Like millions of people worldwide today, you may be overweight and searching for a diet that works. Your probably asking yourself, “How can I lose weight and keep it off?”
You probably also want to do this without spending a fortune or having to contact your support group every time you get a craving.
The answer is quite simple. A bit of willpower and a small lifestyle change will give you the results your looking for.
The first step is to figure out how many calories you consume on a weekly basis. This may take a little effort. You need to look at a typical day. Let’s use an example here.
An average days diet:
Breakfast: Flavored coffee with 2 cream and 2 Sugars (Dunkin Donuts medium size: approx 330 calories) and a muffin (Dunkin Donuts blueberry: 510 calories).
Lunch: Tuna fish sandwich with lettuce added (roughly 680 calories) with a bag of single serving Lays chips (150 calories) and a pickle (10 calories). To drink: 12 oz can of Coca-Cola (150 calories).
Mid-afternoon snack: M&Ms (single serving pack – 240 calories).
Dinner: Piece of lasagna (Stouffer’s 1 serving: 350 calories) with two pieces of garlic bread (Pepperidge Farm 2 1/2″ slice x 2: 340 calories) and a glass of soda (8oz: approx. 100 calories).
Snack at Night: Candy bar (Snickers, King size: 440 calories).
You would probably agree that this does not seem like an excessive diet, but if you add up all the calories, you come out to 3,300 for the day. If you then multiply that by 7 you come out with 23,100 calories for the week!
It’s a widely known fact, that 3,500 calories equals roughly 1 pound of fat. This means if you were to eat 3,500 calories more than you need, you would gain a pound of fat. It also means that if you eat 3,500 calories less than you need, you will lose a pound.
Now what you want to do is this: Calculate your calories per week just as this example shows. Once that is done, look for easy places to cut 3,500 calories. With the diet above, 3 small changes will do the job.
1 – Drink water instead of a Coke with lunch.
2) Eliminate the afternoon snack of M&Ms.
3. Opt for only one slice of garlic bread with dinner.
Just these three tiny changes are enough to do the trick. With them you can eliminate 560 calories from the number you consume in a day. Now that figures to 3,920 over the course of one week which is enough to lose 1 pound. After one year, you will be nearly 52 pounds lighter! And this is done with NO EXERCISE!
Obviously, this is just an example and your own diet will vary. But give this a try and you’ll be amazed by the results. After just a few weeks, you will start to see the weight coming off like clockwork and this will be all the inspiration you will need to maintain your new, healthier diet. Always remember, small changes can make a big difference!
