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Can You Lose Weight Just by Eating Healthier?

January 15, 2019

There is no shortage of diets in the world today, and many of them seem to contradict the others. If you want to lose weight, can you just eat healthier foods and expect to lose weight? That depends on your level of exercise activity and how many calories that you consume each day.

Calories

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When it comes to losing weight, the only tried and true way to lose weight is to win the calorie battle. Simply put, you need to burn more calories than you consume each day to lose weight. You can do this by cutting down on your intake of calories or by increasing your level of exercise. If you eat healthy foods, you will be eating foods that are healthier sources of calories and foods that contribute to a healthier body weight. To lose weight healthy and steadily, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommends cutting 500 to 1,000 calories per day from your diet. This will give you a weight loss of 1 to 2 pounds per week. Calorie counters are available online or in stores.

Healthy Foods

According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the first tip in improving your body weight is to ban the strange diets by focusing on healthy foods and smaller quantities. It states that many extreme diets are doomed to fail and that choosing healthier foods along with physical activity is the best way to go. In addition some simple healthy habits can help, like turning off the television and skipping sugary drinks. These two easy changes will help you become more active and will help you control your caloric intake.

What Should You Eat

If you want to eat healthy, avoid processed and fast foods. These foods are calorie-rich and are full of trans fat that can increase your body weight and your cholesterol. Also avoid foods high in saturated fat, sodium, sugar and refined or processed carbohydrates. Instead, eat a diet that consists of mostly fruits, vegetables and whole grains. These foods provide essential nutrition and are healthy forms of calories, carbohydrates, proteins and fats. A healthy diet should also include nuts, seeds and fish because they lower your risk for heart disease.

Considerations

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If you truly want to lose weight, you need to balance the calories you eat every day with your activity and exercise. To keep track of calories, watch the nutrition labels on the foods that you eat and write them down in a journal to keep track of them. You can then implement some exercise, such as biking or walking, that can help your burn calories. One easy way to start losing weight is to simply start walking each day. At lunch or after work, walk in one direction for 10 minutes and then turn around and walk back to where you started. It is that simple to get started.