Eating At McDonald’s and Losing Weight
You want to lose weight and you are trying to lose that 20 pounds or that 100 pounds. You are doing pretty well in your weight loss attempt and then it happens. Your group wants to go out and eat and you pull into a McDonald’s fast food restaurant. You think all is lost for your diet but that is not true. We are here to tell you that you can go to a McDonalds and eat some food and not have to blow out your diet. If you think this is not true then chances are you are not doing too well on your “diet” and have been struggling for quite awhile to lose the weight. If you fall into this category then read on and learn how to break away from the diet madness and get off the merry-go-round of trying to lose weight.
If you think you cannot walk into almost any restaurant and order healthy food then you have not fully grasped the entire driving elements of true and pure healthy weight loss. If you truly want to lose the weight you need to change your mind set. You need to break the pattern of all your prior “diets” and stop looking at losing weight as something that happens only during a set time period on the calendar. You need to stop thinking that you need to lose those 20 pounds to go to that wedding or go on that vacation. You are hesitating to go to that reunion because you have gained too much weight and now you want to lose it fast. This demonstrates a complete lack of understanding how weight loss really works. If you were to go on a weight loss crusade and starved yourself into losing 20 pounds you will end up gaining more than 20 pounds after you end your diet. The reason is basic human physiology. Your body has a defense mechanism that when your body is starved for food it will stop burning the fat and start burning muscle. Sure you will reach your short term weight loss goal but when you start eating normally again you will not only gain the weight you lost, but will pack on a few pounds to help you if you are to experience the issue of starvation again. This is when your body will think it has to overcompensate in case the reasons for your prior drastic weight loss were to happen again. This is one major reason why you keep gaining weight slowly over the years. This is an issue of yo-yo dieting.
If you want to really lose the weight you can eat at McDonalds or pretty much any other place you stop at. This is because one meal is not going to make you gain 20 pounds. The 20 pounds you are trying to lose have been gained by months of poor eating choices. If you really want to lose the weight then you need to skip the “diet” and start a “live-it”. This may sound corny but it is the truth. If you were to embark on a life long journey you would be able to enter a McDonalds and eat decent food choices that will not cripple your weight loss. If you entered McDonald’s and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and a parfait and water you would only consume 580 calories. If you went further and asked for no sauce and used ketchup you would even have less calories. You could also choose a salad and have an even healthier meal choice. If you are now sitting in front of your monitor thinking I do not want to choose that I want (need) to have a burger, fries and a soda. If this is how you think then you may have revealed your true cause of your weight problem. You just may not be ready to commit yourself to weight loss. If you are not ready then do not beat yourself up over the issue. If you truly want to lose the weight you must know that in order to really be able to lose the weight you need to lose no more than an average of one or two pounds a week. This way your body does not really notice it is happening. This way you will lose the weight and you will be able to keep the weight off for the rest of your own personal forever.
If you are really on a weight loss journey then you know it is not going to happen in a month or two. You must commit yourself to exercise and you must commit yourself to eating better choices. If the majority of your choices are healthy and good for you then if you strayed from your path every now and then one meal will not matter enough to cause you to “blow your diet”.
A true desire to lose weight will push your commitment past a week or two. That commitment will empower you to shed the weight for the long haul and not just to go to a wedding. A true desire to lose weight will empower you to stay the course month after month until one day you wake up and you are healthier. One day you will wake up and notice the change. Through perseverance and determination you will be able to hear someone out of the blue comment that you look like you are losing weight.
Make the correct choices in your life and when you want to eat that cheese burger at McDonald’s it will have little effect on your life. One meal will not matter when the majority of your meals are healthy and mixed with exercise a few times every week. If you need support in your cause then we recommend eDiets as a support group. They are awesome and if you need a nudge there are a ton of people there ready to offer real help. When we say people we mean real people just like you. If you have had trouble in the past losing weight change your mindset and join eDiets. If you do, your chances for success have just tripled!
I Choose Thin, what do you choose?
Is Your Teenager OverWeight?
I have been noticing an alarming trend in the weight loss circles among teenagers. If you were to “travel” among the blogs and the forums there is an entire generation of teenagers out there crying for help to lose weight. I have spent considerable time answering questions in forums where teenagers are asking for advice on basic weight loss issues. Some of the questions are shocking.
