Advice On Maintaining Weight Loss
posted on 04/28/2009
After you have shed that unnecessary flab, it is important to prevent putting the weight back on. It may take a little effort, but it is highly worth the effort.
Reintroducing forbidden foods:
You don't have to omit your favorites like you may have done during your dieting phase, but you do have to exercise careful portion control. Foods that were not allowed on your diet should have a limit attached.
One of the ways to control portions is by weighing them on a dieter's scale. These scales are very helpful in letting you measure exactly what you are eating. A good rule of thumb is to limit the ounces of each food category according to its density and its likelihood in putting on weight.
Desserts that are dense should be limited to 4 ounce portions for a person who is on a maintenance diet. Puddings and lighter desserts should weigh in at no more than 6 ounces. Dense desserts include cake, pie and fruit bread., Light desserts include yogurt, shakes, pudding and gelatin concoctions.
Many people miss main dishes even more than the desserts. Spaghetti, lasagna, tuna casserole or pizza are what they would like to enjoy. Once again you should weigh your portions until you are accustomed to what a reasonable portion is and then occasionally check your portions to keep yourself in line.
Hearty casseroles and other meat main dishes plus pizza should be limited to 6 or 7 ounces per serving. This type of dish usually has a protein so you can have a fairly large serving but not an unlimited amount.
Meats of all kinds can be enjoyed as much as your stomach lets you in portions of 4 to 5 ounces. Meat tends to help stave off hunger and you can have a reasonably large portion for maintenance, with the exception of dried meet or bacon.
Dried meat or bacon plus seeds and nuts should be limited to 1 or 2 ounces. Also cookies of all kinds fall into this small portion category, limit these to one or two ounces also.
For a quick reference on estimating the calories in food, dense foods roughly have ninety calories an ounce, medium foods 70 calories and light foods 40 .
Taking care to not eat too frequently:
It won't do much good to keep portions in line if you don't limit the frequency of your eating as well. You may have the option of eating several times a day if you plan your meals and snacks carefully and keep the portions small, but make certain to know how many times you are eating.
Plan how often you would like to eat each day. Four or five times a day often helps dieters and those on maintenance diets achieve their goals. You might like to eat two meals and three snacks or three meals and two snacks. A smaller person with a lower calorie allowance will probably like to choose the four meals and snacks per day.
Any snack portion should be under 300 calories. Items that amount to 150 to 250 calories usually make for a great snack. If your calorie count total needs to be something like 1300, two meals at 400 calories and two snacks at 250 calories will add up to this amount, for example.
Watch your carbohydrate grams to keep the weight off:
Something that could help you maintain your weight loss while enjoying more of your favorite foods is to count your carbohydrate grams in addition to counting your calories. You can find books in the paperback section of book stores and magazine racks that have carbohydrate gram counters. Buying a book like this will let you be certain of he carbohydrate gram count is a food even if it isn't listed on the package.
A balanced diet often has over 100 grams of carbohydrate starch or more per daily meal plan, even a low calorie plan often has this many. You can whittle the count down though by leaving off some of the bread, rice, potato or other starch dish. You could reduce the fruit or milk but these items tend to have more vitamins and outer nutrients that the starches. These other nutrients could very well be important in regulating your thyroid and other organs that help you lose weight.
Often if you lower your carbohydrate gram count to 90 grams or less you are more successful on your weight loss or weight maintenance plan. Always be sure to eat 60 or 70 grams of carbohydrate though, eating less than this is probably unhealthy.
You really deserve to keep that weight off now that you have lost it. With portion control and carefulness to not nibble too frequently, you should also expect to succeed at maintenance.
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