In order to lose weight you have to ensure that you are eating the right types of food and avoiding the wrong types of food. Eating lots of fruit and vegetables and any foods that are high in protein is a good place to be. Eating junk food or anything with refined sugar is never helpful.
“But I love <Insert favorite junk food>, does that mean I can never eat it again?”
No. Life is too short to never enjoy indulging once in a while. Chocolate, pizza, hamburgers, lasagne are all foods that I absolutely love! Unfortunately they are not the healthiest options. And if you really enjoy alcohol or soft drink, again they are far from healthy (way too much sugar) but many people enjoy them.
To be honest though, I have to add that some things are very bad for you no matter how infrequent you consume them. Sugary soft drinks like Coke or Mountain Dew are so high in sugar that I really would suggest giving them up completely. But that is another matter.
So how much ‘bad food’ am I allowed to eat?
Answer: The 10% rule
If 90% of the food and drink you consume is good, healthy and nutritious then you can afford to have some not-so-healthy food the remaining 10% of the time. Let’s say you have 3 main meals a day? That means you have just over 20 meals a week. Two of those meals can be unhealthy.
Don’t waste your 10%! Save it for when you really feel like that hamburger
Remember, if you don’t feel like eating your ‘unhealthy’ food then don’t eat it! Don’t let the rule become a requirment for you to eat bad stuff, rather use it as a safe buffer for when you need to use it. When you have an absolute craving for chocolate you can go and eat some chocolate. But don’t simply eat chocolate because you feel you’ve got to make up your 10%.
Don’t go over 10% if you can possibly help it
It’s so easy to go over the 10% weekly quota. You get invited out to dinner a couple of times that week and you find you’re at your limit - then you go out for a movie and of course, who watches movies at the theater without eating popcorn? This kind of thing happens to me so I have to watch that the 10% doesn’t become 20%.
My advice is to aim for 100% and that way you’ll be ready for those times your invited out. That way you don’t sound like a fitness freak, or weight loss wannabe by saying ’sorry, I’m on a diet’.
It’s great to be healthy and have increased levels of energy by eating the right things, but sometimes bad food can be so good!
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