Why Go Hungry When You Want To Eat?

A Diet Isn’t Starvation

By Raymond Viger 

I’ve told you about my 10 months without smoking a cigarette, and a couple of the side effects I’ve experienced while I stopped smoking. One thing that was important for me was to not get any fatter despite my stopping all nicotine consumption.

With the medical results that followed, not only was I in no danger of putting on weight, I slimmed down dramatically.

How can you lose weight easily without suffering?

The nutritionist at the EPIC Centre of the Montreal Heart Institute who followed up with me introduced me to the Mediterranean Diet. I’ll introduce you to my vision of this diet, which can be of service to many others:

Basic principles of a diet

You don’t have to go hungry to follow a diet  

If I’m always hungry, not only is there a high risk that I’ll stop following the diet, but my body will miss out on valuable vitamins and minerals, which would be bad for my health.

If I’m always hungry, how will I be able to enjoy my new slimmer me, my new healthier lifestyle?

Eat as much as you want, but eat a balanced diet

It’s not by spending hours weighing yourself or calculating each calorie you consume that you’ll easily reach your objectives. The principle of this diet is to eat when you’re hungry, without counting calories, and to follow a balanced diet.

Divide your plate into three parts

• The first part represents half of the plate, for our vegetables (50%)
• The next section (25%) is devoted to meat and meat substitutes (meat, fish, chicken, eggs, tofu, beans…)
• The last section (25%) is for whole grain starches (bread, rice, potatoes, cereals, pasta…)

A couple of rules: A maximum 2 red meat dishes per week, and a maximum of 4 eggs.

Eat 3 meals a day

We can’t eat adequately by depriving our bodies. That’s why it’s important to eat 3 meals a day. For each of these meals, we add a fruit, a dairy product and we drink a lot of water.

Choose high-quality food

The labels showing the nutritive value of our food are highly revealing about the quality of what we eat. Choose those that are low in cholesterol, sodium (salt), fat and carbohydrates (sugars). The differences between similar foods can be enormous. Some cereals that look very healthy can in fact be loaded with useless sugar.

Here’s hoping that these few tips can help you have as much fun losing weight as I’ve had.

From Raymond Viger’s blog