Quick Vegetarian Weight Loss
A vegan diet can help you with your weight loss plan but first we must establish what a vegan diet is and the different types of vegans.
1. Some vegans only eat a strict diet of vegetables and stay strictly away from dairy products, eggs, meat, honey, processed foods, stimulants such as coffee, etc.
2. Some vegans eat a non-meat diet strictly because they believe the killing of animals is inhumane and their diet is consistent with their beliefs.
3. Some vegans have been put on a vegetarian diet due to certain health risks.
These are all good and acceptable reasons to be vegan. So whatever type of Vegan you subscribe to you can lose weight with a well-BALANCED vegetarian diet with healthy exercise.
When losing weight, however, the key is to make it attainable, and make it easy. With attainable weight loss and easy weight loss you will find yourself much more successful in the long run. So, here are ways to make a simple vegan diet attainable and easy.
ATTAINABLE:
Pick a plan that you can live with. Don’t restrict yourself too much at first. For example, if you are used to coffee in the morning, tackle that issue later. Go simple at first and once you are succeeding, move on to conquer other things.
Don’t allow yourself to get discouraged. If you cheat, or slide…so what? Go back on it next meal! There is never a reason to get mad at yourself or beat yourself up. THAT is the reason people fail. They get discouraged and quit. Even if you decide to eat only raw vegetable, yet one day you are out of food, open up a can of green beans for goodness sakes, and forget about it!
Control your thoughts! The bible says the battlefield is in the mind. If you can conquer this, you have won your battle. If you keep your mind NOT on how and what and when you eat and what you did not eat and when can you eat next and …so on….you are allowing yourself to focus on the wrong things which is probably what got you over weight or unhealthy in the first place. Eat your food, stick with your plan, and go do something else. Make your thoughts go on a diet too. Do not think about food or eating.
EASY:
Buy a variety of food to have on hand. When shopping at the grocery store, ONLY buy the types of foods on your diet. Buy fresh, maybe have some canned or frozen on hand if you run into a bind, but don’t buy chips, or other temptations making it hard on you. Get that stuff out of your pantry so you won’t have to look at it. Only have on hand the type of food you should eat even when you are cheating. Cheat with special things that you will only eat when you feel you have to cheat. For example, cheat with fresh fruit or a smoothie if you must. It will conquer the sweet tooth and help keep you on target.
Pre-Plan what to order when at a restaurant. Know what you are choosing before you show up at the fast food place or a restaurant. Of course and most of the fast food restaurants offer many salads to choose from. Don’t even try to be tempted. Remember…the battlefield is in the mind.
Again, keep special foods onhard when you want to cheat such as special nuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, blueberries, etc. Have a special “treat” just for you keeping it within your dieting plan.
The key to a nutritionally sound vegan diet is variety so you can include fruits, vegetables, lots of different kinds of leafy greens, whole grain products, nuts, legumes and seeds. Be creative here!
A healthy vegetarian diet is not just cutting out certain foods such as meat. It’s about making sure you are getting ample amount of nutrients and all of your daily nutritional needs. Do not skimp on nutrients. Learn your diet and find out what your body will need to continue and be successful!
You do not need to count calories or mess with carb counting, or weighing your food, but it would be wise to eat organically grown fruits, plants, whole grains, and natural foods. Foods without these chemicals are better for everyone, vegan or not.
Judy Stevens writes on weight loss and weight gain with a specialty in hormonal imbalances. To read more go to http://www.review-suite.com or for free charts on food cravings and ideal weight go to http://www.squidoo.com/menopause-and-weight-loss
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Categories: Weightloss Tags: Loss, Quick, Vegetarian, Weight
Weight Loss Mistakes
If you did everything right on your weigh loss program, you would have no problem reaching your diet goals. But since most dieters do not stick to their diet, the body of your dreams, stays just that: dreams. The reason: mistakes.
Mistakes can range from giving into cravings to not going to an aerobics class. And once this happens, the typical response for many is to berate yourself. After all, no one wants to make mistakes, so some criticism is in order.
