5 Rules to Follow to Start Shedding Pounds!

These are 5 rules from some that I picked up over the years. Following these rules helped me to lose 20lbs over the last year. These are the most effective when used simultaneously, I lost 1-2lbs a week when following these rules consistently with regular physical activity.

This is not a temporary crash diet. These are habits that should stay with you as part of a healthy lifestyle. These rules will help you when you are trying to achieve a calorie deficit (which is the only way to lose weight) but you don't have to feel hungry doing it!

1. Water is your primary beverage.

Stop drinking juice, milk, and pop. Drink water instead, this can save you hundreds of calories a day.

Black coffee and tea won’t do much harm to your weight loss. They are nearly calorie free when you don’t add dairy or sugars and the caffeine in these will even help you to work out harder by temporarily boosting your energy. Have a cup of black coffee or tea 30 minutes before your workout. Moderation is key because caffeine is a diuretic, which will dehydrate you.

Thirst can be confused for hunger, so keep a reusable water bottle with you at all times and sip regularly throughout the day. Drink a cup of water when you feel hungry. The water may satisfy the thirst you mistake for hunger and if it is truly hunger, then it will help with portion control when you follow it up with a meal or snack. You will already feel a little more full from drinking that water beforehand. 

According to Dr. Oz, rye bread is better than other breads at absorbing water in the belly, which will make you feel full longer.

2. No white bread. No white rice or pasta. No refined sugar. No simple carbs.

The reason for this is simple. Simple carbohydrates found in foods like white bread, pasta and products with added sugars digest quickly and boost your blood sugar levels. If you are digesting food quickly, you will have to work that much harder to use up that energy before it is stored as fat. If it is digested quickly, you will feel hungry sooner. 

Simple carbs boost your blood sugar levels and when they crash you will feel like you are starving. 

Opt for complex carbohydrates found in whole grain breads and pasta (not whole wheat), quinoa, brown rice, oatmeal, starchy vegetables and fruit.

Click here for a list of foods that contain complex carbohydrates.

High-fibre foods are complex carbohydrates. Fibre will keep you feeling full.

Click here for a list of foods that are high in fibre.

3. Use calories like money.

Foods that are processed (would you find anything like it in nature? If not, it's processed), fatty or high in sugar are calorie dense. If you are trying to achieve a calorie deficit; say you burn 2,000 calories in a typical day, and you would like to have a deficit of 500 calories (this is the amount it takes for me to lose 1-2 pounds a week but everybody is different), you will have to consume 1,500 calories in a day to achieve that goal. 

Now, you can choose to get to that number with less than three McDonald's Big Macs, but if you are going to meet your calorie deficit goals that's all you will eat for that day. 3 measly burgers. There will be many hours you will go without food and you will feel like you're starving and you are more likely to binge.

A better scenario is to understand that calories are like money. Do you want to spend them all in one place? Or enjoy many things throughout the day? Case in point, you are looking for something quick and crunchy to snack on and you have two choices: 

85 grams of sugar snap peas at a cost of only 35 calories, OR

28 grams of chips at a cost of 150 calories. 

If you choose foods that are low in calorie density, you will have more calories to "spend" on other foods throughout the day. You can meet your calorie deficit goals without letting yourself go hungry. Making food choices like these will often lead to better nutrition as well.

Switch to non-fat dairy, lean meats like roast poultry and fish, and egg whites for fewer calories.

Bake, boil, or steam instead of frying. Fat is very calorie dense.

Calorie Count is a powerful tool to help you log food and count calories. I've been using the app for a few years now and it has helped to me to understand more about the calories and nutrition in what I eat, and what portion control really is. Calorie Count has a great online community, you can post or read daily food journals and look at what other people are eating that makes their diets so successful (or not!). It also helps to invest in a food scale if you're really serious. 

4. Sweat once a day.

I saw this on a lululemon bag once. I took it to heart. If you can bring yourself to sweat through physical activity once a day, you're already winning against the you that would have gone the entire day with a dry brow. I'm not even going to tell you how to exercise here, the logic behind this is simple. Sweat for at least 20 minutes a day, and you will see a leaner you. A quick jog will go a long way (no pun intended!).

Hate to sweat? I did too, but think about it this way.

5. Use less, also known as portion control.

Studies have shown sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Yes, you read that correctly. In a perfect world we would cut refined sugar out of our diet completely, but for those of us that can't we can at least practice using less. If you usually use two spoonfuls of sugar on your oatmeal, try using one. It will take some time to adjust to the new taste, but after 3 weeks of consistently using that one spoonful, you will wonder how you ever thought so much sugar was necessary.

The same goes for portion control. Make your portions smaller than you're used to. A few neat tricks to help you feel satisfied with smaller portions is to use smaller plates or utensils, a teaspoon for your soup instead of a tablespoon. This will make your portion look larger, and smaller utensils force you to eat it slower.

It takes 20 minutes for your brain to realize that your stomach is being filled with food. You may be satiated far sooner than your brain realizes, so eat slowly and give it some time to figure out that you don't need that second helping.

That being said, eat half your dinner and pack away the rest for later. Smaller meals spread throughout the day will keep you from feeling hungry.

Your meals should roughly look like the photo below. Notice how half of what is on here is vegetables, which are made up of complex carbs and are high in fibre which will keep you feeling full. Vegetables are also low in calorie density, which is good if you're like me and you love to eat.