12 Dos and Don’ts about healthy Weight-loss.

Dos

1. Do break your three heavy meals into smaller portions. Eat them in small portions of six. It enables your body break down the food easier and faster and causes it to increase the rate at which it burns fat.
2.  Do substitute snacks for fruits when you feel the urge to eat in-between meals. Try to follow the diet plan which involves snacking and avoid processed sugars like the plague. Instead substitute processed or refined sugar for natural sugars like honey and maple syrup.
3.  Do cut down on salt. It makes you retain more water. Since water makes up 75% of the fluid in our body cutting down on sodium and starch would reduce your fluid content allowing you to lose 5 pounds of fluid.
4.  Do develop the culture of eating vegetables and fruits. They provide essential vitamins and minerals and most importantly, they provide you with fiber which is very useful for the body but lacking in our everyday meals. Try stocking vegs and fruits in your fridge.
5. Do count your carbohydrate content. Try to limit the whites, e.g noodles, rice, yam, garri, potatoes, and bread e.t.c. watch every bottle/drink or can/food label for its nutritional contents. Avoid the ones high in carbs and fats.
6.  Do pick up a friendly and competitive sport with your friends e.g football, lawn tennis and the likes because you can’t completely eliminate exercise from your weight loss program. Buy a weighing scale and weigh yourself every once a week. It motivates you to want to lose more weight. Set a goal of how many kg you want to lose every week. Also use your dress/pant sizes to gauge how much you have loosed or gained because a scale could be very inaccurate due to the fact that muscles and bone weigh more than fat.

Don’t

1. Don’t eat once a day! Contrary to what people think, skipping meals makes your body slow its metabolism causing it to store more fat. If you should skip meals, it should be dinner but please don’t skip breakfast, it is the most important meal of the day. 
2. Don’t eat after 8PM. If it is late just skip dinner altogether or if you are too hungry, eat something really light and that is easy to digest. Examples are fruits and veggies.
3. Don’t overeat. Stop eating before you get full 
4. Don’t eat meat always if you are a full grown adult. But if you can’t do without it, substitute with 95% lean meat.
5. Don’t always patronize fast food.  If you can, avoid it like a disease. They are full of unhealthy fat and sugar and are high in cholesterol.
6. Don’t think you will lose weight if you still stock yourself up on beer and other alcoholic drinks because it has been researched that a bottle of beer has 7 times more calorie than a plate full of carbs and on top of it, it is full of toxins and has no nutritional value and inhibits your body from processing the good nutrients. Substitute with fresh whole yogurt and smoothies.

I know these are hard rules to follow but look on the bright side. You look better and feel healthier. You don’t have to try them all at once. Take it a step at a time.

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