Essential Weight-Loss Strategies

Introduction

Eating healthy and maintaining healthy eating habits can pose as a challenge for those who struggle with obesity. So, why do eating healthy and maintaining healthy eating habits pose as a struggle?

Like myself, I too struggled with making time to prepare healthier, nutritious meals, and making time for exercise. I was too caught up in working, and making a living, wanting to purchase that dream house, get married, and have children and believed that I had to keep working like a horse to accomplish such goals. While I was chasing my dreams, other areas of my life were suffering i.e. my health.

I received my wake-up call when I topped the scale at over 200 pounds. I began to take my health more seriously, and vowed to get to a healthier weight. What I will share with you today will help you to kick-start the beginning of your new healthy lifestyle. I will share with you some reasons why eating healthy is not only beneficial, but also life saving. Information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website advises us that eating healthy helps to ward of heart diseases, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and cancer to name a few which we will touch on a little further.

Unhealthy Eating Problems

Eliminating fruits and vegetables, exercise, and a lack of education are some of the problems that contributes to unhealthy eating. Of such unhealthy habits, eventually leads to obesity which then contributes to heart diseases, high blood pressure and stroke and ultimately leads to death. My grandfather died of a stroke over 20 years ago, and it still affects me to this day, because he's not here to see enjoy life with his grandchildren such as myself and other siblings.

Unhealthy eating is also more expensive financially. Think about it, the cost of blood pressure medication, diabetes medication, weight-loss programs and so on, which then affects society, adds up more than the extra time, effort, and cost that we can spare.

Solutions to Eating Healthy

I encourage each of you to adopt some ways of eating healthy and sticking with it. I have created three simple steps that you can follow to achieve healthier eating habits.

1. Before bed each night, take an extra five minutes and prepare on the go snack-packs such as: unsalted or lightly (sea salt) nuts (almonds, pistachios, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds), fruits & vegetables (apples, pears, grapes, strawberries, celery, baby carrots, oranges, tangerine, pineapples, cantaloupes, watermelon), and freeze a bottle of water, or two with freshly squeezed lemon.

Purpose: keep at your desk at work so that when you have the taste for snacking, you can easily reach for the ones you already pre-packed from home, rather than going to the vending machines, or stopping at the nearest convenience store to purchase "junk" food.

2. If you're not working, travel with your fruits, nuts and water in your purse.

Purpose: so when you have the urge you can easily reach for it in your purse versus stopping to buy fast food items which will cause you to spend unnecessarily and add pounds to your waistline, hips, and thighs and so on.

3. If you're always on the go like myself, it can be hard to stick with eating healthy. I find that it helps me when I plan ahead, by getting enough rest and leaving home early enough so that I am not rushing. This gives me time to get to my destination on time and relax.

Purpose: planning ahead will help with emotional eating, because when you're rushing, you become stress which can make you feel bogged down and next thing you know, you're eating fries from Wendy's (I use to LOVE Wendy's fries) to try and calm down. By following these three simple steps, I had lost 11 pounds in 6 weeks, and I felt great and very refreshed!

How Does This Solve the Problem?

This will solve the problem by taking away the unhealthy eating habits, and as a result will help to alleviate many other problems i.e. lower the risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart diseases, stroke, etc.

Some Myths of Eating/Staying Healthy

Cost of healthier foods are too high
Cannot afford gym membership
Nowhere to find information on healthy eating

Healthy Eating Logic

Lowers risk for diseases
Lowers risk losing out on time with family
Lowers risk going financially broke

Conclusion

Remember, eating healthy lowers your risk for being diagnosed with heart diseases, obesity, stroke, diabetes etc.

Preparing healthy snacks in advance promotes healthy eating (follow the 3 steps mentioned).

A wealth of information is available on the CDC website, libraries, and local colleges offering nutrition classes for free and so on.

~ Author Mahogany Law


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