The 6 S’s of Weight Loss & Maintenance
The 6 S’s of Weight Loss & Maintenance
After the holidays and the new year upon us, most people want to get “back on track.”
Here are 6 easy ways to make some changes that doesn’t take much effort.
Savor
Serving size
Shave
Sneak
Substitute
Sweat
Savor
To savor means to “be with your food.” It is about being mindful and present for the eating experience instead of mindlessly eating as we are driving or watching television. When we are multitasking when eating we are distracted. Many times, when we are in the moment with our meal, we tend to notice our full sensation and often eat less. When we are eating fast, we tend to eat too much and not really enjoy the food. Also savor means to spice up your food to make it taste good. Not necessarily to add extra calories by adding a lot of cheese or sauces but to try different herbs and spices that may add extra flavor and enhance the food.
Recommendation: Cook with new spices or herbs. Next meal eat slow. Do not be distracted. Notice the look, smell and texture of your food.
Serving Size
Serving size means to be aware of what a serving is and not to eat more than 1 serving for a snack or a meal. For example, if you like crackers, find out the serving size and only eat the serving size. An example is Triscuit Thin crisps, for 15 crackers that is 130 calories and 21 grams of carbohydrate (an ideal CHO for a snack is 15-20 grams of carbohydrate). Instead, you took the box and went in front of the television and just started eating. Do you think you would just eat 15 crackers? Probably not! More than likely, you would have had 2 servings or 30 crackers or more because they are small. I know that is EASY to do. Then you would have eaten 260 calories and 42 grams of carbohydrates! Then you would have eaten enough carbohydrates to be a meal. (Depending on your body weight, carbohydrate for a meal is 30-60 grams of carbohydrate.)
Recommendation: Next snack look on the food label and eat 1 serving, Measure or count out how much= a serving.
Shave
Shave means to cut calories and carbs from wherever you can. For example: instead of having a whole avocado on your salad, have a half. When sauteing, instead of adding oil to the vegetables, add water and cook them that way. When pouring a beverage for yourself, unless it’s water, drink half of your normal size. For example, instead of 12 oz glass of milk, drink 6 oz of milk. If you drink 2% milk, switch to 1% milk.
A 12 oz glass of 2% milk=183 calories and 18 grams of carbohydrate, a 6 oz glass of 1% milk is 76 calories and 9 grams of carbohydrate. This shaved 106 calories and 9 grams of carbohydrate.
Recommendation: Think to yourself, where can you shave calories in your meal plan? Once you figured that out, next time start shaving!
Sneak
Sneak means to add nutrition to all your meals and snacks. Sneak, wherever you can by adding vegetables, fruits, nuts or seeds to the food. Usually, these nutritious foods have fiber to help with feelings of being full. Fiber is very helpful in weight loss and helps to manage blood sugar. For example, when you have spaghetti sauce cut up pieces of zucchini and add that to the sauce. You can add fruit and or flax seed or chia seed to the shake you have for breakfast or lunch. Instead of just plain macaroni & cheese, mix in a vegetable, perhaps green beans. On your sandwich add lettuce and/or tomato. Any other ways you can sneak in nutrition?
Recommendation: Pick 1 meal this week and sneak in nutrition.
Substitute
Substitute means to replace one food or drink which is more calories and carbohydrate for another. An example would be replacing regular rice with cauliflower rice or do ½ and ½ or swap mashed potatoes with cauliflower mashed potatoes. Try substituting regular soda with carbonated flavored water or seltzer water. If you drink juice every morning, try substituting Vitamin Water Zero. There are many fruit flavors with no added calories.
Recommendation: Start this week by substituting either a beverage or a food. Keep up the momentum and the following week try another substitution.
Sweat
Sweat means to move the body! Not necessarily needing to perspire but if you do a fast and hard exercise routine you may sweat and that will burn more calories than moving the body at a slow pace. The key in this is move the body every day whether you sweat or not. Walking is one idea but there are so many other ways to move the body, (march in place, dance to music, swim, bike, etc.)
Recommendation: Starting the week off strong, Monday plan to walk at least 10 minutes. (This recommendation is if you have not been moving much or had an exercise routine.) If you routinely exercise, add more time to the activity and/or add more days of the week. J
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These are just a few tips to get you closer to the ideal weight for you. Aim for at first losing 5% of your weight. Once you reach that goal aim for losing 10% of your weight.
In addition to the tips above, I highly recommend recording your food eaten. If you are serious about losing the weight and keeping it off this is a must! I use www.SparkPeople.com. Some people use www.myfitnesspal.com. Other people simply record their food and activity on a piece of paper. Whatever works for you.
Any other weight loss recommendations?