Nothing can be further from the weight management truth!
Losing weight is about eating less than your current daily calorie requirements. So if you need 2,500 calories right now, you lose weight when you eat 2,000 calories instead. And all this requires is small, acceptable, everyday changes. Nothing drastic.
To prove this, we'll use a few real life examples. In each of these examples, we'll start with an everyday food item and replace it with a substitute that makes sense, so none of that : "Want Ice cream - Eat Carrots instead" stuff. We hope that these examples will show you how simple successful weight management really is - all it requires is a little bit of knowledge of what you're eating:
1. Fast Food :
A large Double Quarter Pounder Meal at McDonald's will equal 1,600 calories. Change this to a medium coke and small fries and you're down to 1,200 calories. Take it a step further and get an iced tea with your Double Quarter Pounder and Small Fries and you're down to 800 calories!
Now let's think about this: Is going from a large quarter pounder meal to a custom meal of iced tea, small fries and a quarter pounder, a huge change? We don't think so - Yet it's actually saving you 800 calories/meal!
You can also try a combination of a Subway Club Sandwich (at 320 Calories) and a Subway Mustard Ham & Egg Sandwich (at 310 calories). This delicious alternative will total 630 calories per meal.
2. Ice Cream :
3 cups of ice cream = 850 calories. Replace 1 cup with 1 container of Jell-O and you're down to 700 calories. Replace another cup with a banana and you're down to 525!
1 cup of ice cream + jell-o + a banana is a still delicious dessert (maybe better than the original) and yet it makes a huge difference.
3. Coke :
1 can of Coke = 150 calories. 1 can of Diet Coke + Lime = 0 calories. Adding Lime makes it taste great and gets rid of that aftertaste as well. Alternatively add lots of ice in your beverage and you end up drinking half the amount in calories.
4. Donuts :
1 Chocolate Donut = 250 calories, 1 Cream filled Donut = 350 calories. There is nothing wrong with eating donuts when managing your weight, simply make a better donut choice.
5. Pizza :
The average slice of a large pizza equals 225 calories. Simply go for the "thin crust" option, (and this is offered in just about every large pizza franchise) and you're decreasing 75-100 calories per slice!
We Hope We've Made a Point!
We simply can not go from a Large Big Mac meal to a diet of apples, broccoli and spinach to lose weight. It makes no real-life, practical sense and it's simply not going to be sustainable. Not to mention that it's absolutely unnecessary as well.
Getting to your ideal weight is all about making small changes that don't burden or completely change your everyday routine. We hope our examples have given you a few ideas for your daily life as well.
By Brian Abraham