You may think that to lose weight you have to learn to hate food. This is so wrong and is the exact opposite of how you should be thinking. You need to learn to love food for the fuel that it gives you to get through your day and to find foods to eat to lose weight instead of gain it.

Too many people rely on food to give them comfort when all it really does is make you fat because you eat too much of the wrong things. When you start making healthier choices and paring down your portion sizes you will begin to see some differences in the clothes you wear and the energy your have.

I am going to talk to you about foods to eat to lose weight. There are many to choose from and to mix and match. There are ways to make sure that you eat enough of everything to get the nutrients and vitamins you need on a daily basis but still not go over your calorie count for the day.

Since you need to eat five or six small meals per day to lose the weight you want, you may need to mix things up a bit so you do not get bored with what you are eating. Fresh fruits and vegetables need to play a major role in you losing the weight you want, even if you do not like them. Pick the one or two that you do like and stick with them.

If you do like them then you are basically home free. You need to eat a piece of fruit or a vegetable with every single meal. Preferably one of each. If you choose to have fruit as one of your snacks, pair it up with some low-fat yogurt or some sunflower seeds. Mix the fruit and sunflower seeds into the low-fat yogurt and make your own special granola type snack.

The low-fat dairy and the seeds will keep you fuller longer and provide you with lots of protein and essential fats your body needs to function properly. You can’t cut out all the fat from your diet because your body needs some fat to help your body absorb certain nutrients.

Lean proteins are important, too. Eggs, fish, shrimp, low-fat dairy, and poultry are all great sources of lean protein. Just make sure to keep the portion sizes to about three ounces, four if you are male.

Like I said, fats are important but only in very small amounts. If you should choose poultry make sure the skin is removed and the fat trimmed off completely. Eat red meat only as a treat every once in a while. I don’t know about you but I love steak and could not possibly go without it for the rest of my life but I could just have it once or twice a month and be happy with all the other foods to eat to lose weight for the rest of the time.

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There are so many different diets to lose weight out there that trying to figure out the best one for you is absolutely mind-boggling. There’s the milk diet and the chocolate diet and the soup diet and other extreme diets that will help you lose weight, some very quickly, but, they just do not teach you how to eat better for the rest of your life.

One of the best diets to lose weight is not a diet at all. It is a lifestyle change. If you just make some simple changes with the types of food you eat, watch your portion sizes and get a little exercise everyday you will lose weight.

Here are some simple guidelines. If you drink a lot of pop, stop. Switch to water or green tea. If you switch to green tea get the flavored stuff, it just tastes better. Flavor your water with a little lemon or lime juice. Not only will this give the water some flavor, citrus is a natural diuretic and will help with any and all water weight you have.

If you eat out a lot, stop. Start cooking for yourself more. If you do not consider yourself a good cook then learn a few simple meals and practice. The more you do it the better you will get. Eat a lot of salads, too. They are easy to make, you can just go buy a bag of pre-washed salad greens and add what you want. Throw in 3 ounces of grilled chicken breast, canned tuna or salmon fillet and you have a great meal.

A secret…try a Greek, raspberry or balsamic vinaigrette. They are all very low in carbs just be sure to measure out the correct serving size. A little vinaigrette goes a long way. Or learn to make your own low-fat, low-carb salad dressing. It is totally up to you.

Eat five or six small meals a day. This may seem like a real big pain in the backside but if you plan things out and do it right it will make putting these meals together a snap. Just cook a bunch of chicken all at once and portion it out or buy the small cans of tuna. They are already three ounces, hey, look ma, no measuring!

Keep the already portioned chicken in the freezer and just thaw it out in the microwave when you need it. I would not recommend pre-cooking fish though, it takes no time to cook and is much better if you eat it right after it is cooked.

If you eat a lot of bad carbs, stop. Bad carbs come in the form of all the processed food you see on the shelves at the market. Breads, cereals, anything made from white, flour, white sugar, and even white rice are all considered to be bad carbs. all they do it raise your blood sugar and then add to the fat around your middle.

Like I said, making small changes in the way you eat and what you eat is one of the best diets to lose weight that I have found. Follow these tips and you will soon be losing weight, too.

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If you’ve eaten meat and animal products your whole life, you might think, why switch to a vegetarian diet? You’ve lived your whole life eating eggs, hamburgers, hot dogs, poultry, so why switch now?

There could be many reasons to switch. Start by looking in the mirror. Are you at a healthy weight? Do you look and feel good most of the time? Do you wake up energized? Or do you wake up tired and sluggish?

How is your general health? Is your blood pressure within a healthy range? Are your cholesterol and blood sugar ranges normal? If they’re not, consider what you’re eating on a daily basis.

How do you feel after eating? Do you feel energized, as if you’ve fed your body what it needs? Or are you tired and dragged out? Do you often need a nap after eating? Is that what food is supposed to do for us, make us tired and sleepy?

Not really. Food should nourish and feed the body and leave us energized and refreshed. The human body is a machine and needs fuel that keeps it running in peak condition. When we’re fat, with high blood pressure, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol and other unhealthy conditions, it’s like a car engine that hasn’t been tuned or isn’t running on the optimal type of gasoline it needs to run efficiently. Your body is the same way. It needs the right kind of fuel to run at peak efficiency, and when you’re eating high-fat meat, or meat that’s been fed antibiotics throughout its life, that’s simply not the kind of fuel the human body evolved to run on.

Try eating vegetarian for a week or a month. See if you don’t feel different, more mentally acute and more physically fit and energized. At least reverse the portion sizes you’ve been eating, and make meat more of a side dish, if you can’t stop eating meat altogether. Even that change can make a big difference in your overall health and well-being.

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Many of the health benefits derived from a vegetarian diet have to do with creating a healthy environment in the bowels and stomach. Our digestive systems, from prehistory on, were designed to metabolize vegetable matter, more than animal products. Fruits, vegetables, legumes and nuts provide the kind of dietary fiber our digestive systems need to function properly. The Western diet that’s high in processed and refined flour and sugar, and in animal products that are laden with hormones and antibiotics, are actually anathema to our insides.

When the digestive system doesn’t function and work as it’s intended to, that leads to opportunistic diseases or changes in the DNA of cells in the stomach and colon. And there are more practical considerations as well. When we don’t get enough of the fiber we need, we incur a host of digestion and elimination problems, such as constipation and hemorrhoids that are a result of straining. These diseases and syndromes are much less evident in a vegetarian population than in a meat-eating population.

Other diseases of the bowel that occur less frequently in a vegetarian population include irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic ulcerative colitis, mostly likely due to the increased fiber content in a vegetarian diet. And of course a diet that’s higher in dietary fiber that comes from a vegetarian diet will decrease the likelihood or risk of colon cancer.

When you consider the risks that come with a diet that includes meat and animal products, and the benefits that come from a vegetarian diet, does the prospect of a steak or burger or bacon really sound that good to you? Doesn’t it at least make sense to reverse the portion sizes and proportions of meats to vegetables and side dishes? In other words, if you must continue to eat meat, then make meat your side dish, or just incidental to your meal, such as in a stir fry. Increasing the proportion of fruits and vegetables in your diet can only be good for you.

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