How To Lose Weight Without Dieting

“Diet” is a four-letter word, and lots of people cuss it out every day, without understanding its true meaning.

The word diet comes from the Middle English word “diete,” which literally means “manner of living.”

Please note that it doesn’t mean starving for a time, or anti-binging, or suffering by eating weird concoctions. A diet is a manner of living, perhaps better defined as “a manner of healthy living,” as most successful healthy eating habits are.

If one wants to lose weight without “dieting, ” in the misused form of the word, it not only can be done, it is being done. Weight loss can simply be accomplished by making these simple changes.

Avoid Sugar

Yes, there’s a big controversy about weather sugar is good or bad, but look at science and think about it.

In 2003 the World Health Organization recommended that sugar intake be less than 10% of a person’s diet. Why?

Carbohydrates are converted to sugars for energy, and our bodies gobble up sugar right away. Blood sugar levels affect appetite as well as how energetic we feel, and those same levels tell the body to burn the fat or store it.

When we eat sugar our pancreas creates insulin that transports blood sugar to our body’s cells. The insulin tells our body to either burn fat or store it. An insulin surge causes blood sugar to be transported out of our bodies and drops our blood sugar and insulin levels to drop below normal, which in turn causes us to feel tired and hungry, and want to eat something else with a high sugar content, thus starting the cycle all over again.

Make no mistake, we need a certain amount of sugar in our diet, but too much sugar intake causes the insulin surges that cause the eating cycle to continue, and the body to store the energy we don’t need as fat.

The best way to live healthy is to balance our eating, not starving and not bingeing, so that our sugar levels are stabilized and used for to create the energy we need, and not the fat we don’t need.

Nutritionists suggest balancing eating habits by eating five small nutritious meals a day, and one protein and green meal.

Exercise

Unless you are an athlete or a body builder, moderate exercise is best for the person trying to loose unwanted pounds. Heavy exercise can be bad for the joints and muscles, especially if you’re not used to the physical activity. That’s why most doctors recommend a good relaxing walk every day.

The real purpose of an exercise regime should be to strengthen muscle and increase metabolism. Our muscles need to be strong to get us moving, and our metabolism needs to be up and pumping our heart so our bodies will burn the excess sugar energy and not store it as fat.

Look at your body like a furnace. If you feed it the right fuel it will burn clean and hot. If you feed it too much at one time, or the wrong fuel, or starve it, it will not efficiently put out the heat you want it to produce.

Through the word “Diet” out the window, and replace it “healthy manners” and you may just enjoy losing the pounds that are sure to come off that much easier.