Many teenagers are asking about takng diet pills because they think they will help. The range of questions is astounding and the lack of knowledge is scarey. I sit at my computer on the Yahoo Answers website and I could make it a full time job. The questions from the young teenagers just keep coming like the tide at the beach. What concerns me is that they turn to the internet for answers and not their parents.
Teenagers are people too that have real life concerns and have urgent real life weight loss issues. The knowledge for weight loss is universal and there needs to be more help in the education of the younger generatation. They need support groups and better eating plans. They need to know more about health and nutrition and exercise. They need to have the tools needed to not only achieve a healthy weight but also live a long and healthy life.
The teenagers of today need access to knowledge and equipment and motivation. An ipod is a great tool in the weight loss battle and most people do not even know this. If you have an overweight teenager in your home you need to take notice because they have a good chance of dieing before you do. This is the first generation in history where the children have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Take notice, listen and help them educate themselves. Help you educate yourself!
Teenage obesity will not go away unless we, as a society make it happen. We as a society can not offer the care and knowledge needed for YOUR teensager. Stop and help but do not nag!! Listen and you may be astounded by what you learn.
<br/>
Teenage Obesity and Teenage Weight Loss: Methods For Parents To Help Them Lose Weight
Okay, so you have a teenager and they are overweight and you are concerned for their health. You want to help them lose weight and all of your efforts have failed thus far. First off you must realize that for a person to really be able to lose weight that person must be mentally ready to lose weight. If a person is not ready to make the life changing decision then all of the nagging and complaining you do will just make the situation worse. So what you need to do is do it without telling them what you are doing. It really is not that hard.
You, as the parent are in charge of meal time and if you are not, then start. Your mealtime actually needs to start at Walmart so lets back up a bit.
The food you have in the house is what you bring home. Stop bringing home all of the crap. Let what is there slowly filter away and start to restock the shelves with low fat/no fat products. Start getting 2% milk and then go even lower. When the complaints start just say it is all they had. Yes, it is alright to lie. You are saving their life. Start baking the chicken and NOT frying it. Start to add some fish every now and then. Get some teriyaki salmon at Sam’s Club. It is pretty healthy and my fattys complained but then said they like it. Start to look in the sections of the store that you do not even notice now. I bet that when you go shopping now you are like a robot. You zip down the aisles and plop into your cart what you did on the last umpteen trips. You need to sloooowwwww down the shopping and start making healthy choices that you can integrate into your families life without being a Neo-Nazi food dictator. By bringing in healthier foods you are keeping the calories out. Stop getting the twinkies and the frozen pizza and start to have grapes and bananas around. Who does not like seedless grapes?
You need to untrain and then retrain and you need to do it quietly and without any fanfare. Also, you need to put on your emotional armor because you will be dealing with ungrateful and selfish people who really think you suck for giving them foods they never tried, really like and do nothing but complain while the actually enjoy eating it!
One very important thing you need to get at the store are some new dishes for the home. ( I don’t mean meals, I mean plates!) The one difference is that these dishes/plates will be smaller than those platters you eat on now. This way they will have less room to pile on the plate.
Another tidbit is that eating in front of the TV is over. By eating together you will SLOOOOOWWWW the process down. Ask questions. Ask questions and get them talking because if they are talking they are not eating. What you are trying to do is let there be some time for the food to get to their belly and let their brain realize they have eaten enough. Soon, they will not even notice the smaller plates anymore. It takes 15 minutes or so for food to reach the belly and to be able to tell the brain “hey, I’ve had enough!”.
A way to get them moving is to take them to the store and park on the wrong side of the mall. (OOPS!) Park out at the end of the lot at Walmart. Stop looking for the closest spot. Get them to mow your lawn. Wash the car. Anything they do is better than sitting in front of the tube all day and night. Maybe you even can get some cool exercise equipment for the home. They may even start using it and when you are not looking. You know how teenagers are, they want to be cool. You can spend a little or alot when it comes to exercise stuff.
This entry could go on and on but I will end it here. You know your family better than anyone. The key here is to not make drastic changes in a week or two…….Start off slowly and keep moving along. Soon operation flab will be full swing and all of your efforts will not be in vain. This is because if you just slow the weight gain down you have had a small victory. Gain knowledge and keep moving along. When they start to get a hint of what you are doing have a DVD and some healthy snacks on hand for a movie time diversion. Another great thing is that if you are looking for a reward of some kind, kids love comic books! A subscription that gets them reading and away from hours of video games is always a bonus. The secret is to change over time and just keep going and do not give up!!!
