Overcome Obesity and Lose Weight By Making The Right Food Choices

By Kat Fuschillo
Writer for FEP International

Educating yourself on the foods you eat is essential if you want to lose weight and stay healthy. Eating an unbalanced fatty diet can make weight loss near impossible, and have a very negative effect on your health. Find out how to change your diet, overcome your obesity and live a much healthier lifestyle [1].

Obesity: Foods you need to avoid...

If you're obese there are a number of foods you need to start avoiding. Start by cutting out all of the following foods from your diet:

- Processed carbohydrates (see food packs for details).
- Foods with a high sugar content.
- Fatty junk foods and all fast food.
- Foods with high levels of saturated fat.
- Non-diet soda drinks

Don't worry, this doesn't mean that you can't ever eat another hamburger. Instead, you need to eat junk food sparingly, and replace it with a tasty healthy alternative [2].

A healthy weight loss plan...

You need to realistically aim for around 1 – 2 pounds of weight loss each and every week. If you lose any more than this, you could actually be doing more harm than good to your health.

Here are some easy ways to make your diet more healthy:

- Eat 5 pieces / servings of fruit and vegetables each and every day.
- Drink more water – around 5 glasses each day.
- Add high fiber foods to your diet.
- Drink semi skimmed or soya milks.
- Eat lower fat and low calories meal alternatives [3].

How to make your Obesity weight loss even easier...

Here are three more ways you can boost your weight loss, and start living a more healthy lifestyle:

1) Portion control – Not only do you need to watch what you're eating, but you need to make sure that you stop overeating. Many folks these days eat far more food than they actually need. Those who overeat often have a hard time knowing when they are full, and only stop eating when they feel sick or uncomfortable. A quick and easy way to reduce your portion size is to eat from a smaller dinner plate. This way, you won't be able to fit as much food on it. Just make sure you don't go back for seconds.

2) Don't go over your daily calorie allowance – Women only need around 1500 calories each day and men need ~2000 daily. You're most likely eating far more calories than you burn, so it's important to start counting your daily calories. Most foods now have the calorie content on the label, and you can easily find food calorie values on-line.

3) Keep active and get some exercise – Not only will this help you burn off some of you daily calories, but exercising is a great way to kick start your weight loss. You just need around 30 minutes of moderate exercise or activity each day to stay healthy.

References

1. For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful –
http://health.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-obesity-ess.html. Accessed Aug 21, 2009.

2. Teaching families how to eat well -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6274067.stm. Accessed Aug 21, 2009.

3. Diet of dense foods is the trick –
http://news.scotsman.com/obesity/Diet-of-dense-foods-is.5377377.jp. Accessed Aug 21, 2009.

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