Diet Smart

It sneaks up on you when you least realize it and then one day you go to put your “skinny” jeans on and and you fail to get them buttoned and zipped, let alone over your hips! You certainly aren’t at a happy weight.

Therefore, you devise a plan of attack. However, first you need to know how you could’ve strayed off the dietary path you were on, at a happy weight, and fell off the course only to find yourself in the territory of “middle age spread.”

Okay, let’s look at some facts. Your caloric requirements drop as you get older; therefore, trying to maintain the same happy weight of your youth can get a little tricky.

Even if you exercise regularly as you did when you were younger, your ability to use oxygen declines with age. Thus, the variance of calories you need when you’re younger versus when you’re older can be as much as 1,000 calories per day!

Therefore, if you’re older and tend to eat as you did in your youth, you can be quite startled at times when you check your weight on the bathroom scale. How do you get around this dilemma and discover the happy weight of youth once again? One answer is to substitute what you eat. You can consume as much food. Just consume foods that are lower in fat and calories. That way, you can reward yourself and splurge every now and then, still retaining the happy weight of your youthful years.

With the brisk and hectic pace at which most of us go through the day, we oftentimes can resort to the convenience of fast food or restaurant food a bit too much. As a result, we’re saddled with the not too happy weight of middle age. One study confirmed the “weighty” experience of eating out or opting for the so-called convenience of picking up a burger and fries on the run. According to researchers, subjects, on average, ate a little more than 30% more calories on a daily basis when eating fast foods or restaurant food versus those people who chose to eat out once a week.

Part of the problem revolves around the portion sizes offered in restaurants. If you’re used to eating out, the food you serve at home can then seem trivial with regards to size. Therefore, you expect the larger restaurant portions are and should be the standard size for all foods. Not a good way to think for healthy happy weight loss.

Also, the various choices you have with regards to restaurant foods can elevate your calorie intake. The answer, with respect to eating out, is simple. Don’t eat out as much and you can realize the happy weight of youth again.

In addition, you may have acquired some of those extra calories by your beverage consumption. If you prefer sweetened beverages over their counterparts offering 0 calories, that can cause some added weight to appear as well. For example, choosing to drink a calorie-laden cup of cappucino with whipped cream topping can almost give you about a quarter of the calories you need for the day if you’re fairly active. Some of these coffees actually weigh in more, calorie-wise, than, say, a Big Mac Therefore, it’s pretty certain you’re going to see some of these calories show up around your waist. Not fortuitous for anyone who wants to have a healthy happy weight.

Therefore, watch what you eat and drink. It’s the secret of  a happy weight.