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Weight Loss

Make Your Kitchen Your Weight Loss Tool

Kitchen

Even if you eat out a lot, the battle to lose weight is often won or lost in your kitchen. This article will give you the information so you can finally reach your goals and lose those inches.

After reading this you will know how to make better choices when grocery shopping. Your kitchen does not have to work against you. After you learn what to do, you can be happier, healthier and a few pounds lighter.

Make Goals

The problem you have is easy to fix once you know what to do. First, set a goal. Do you want to lose five pounds or five inches? Twenty pounds, or is it more? One size down in clothing or do you want to skip a few sizes? Do you want to be a certain weight by a date on the calendar? Whatever it is, set your goal, write it down and go back to it whenever you need a reminder to keep you on course.

The benefit of establishing a goal is that it helps you define your outcome.

Instead of losing weight being a vague idea, setting a goal helps shape an idea into something more real. The goal puts the idea from your mind in front of you and transforms it from a hope and a dream to a plan that you are making real.

Also when you write down your goal it helps you to commit to yourself about your objective. This helps you to mentally hold yourself accountable. All the diet pills, fad diets, diet recipe books and special programs do not mean a thing without your follow through. The process of goal setting helps you to actually do the thing you set out to do. In this case, that is losing weight and making your kitchen a place that will help you to do it.

Know and Work with Your Weak spots

You have to be honest with yourself. Take some time and identify your food weak spots. For example: If you know that when you watch romantic comedies you always have to eat huge bowl of popcorn, make the tough choices.

  • A) Watch romantic movies less often.
  • B) Start using fat-free popcorn
  • C) Use fat-free popcorn and watch romantic movies less often.

If you chose C, that is great. It may seem trivial but learning the reasons and motivations behind what you eat can make a dramatic change in your life. Understanding your food habits could mean the difference of reaching your goal or not reaching reaching your goal. Emotional eating is a serious issue, but your emotions are not the only source of weakness in your kitchen.

Highly processed foods are your number one enemy.

Candies, pastries, breads, ice creams, junk foods, sodas and other unhealthy but delicious, greasy foods are all working against you losing weight.

Remember your goal.

Post it on the refrigerator door if you have to. (This actually works!)

Make a list of the foods you know are working against you and don’t cheat yourself, be honest. Once you identify the foods that contribute heavily against your goals, look for alternatives. No, they will not taste the same. It takes time to find healthy alternatives to your favorite snacks. However it is worth the effort.

For sweets, you can eat more fruit instead. Instead of candy, dried fruits and certain trail mixes are great alternatives. Instead of frying, look to bake and steam your food more often. Also by cooking with less oil you can get great results without sacrificing flavor. The Foreman Grill is a great tool for meats and veggies.

Learn from others

If you can’t, don’t or won’t cook and/or you’re unsure about what steps to take regarding foods to eat, need to learn new recipes or anything else, you can learn from others. The library, the internet, websites, blogs, video sites and more are all filled with people who reached their goals, missed their goals and even on the way to their goals. These people are openly sharing their experiences, joys, ups and downs, virtually every day. Learn from their mistakes, but most importantly mimic their successes. You are not alone. You have the best of the best helping you.

Treat Yourself

Losing weight is work, but that does not mean you can’t play. Treat yourself, but that does not mean going back to the foods and habits that only lead to you breaking the promises that you made to yourself. Reward yourself when you do good, but with something other than food. Emotional eating is not just about eating when sad, but also eating when happy.

Retrain yourself with new emotional connections.

If you completed your weekly workout routine and didn’t cheat, skip the ice cream and watching movie on the couch routine and go dancing or some other activity. Did you finish your work on time and beat an unexpected deadline? Buy yourself some flowers. Start rewarding yourself in ways that do not involve food to form new habits that will empower you to live a healthy, full and vibrant life.

Stay Focused

When you declare a goal, rest assured something or somebody will come along to take you of course. You have to stay focused. It takes, time, patience and practice to stay on course. You can enlist good friends to support and encourage you, but in the end, it is up to you.

Often it can come down to a simple question that you can ask of yourself.

“What action can I take right now will take me closer to my goal?”

When you get the answer, listen.