Are you Starving to Lose Weight - Does Starving Yourself Help You Lose Weight?

It’s never too late to rethink on your diet plan and make fresh and realistic health resolutions. It is the right time to take stock of the situation. Ask yourself: Are we being fair to ourselves when we make these strict guidelines of diet and exercise? Most people recoil at the thought of dieting and exercising, especially on a cold winter morning. And for all those people who are fed up of diet dictums, the good news is that the best way to lose weight is not to diet or deprive yourself of all the good things in life. If this sounds too good to be true, wait till you try this:

Wellness - the latest buzzword to hit the health industry - is actually the best way forward. Most people who plan strict diets do it in the hope that after losing the extra kilos, they will look ravishing. But the truth is that lusterless sagging skin or loose abdominal muscles are not the result that people want. What we want is a happy, healthy, svelte figure munching an apple. But alas, that is not what we end up with very often. Therefore, after trying to lose weight for the nth time, it is now time to stop dieting forever and yet look slim.

A great tip that can help you lose weight is to be aware of all of the myths out there regarding diet and weight loss. Starving yourself, for example, is one of the worst things you can do to your body. The weight loss is only temporary and you can become seriously sick.

Wellness is not only about losing weight, it is also about a positive mindset and transforming oneself into a holistically healthy person. This kind of a change in focus will not only result in weight loss but also give you great skin, good hair, a glowing persona and best of all, freedom from diets. Here is what the wellness and diet schedule entails:

Avoid skipping any meals. Not only will this not help you lose weight, but you could be depriving yourself of important nutrients that you need everyday. This can cause your body to also think it's starving and so it will mess up your metabolism, By the time you do eat again, you will most likely overeat.

o    Understanding your food weaknesses and indulging in them two times a week.

In order to achieve a healthy body it is important to eat a balanced diet. This means having the right amount of protein (from 15 to 20 percent), fat (about 30%) and carbohydrates (50 to 55 percent). Another thing to remember is that starving yourself to lose weight is not good as well.

o    Maintaining a diet log book.

Before giving into your cravings, have a drink of water. The body can't tell whether you are hungry or whether you are just in need of a drink; so before assuming that you are starving, try a glass of water and wait about 15 minutes. This can save your waistline and your pocketbook as well.

o    Pick up a routine that you enjoy which is like an exercise: dancing, or walking the pet, floor exercises with music etc.

If you want to effectively lose weight, remember to eat plenty throughout the day. Purposely starving yourself is not an effective weight loss measure and is just flat out, unhealthy. Eating your regular three meals a day with snacks between meals and combining that with regular exercise, is proven to be the most efficient way to lose weight.

o    Never deprive yourself. Always add new healthy habits to the current schedule, like having a yummy soup in the evening instead of tea and a scrumptious salad during lunch with olives, balsamic dressing and some greens and cheese cubes.

One great tip to ensure successful weight loss is to avoid skipping meals. When you skip a meal, your body switches to fat-storing mode because your body thinks it is starving. This slows your metabolism down to a crawl, which makes it much more difficult for you to drop the pounds.

o    Enjoy your meal. Many people who eat hurriedly always miss out on the flavors, do not feel satiated and end up compensating by overeating.

Don't be an "extremist" with your weight loss journey. If your body is used to 3000 calories a day, and taking food in whenever you feel a pang of hunger, well it's not going to like you limiting the calories to 1200 calories and "starving" through those pangs. Set a goal of 1500 calories and spread them out throughout the day. Eat an apple or even a small salad for a snack. Chew on some celery or carrot sticks You would be surprised at what you now like.

o    And if all this does not convince you, count the number of times you have struggled through a diet program only to regain the weight with a few extra kilos.

Plan all your meals ahead of time. Doing this will help you stay away from feeling starving and just choosing something that is quick but not healthy for you. This will also avoid leaving you stressing about what to make for dinner, and give you the chance to prepare your meals ahead of time.

o    Looking at unhealthy habits and finding alternatives. For example, if you are prone to drinking too much of tea/coffee, substitute some for herbal teas which smell and taste good. If you eat too much of fried food, learn to make toasted snacks or baked snacks, and experiment with new roasted snacks.

By eating small portions on a regular schedule, you train your body's metabolism and avoid overloading it with huge infusions of calories all at once. People who try to limit themselves to one or two meals per day often over-eat during those meals, since they are hungry from starving themselves. Create a normal schedule for meals and follow it.

o    Do not starve or eat less. When we cut down on quantities, our emotional system retaliates, so the best option is to add healthy foods to the diet before cutting out on food suddenly.