GOOD LUCK and GOD BLESS!!
My Child Can’t Stop Eating and Is Overweight
If you have ever been on a diet then you know how hard it can be to shed five or 10 pounds. With most adults being fairly clueless about the correct or healthiest way to lose weight it is hard to imagine the struggle that a young teenager or child may experience in their attempts to lose weight. If you are a 10 or an 11 year old or even a 12 year old you can be at the mercy of what the parents have in the house and is made available for you to eat. Even if a young adult was trying to lose weight such as the ages mentioned above it would be almost impossible for them to be able to lose weight without the strength and support of their parents. If we were to take the age of a child down to that of a 5 year old with a weight problem, it becomes the complete burden of the parents of that child.
If a child of 5, 6 or 7 years old was overweight it has to be the decisions of the parents to make that weight loss for the child happen. If the parents are not aware of the obesity problem of the child, and if the parents do not make a concerted family effort to do something about the child’s weight problem, then the child may be destined to become morbidly obese. When a child is classified as morbidly obese it is even difficult to string the phrase morbidly obese and child together, in the same sentence. If a child of almost any age were to be morbidly obese it needs to become the burden and the responsibility of the entire family to help this child learn, deal and ultimately manage this obesity burden.
When a child is experiencing the problem of obesity the last thing that needs to be done is to nag the child. When a child hears constant nagging they, as any adult, tend to just tune out the constant badgering. What a child needs is a role model. What a child sees and hears is so much more important than what comes out of a parent’s mouth. If a parent wants to help their child lose weight then they need to start by making subtle changes to the lifestyle and diet of the child. It is so easy to start bringing healthier food products into the home. Start by using some low-fat or no-fat products. When a meal is cooked just start using some healthier ingredients. Stop bringing all of the food into the house that clogs the veins. Stop cooking unhealthy fried foods all of the time. Stop helping the child become obese. You do not need to trumpet the changes in diet and you really should not make any major announcements at all. What you need to do is start off slowly and introduce new and healthy meals into the family diet that everyone eats and stop singling out that child to eat better.
If you, as the parent, have the notion that healthy food is just lettuce and crackers then maybe you have created the problem that the child is experiencing. Food can not only be healthy, but it can also taste awesome. Changing a few key ingredients can prevent so many health issues and leave the flavor and satisfaction intact. If you serve fried foods often then stop. If you have soda over load in your home then start turning off that flow. The food portioning is simple, if you do it slowly and do not announce the arrival of the new portion sizes. When you start this turn to healthier foods ensure that you have healthier snacks always at the ready. Have grapes and apples and any other fruit you know your kids would enjoy. Turning your food choices to being healthy is not that hard, nor does it have to have the appearance of deprivation. For those days that you just have to indulge, order pizza but do not order 4 or 5 pies. Can your family get by with 2 or 3 slices each and not starve? Do you really need to order enough for leftovers? When your family eats is the family at the table or is everyone in front of the television? Turn meal time into family time and this creates the possibility that mealtime may slow down and by the sheer fact of the meal slowing down everyone involved will eat less food.
There are ways that the activity level of a child can be increased without them even suspecting they are becoming more active. Go to the mall and walk a few miles as everyone shops for “stuff” that they sell at malls. Park your car far from the store and walk a distance instead of searching for that close spot near the door. This is actually what is referred to as “accidental exercise” and it offers much promise to the health and well being of yourself and your children. Start going out and do fun things as a family that include time that just gets the body moving. Stop pampering the children so much, make them move and work and that alone will help contribute to their overall health.
Sure it may be tough for an 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 year old to lose weight but it is something that they can accomplish on their own, to some degree. For these age groups to lose weight it really helps to have the support of the parents but for a 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 year old to lose weight it is completely in the hands of the parents. The parents are the ones that need to put the play in motion that will lead the child down the path of a healthy life. As parents we try to teach right and wrong. We try to teach them about sex education and drugs but if they are suffering a weight problem many tend to think it is their problem. If you are the parent of an overweight child then you need to step up to the plate and create the atmosphere that will allow them to grow into the adult that you desire them to become. Helping them deal with their weight issue is just as important as other lessons parents need to teach their children.