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Things to keep in mind while starting any Nutrition plan

Remember its “Easy to START” but difficult to “Continue” and very difficult to “Maintain”. This is true with any diet or nutrition plan also as it has been noticed that most of the people quit within one week of starting it. They fail because their mind is conditioned to focus on the word Diet and they feel it means deprivation. A good Nutrition plan is more psychological than scientific. It is intended to condition our mind and guide it for a lifestyle change within ourselves.

1. Don’t try to restrict everything from day one:

Nutrition plan is not a Magic spell. You cannot expect to change all your eating habits overnight, instead your ultimate goal of healthy eating can only be achieved if you take baby steps towards it. Small changes each week will help you to get used to the new behavior. For example if you are used to eating rice 3 times a day, completely cutting off rice from your meals from day one will only lead to more craving which will lead to frustration and you giving up right at the start. Instead what you can do is you can reduce the portion of your rice intake in the first week and then reduce the intake for 2 times a day from next week and so on.

You should also be realistic while setting up your Nutrition goal. Achieving small goals each week will encourage you to continue with your efforts which you already made. It will also keep you motivated for the next weeks plan.

2. Plan the meal for the day:

Writing the meals you plan to eat in the upcoming week and keeping it visible in your kitchen will always come handy to follow your Nutrition plan. This will help you in your grocery planning and saves a lot of time if you can pre-cook some of the ingredients and divide into the right portions.

Another reason for planning your meal is that you can be prepared for the day if you know there is an unavoidable outing our gathering where you will deviate from your original Meal plan. In such cases if you plan ahead, may be you might want to go little lighter on the previous meals if you are expecting a heavier dinner. This way you will still end that day pretty well and not feel guilty.

3. Control the Junk food in a systematic manner:

The availability and convenience makes Junk food so preferable and unavoidable in most of the cases. We need to take control over the Junk food in a systematic manner because it is said old habits die hard and you can be easily tempted to slip into your old habit of eating junk.

List down the things which are most dear to you and you know its Junk (It will take some courage because most of them are very close to your heart). Select one item from the list which you can try to stop in a week or so. Once successful continue this with another item from the list. By the end of 6 months or so you would have exhausted your list and you will go Junk free. However you can indulge in junk once a while in moderation if you wish to.

 4. Timing the Meal:      

You can have the best Meal plan with you but it will be ineffective if you do not adhere to the meal timings. Many recent studies suggests that focusing more on timing the meals instead of calories, can help the dieter burn more fat and improve their overall health.

Breakfast is the first meal of the day and it should be eaten within 1 to 2 hours of waking up. “DO NOT SKIP BREAKFAST”. Skipping breakfast has its long term adverse effect, one of them being insulin resistant. If you reach that stage of insulin resistance weight loss becomes a big challenge. In such cases even with all your effort you end up losing weight in grams and one day of bad eating will put you back to where you started. Skipping meals for a long time drops your metabolism and slow metabolism mean slow calorie burn.

If you are following a Nutrition plan, try to limit your meals and snack to 12-14 hour timeframe during the day and avoid late night dinner. Your last meal should be at least 2 hours before bed. It is also suggested that you start your day with the heaviest meal, gradually reducing the portions and ending your day with the lightest meal.

5. Do not Crash Diet:

There is NO SHORTCUTS. Remember it would have taken many years to become what you are; it will take time to reach where you want to reach with your Health goals. So there is no point running behind any fad or crash diet.

In simple terms, don’t go for any sort of major diet changes which you cannot continue for a long time. You cannot eat only Salads and Soups lifelong. You cannot go grain free/ dairy free/ fat free or whatever free for a very long time. So when you come back to your normal food habits your body grabs the opportunity and converts it into fat in response to the earlier deprivation it was put through with your Crash diet. In such cases you are bound to return to your previous weight or even more than that.

6. Restrict but do not avoid Sugar & Salt:

Your body needs salt (sodium), because it regulates the movement of water in and out of our cells. Completely cutting salt can cause swelling of body tissues, inflammation and too low blood pressure. Best way is to restrict the usage of salt in our diet. Too much salt retains the water in the body and this will make you look puffy and heavy.

Sugar on the other hand is a bigger culprit. Given a choice your body burns the sugar first than burning the body fat. So if you continuously feed the body with sugar even with intense workout your body will be busy burning the sugar and the body fat remains untouched. Also excess sugar if not converted into energy by your body it will get converted into Fat.

So restricting the usage of Salt and Sugar plays a major role in your nutritional goals.