How to enjoy the foods you love and still stay in shape

Maybe you are trying to lose weight, or at least trying not to gain weight. You love food and it’s a constant battle. Well, there are ways to make that battle a lot easier. You don’t have to deny the joys of being a foodie to stay fit and in shape. Here are a few things you can do to still eat what you love and keep things under control.

Count Calories

Ok, this is the hardest and most annoying tip. It’s required at first though. You need to know what you are eating. Think of it like a money budget. 2000 calories being $20 spent with each penny being a calorie. Just like real life, when you run out of money you have to stop, so when you spend your final calorie of the day. That’s it. You will find you become a lot choosier on what you eat. Do you want that chocolate mocha layer cake? Sure eat it, but you might be hungry later as you used up all your calories. So spend them wisely. It’s also a good idea to make a bunch of set meals that you love that you know the calories for. When you don’t know what to do, they become your go to meal.

Portions

Going back to that chocolate mocha layer cake, instead of having a big slice, have a small one. You still enjoy it; just eat it slower with smaller bites. Portions are calories; you can eat whatever you want as long as you can fit it in your daily budget. I guarantee that if you stay under you base calories that you will lose weight, regardless of what you eat.

Sugar

Avoid it as much as you can. we know that’s hard, but you will find that if you keep removing the sugared things you eat, that the addiction will slowly go away and the cravings will be a lot more manageable. Sugar is like crack, seriously hard to kick. We took sugar out of our diet completely once, just to see what it was like. It was hell at first, and we could tell a coke from a diet coke from 3 feet away by the smell of the sugar. It was pretty amazing. So try and slowly wean yourself off sugar. You can still keep the sugary things you love, just in moderation.

Mindful

Enjoy every bite. When you sit down to eat, make sure you enjoy it. The best is with family and friends. When you eat, don’t eat just to survive, eat to enjoy, and truly enjoy it. Pay attention to your food, what you eat, and each mouthful. Look at it and examine it with all your senses, sight, smell, taste, and texture. If you are just eating something because you are hungry, that is just a waste of something you could eat because you love it instead.

Intermittent Fasting

There are tons of studies in fasting. Basic fasting is pretty easy to do. Eat dinner at 6 and then don’t eat until dinner at 6 the next day. That doesn’t seem like a 24 hour fast, but it is. The first couple of times you do it, it might be difficult, but after that, you will find it remarkably easy. The only problem is people will keep trying to feed you, but trust us, it’s healthier to fast. It has many health benefits, as well as will allow you to spend more of that calorie budget on what you want.

Binges

There are a lot of people that say you shouldn’t binge and that it defeats the purpose of what you are doing. There have been recent studies that show a binge once a week, for a couple of hours, shows no change in weight loss progress. In other words, health wise you are fine. Emotionally? It’s wonderful. If there are things that you can’t afford on your calorie budget during the week, take a couple of hours and have them on one day on the weekend. In other words, you really, really want chocolate ice cream, but you can’t waste your weekly calories on it? Enjoy some on your binge. Just make sure it’s only a couple of hours and no more than once a week. Feel free to stuff yourself to nausea.

We have found, interestingly enough, that as we have used these tips over the years that a lot of our tastes changed. As our bodies adapted, we found so did out taste buds. We do not feel we are restricting ourselves, and often see a friend that is on a “diet” suffer and struggle only to fail. They always ask us how we can eat what we do and still stay in shape, and they never seem to believe it’s as easy as we tell them. Some people think you need to suffer, and we just do not believe that. So, come with us on the journey to fitness, and enjoy every bite along the way.