How To Stop Nighttime Overeating.
You have been following your weight loss plan religiously. But it seems the fat is just stubborn and refusing to shift. There are probable reasons why this is still so. 8 reasons you are still fat explain why things are staying the same.
You Cut Back Protein
Trying to cut back protein calories triggers your body to preserve calories rather than metabolise them. In order to make certain vital processes are not compromised, your body is forced to break down muscle tissue for fuel. So what happens? Less muscles mean more fat deposits. Whereas more muscles mean faster metabolism and less body fat.
If you have to cut down your calories by 500 to lose weight, choose food referred to as ‘empty calories’. For instance, rather than take out chicken or milk from your diet, remove processed luncheon meat and sugary drinks from your diet.
Ensure you are eating at least 1,500-2000 calories a day to stop your metabolism from crashing. Eat your protein. If you are 91kg and do a little exercise, you should eat about 75grams of protein (about two chicken breasts) a day to preserve your muscles. If you strength train, go for 150 grams of protein. If you are an aerobics enthusiast eat about 100 grams.
Smell Of Food Makes You Fat
When the delicious aroma of fresh bread, fried chicken stew, or fresh meat pastries hits your nostrils, you become helpless. Before you know it you’ve eaten twice as much as you intended. This is because your stomach had no time to alert your brain to tell your mouth to quit chewing.
This food exercise should help you for real. Now, on every bite, chew, swallow. Put down your fork and take a sip of water. See how long it takes you to eat. So, during subsequent meals, take just as long to eat.
Here is another meal-prolonging ploy for men with regular dinner partners: Turn off the TV, put down the newspaper, and actually have a serious but interesting conversation.
Addicted To Processed Food
Addiction to processed foods is one of the 8 reasons why you are still fat. Many processed bread and cereals contain little fiber. Fiber is the calorie-free component of plant foods that fills you up, without adding fat to your hips and butt. In addition, fiber-rich foods help control blood glucose and insulin levels.
Shift your focus away from processed food and go for natural stuff like wholemeal grains, corn grits, cornmeal, oatmeal, wholemeal bread, nuts, and beans. There is really no excuse for not switching to wholemeal foods. They are available and taste great and nutritious, but watch out for the sugar-added variety. Eat more unprocessed wholegrain rice, yam, potatoes, plantain, and lots of leafy vegetables. Also, try to resist the urge to eat ice cream or French fries. Instead, substitute with fresh fruits and baked potato
You Don’t Sleep Enough
Sleeplessness is one of the 8 reasons why you are still fat. Sleep deprivation decreases the odds of shedding weight and keeping it off. Researchers found that healthy men who slept only four or seven hours a night for six nights in a row had higher glucose and insulin levels in their blood. This is a sluggish state of metabolism for a man fighting the bulge since surplus insulin boosts body-fat storage.
It’s good to get a regular eight hours of undisturbed sleep every night. That is the same time for going to bed and waking. Select the time you have to get up on those days and make sure you are in bed at least eight hours before.
Exercise Doesn’t Mean Slim
The hard truth is that exercise alone would not make you slim. You need to combine it with a healthy eating habit. As a matter of fact, exercise may not prevent you from gaining weight if you ate more than you are burning.
What you need to do is to control your portion sizes as well as indiscriminate eating. And the best way to control portion size is to limit how often you eat takeout meals. You have no control over the way the food is cooked and the portion served. However, if you prepare your meals at home, you have control over how you cook them, what you put in them, and the portion you put on your plate.
You Can’t Cook
Your boyfriend hates your food, you also can’t stand it. So you resort to taking out fried chicken and French fries, burgers, pastries, and so on. A woman whose only kitchen skill involves reheating Chinese fried rice and chop suey, microwaving leftover party food packs, or cold deep-pan pizza is stuck with a poor diet. A diet of grease, salt, white bread, white flour, processed pasta, and sugar.
Instead of takeout meals, buy fresh groceries, fruits, vegetables, and meat from the supermarket or neighborhood shop. Take a bold step into the kitchen. Unwrap your vegetables, meat, fish, or chicken. Chop, rinse, and place on the gas cooker.
Open your freezer. You should see frozen ground pepper and other soup condiments. Start cooking. Open your fridge. You should see milk, yogurt, eggs, etc. Make yourself nice savoury pancakes for snacks. Look into your cupboards. You should see some spices, cereals, dried fruits, custard, yam flour, rice, beans, wholemeal semolina, and slow-cooking oats. Really what are you waiting for?
These foods help you lose weight because they are filling but low in calories. Most exciting of all, you don’t need much more than a pot, gas cooker, and some simple tricks to turn them into a nutritious meal.
Not Drinking Enough Water
Try to aim for the recommended eight glasses of water a day. When you are thirsty, water is your best friend. At the gym when working out, water helps you to rehydrate. More so, you need it to flush the waste products your body makes when it breaks down fat for energy, or when it processes protein. You need it to transport nutrients to your muscles. You need it to help digest food and keep your metabolism working fine. And water keeps you from dehydrating during rigorous exercise on hot days.
You Become Self-satisfied
Becoming self-satisfied is another one of the 8 reasons you are still fat. You lose five or ten kilos and start to get contented and boast about your weight loss. In the process, you gradually slip into the old routine of soft drinks and pastries. Before you know it back to its original weight.
There’s nothing wrong with patting yourself on the back. The kudos are in order for losing those extra pounds. But you should sit down and reassess your diet and exercise program. If you were watching your food intake and exercise level when you started, run a new set of numbers, based on your new weight and activity level. If you still have to shift another five kilos, go back on the offensive. Alternatively, maintain the five kilos you lost by sticking to your healthy eating and exercise habits that got the loss in the first place. But if you regain the five kilos you lost, you have wasted a lot of effort.
Photo Credit: Creative Commons.
