When you’ve set a goal for yourself that you want to lose a particular amount of weight or burn excess fat then the concept of eating more food just doesn’t sound right, does it? Most of the time when people think about diets and weight loss, they’re thinking of eating small amounts to nothing at all in a day to lose weight.

Why Food is Your Friend with Weight Loss

As difficult as it might be to understand, you have to keep eating in order to lose weight.  You just have to remember that you have to eat the right portions of foods and also you have to eat more frequently.

When you eat foods with the right kind of fat on it, you are not necessarily gaining weight from it. In fact, you need some fat in your diet.  In many cases, those who opt for low fat choices are even more prone to gaining excess weight.

When you eat foods like carbohydrates, you’re giving your body the right kind of energy to move and do work.  Part of the work there is burning fat and shedding the pounds.  If you cut down on carbohydrates, you can get thin but this will be an unhealthy kind of thin. Plus your body will lack the energy it needs to last throughout the day.

When you keep counting calories, your body will do a strict 180 on you.  Instead of getting the figure you want, you’ll actually have a more difficult time with losing weight.  This is because foods we eat or don’t eat affect our metabolism.  If your body feels that you’re scrimping on it, it’s going to burn fat and food slower. This is a survival tactic used by your body.

The Ratio for Food Consumption

Now that you know how food actually helps you with weight loss, you might be wondering what the right proportion is for these varieties of foods.  It’s a pretty easy figure to remember.

• 40
• 30
• 30

What that means is you have to get:

• 40% of carbohydrates
• 30% for both protein and fat.

This is the ratio that The Zone Diet, one of the most popular diets today, makes use of.

Foods You Can Eat With The Zone Diet

• Poultry
• Eggs
• Lean meat
• Sea food
• Vegetables
• Fruits

Aside from the proportions, you do have to eat more times throughout the day.  If three times a day was already good enough for you, move it up to five times a day. Consuming small proportions spread throughout the day will give you the fuel you need to lose weight and keep it off.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2011 at 11:09 am and is filed under Advice and Tips, Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.