Maintaining Healthy lifestyle
The two things you need to make a long-term commitment to changes in your diet are staying motivated and making good nutrition a routine, pleasant part of your life. To be able to achieve this commitment, this recipe website offers you the healthy eating planner which is in 3 steps:
- Conditioning
- Reducing
- Maintenance
Now that you have prepared yourself psychologically for those small but profitable changes, you can go on to the first step of the healthy-eating planner that is conditioning.
Step 1: Conditioning
Conditioning will last only 4 days. These 4 days are about giving your body time to adapt to the changes and to be prepared for the next step.
In these 4 days, vitamin C and B complex are given to replenish and prepare the body, to feel good, to restore. The conditioning should be done over 4 days. If you feel that you are not ready, start by doing small changes first such as eating fruits, drinking more water. Once you get used to that, you can start Phase 1.
Step 2: Reducing Phase
The reducing phase would be the most important phase for those trying to lose weight. It is made up of 3 light meals and 3 snacks or in between meals so that you never feel hungry or tired because of too little energy. The time given is only a guide you will change according to your work schedule and some of you might not have mid-morning or mid-afternoon “tea breaks”. You might add your fruits to your meals but you need to drink water in between.
The reducing phase lasts as long as you need to lose weight. It might last for weeks, months or years depending on how much you need to lose. On this website, a 7 day planner has been given, you will need to devise and create your planner from one week to the next using the same outline but with different recipes from this website.
The more you vary from one week to the next, the easier it will be for you. You will stay motivated and not bored with what you eat and you will lose weight in a happy mood.
What would be lost as you lose extra body weight?
It should be noted that when we lose weight, we not only lose fat, we also lose vitamins, minerals, muscle mass and even bone mass. A good reducing planner should result in minimum muscle and bone loss and maximum fat loss.
However, you should remember that it is more difficult to lose fat mass and you must expect to lose a little weight gradually over some time.
Do not rush of try to lose extra weight fast, or you will put it back on. The amount of weight which you will lose weekly will depend on how much you have to lose overall, how you are eating before you start and also your activity, sex and age.
For example a person who needs to lose 40 kg will lose weight faster (on a weekly basis) compared to someone who needs to lose 4 kg. A person who is active (practicing some sports) will lose more weight than someone who is not. A man, having more muscles loses weight faster than a woman.
We cannot promise that you will lose a certain amount in a week but going through every step you will certainly shed extra weight and if you are a normal weight, you can do step 1 then step3.
Once you have reached your ideal / goal weight, you can move to step 3. Your goal weight should be personal to you. It is that weight or size which you feel most comfortable and happy with. It must be a realistic weight. Remember that each person is different and has a different build.
Step 3: The Maintenance Phase
This phase is as important as the reducing phase in that it helps you to maintain that weight which you have achieved and to teach you how to eat all the time. The maintenance phase is actually a lifetime commitment.
However, once again, one has to be realistic knowing that now and then they will celebrate or eat wrongly on certain occasions. But this should remain the exception rather that the rule.
Far too often, people go back to their old habits of eating after losing much weight and therefore put back the weight faster.
Those with a normal weight can use step 3 all the time to keep optimum health.