I suspect the biggest reason for this self-criticism is the human need to be perfect. No one with an ounce of self-esteem wants to make mistakes. So, some harsh words to ourselves may seem in order, or is it?
If we take a step back and look at how some mistakes have added to our society, we should realize that they are not always bad. In fact mistakes led to the invention of rubber, penicillin, sticky-notes, and even chocolate chip cookies.
Yes, I know that making a mistake on a diet in most cases leads to more weight gain or at least no weight loss, but so what. The urge to gobbled down a bag of chips was just to great to resist. OK. You did the damage. Now What?
Do you beat yourself up for not having the will power to resist or do you quickly forgive yourself and promise to do better next time? If you choose the former, then expect to be miserable and eventually repeat the behavior again and again. How come?
Well criticizing yourself just makes you feel bad and feeling bad doesn’t decrease your chances of repeating the mistake, but just the opposite. And why is this?
In the field of positive psychology, studies have shown that happy people are more likely to exhibit greater self-control and coping abilities. In addition, the findings also show that happy people live longer, have more successful relationships, more success at work and have better physical and mental health.
So what should you take from this. Simply put, even though you may succumb to the urge to eat a half or maybe even a whole bag of cookies, forgive yourself and go on. And if you think about anything, remember the times when you didn’t succumb to the temptations. More importantly, be happy.
Your road to the body of your dreams may not be a smooth one, but by keeping a positive attitude and being happy with yourself even after some stumbles helps to keep your self-esteem high. As a result, this allows you to better cope with setbacks and eventually reach your goals.
Tired of wasting your precious time searching all over the web for useful health information? Want expert advice on what you need to do to lose weight quickly and easily? Then check out http://www.How-to-Burn-Fat.com
Categories: Weightloss Tags: Loss, Mistakes, Weight
Weight Loss Maintenance
Now that you have lost those pounds, weight loss maintenance should be on your mind. And since I am sure that you do not want to be part of that depressing statistic that gains the weight back, maintenance should be taken with the same importance as losing weight.
First remember that the same rules apply in your gaining weight as it did before. If you go back to a diet that consists of high-fat and calorie rich foods, rest assured, you are going to regain the weight. So do not think that just because you have lost the weight that you can now go back to your old eating habits. Yes, this should be obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of people who do just that.
Secondly, if you haven’t realized it by now, maintaining your weight represents a new lifestyle. In your previous lifestyle, your habits consisted of weight gaining behavior. In your new one, the aim is to continue the new behavior so that you can stay slim and healthy. Assuming that your diet was based on smart eating and not some fad, this should be relatively easy.
Assuming you are at the weight you want to maintain, the biggest concern for most people is how many calories do you need to consume to stay at that weight. This should not be to hard to figure out, but it may require a little experimentation.
You already know how much food you were eating to lose weight. From this, simply increase your portion sizes slightly. If you find that you are starting to gain the weight back again, you need to cut back on the increased sizes. Just make sure you take into account water weight. This can cause your weight to fluctuate a few pounds.
The easiest way to keep up with this information is with a food diary. If you were not keeping one before, I strongly suggest you start. A study conducted by the Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research showed that those who keep a food diary were more successful with losing and maintaining there weight than those who did not.
And just like you need to maintain proper eating habits, you also need to continue to exercise. The exercise you performed was part of the reason why you lost the weight that you did. If you stop exercising, the calories that were once burned by them will now be stored as fat. The only way to prevent this from happening, besides exercising, is to further restrict how much food you eat.
So if you keep these few points in mind, a year from now the weight you lost will still be gone, which will be more than most other dieters will be able to say.
Tired of wasting your precious time searching all over the web for useful health information? Want expert advice on what you need to do to lose weight quickly and easily? Then check out http://www.How-to-Burn-Fat.com/blog
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Categories: Weightloss Tags: Loss, Maintenance, Weight
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