink some of both. Also try sparkling water–Perrier is very satiating.
If you drink soda, which is sugary and fattening, limit yourself to half a can a day. The idea is not to get rid of anything you love but to moderate its quantity. If you drink diet sodas, also limit yourself to half a can a day. Even though calories are lacking, the unnatural ingredients that impede healthy body functioning are abundant.
8. Holiday Meals. Some people plan on overeating. You should not. Don’t eat larger portions than you’ve become used to. Your shrunken stomach will feel full enough with less food in it. You’ll be pleased the next day when you are still feeling thinner and are closer to your goal of fitting into those favorite jeans again–or the new clothes you plan to buy.
When you are used to eating less, it’s bad for you to suddenly overeat. Note: if you do a water fast one day a week, you should break the fast with dry toast and not with a heavy meal, which could be dangerous and possibly temporarily increase the heart rate among other symptoms.
9. Social Eating. If you are in a social setting with loads of food around and it’s not your mealtime, then don’t eat. If you should however indulge, then eat fruits and vegetables and drink lots of water–keep the intake minimal. If you drink alcohol, drink less than you normally would–you are developing less tolerance for it. Do not eat again for four hours. If it’s your bedtime in four hours, then go to bed without eating. Enjoy a moderate breakfast the next morning–perhaps fresh grapefruit, toast, and oatmeal.
If in a restaurant when it’s not your mealtime and you feel you can’t avoid eating, order either a broth to slowly sip or a salad to pick at. But don’t order a full meal. Your friends may rib you for your new eating habits but it’s up to you to be true to yourself. Always be conscious of when you eat, what you eat, and how much you eat. The process will become second nature.
10. Exercise. A twenty-minute brisk walk daily and a few muscle-toning exercises–even just every other day–will do wonders for increasing the metabolism and thus speeding up the thinning down. Using the large thigh muscles really burns calories. So, when you can, fit in an exercise or sport that you like. Also, do some stretching in order to increase flexibility. If exercise increases your appetite, increase your food intake. See Tip 5.
When exercising, wear loose comfortable sweats and don’t mind how you look in the mirror. And don’t look for results. As you thin down, you’ll start putting on those trim athletic suits. You’ll know when or if you feel like doing so.
Bonus Tip. Envision a new a image of yourself so that when you feel you want to stray into the charted territory of overeating, you will think twice and also stay resolute on your journey to thinness.
Summary
Be sure to adapt these ten tips for changing your eating habits gradually. Don’t go cold turkey from very large meal sizes to very small sizes. Use common sense and beyond a wholesome discipline, go easy on yourself.
Your body is a factory that assimilates the food you eat. The healthier the food is that you ingest, the better your body will serve you. You will have more energy and feel more positive mentally. So, if you are a fast-food fanatic, although you will become thinner by moderating your intake, you should consider putting healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables (especially greens), legumes, grains, and perhaps organic meat on your thinness menu. Read some books on health foods. Having your health makes an essential contribution to your well-being.
Snacking should be out of the question. However, if you are an incontrovertible snacker, then reduce the snack frequency and quantity–even more so if your usual snacks have high salt content and are fattening. In fact, you may want to make an exception to not giving up a favorite food and in fact give up detrimental snacks. Replace them with healthy ones.
Consider eating fresh raw nuts combined with dried fruits. The least-fattening snacks are fresh fruits and raw greens. Look for other satisfying healthy foods. Perhaps create healthy drinks like those found at Jamba Juice–to this end, buy a juicer. The bottom line is that your snack portions should be kept small enough to make you thinner and keep you thinner–and also sustain your health.
As you shape your mind to shape your body–think thin and get thin–your clothes will start to feel a little looser every day. There’s no need to step onto a scale. Checking your weight could be misleading since loss of body fat is counterbalanced by the muscle gain that comes with exercise. As we know, muscle is denser and thus heavier than fat. Your thinning progress is best measured by how your clothes feel and look on you.
It’s important to stay disciplined in your quest for thinness. A rare lapse in changing your eating habits is okay. Habitual lapses are not. If you often weaken in the discipline that the change requires, you will constantly struggle between moving one step forward and three steps backward–and will be frustrated. These ten tips to change your eating habits are not intended to add stress to your busy life but to help you achieve enduring thinness and be healthy.
Make a game of becoming thin, have fun with it, and stay focused. If you feel your discipline weakening, ask yourself what’s more important to you–overeating at mealtimes or eating moderately and feeling good in your clothes. These ten tips constitute a way of life, not a fad.
Disclaimer. Consult your physician before changing your diet. Different people have different physiologies and thus have different dietary needs. My ten tips for new eating habits won’t suit everyone.
If you are obese, you can start to cut down on food intake very minimally–lose no more than two or three pounds a week (in this situation, use a weight scale) –and as time goes on, you can incrementally cut down more. Use a weight scale in this instance. However, you should absolutely first consult a doctor for advice in embarking on a diet change. Losing weight too fast–which you might be tempted to do–is extremely dangerous. Always remember–your health is of paramount importance.