Low Calorie Meals

Low Calorie Meals

Low Calorie Meal Plans - Is Planning Really Necessary?

By Peter Whelan

A low calorie meal plan can help with dieting and is an approach to losing weight by reducing the amount of calorie intake in the body over a period of time. Calories are associated with weight gain since an increase in calorie intake also increases the intake of fat in the body.

On the other hand, having a low calorie diet without any planning is not as effective, as whilst the aim is to consume less calories than you burn to lose weight, if this is not controlled through a diet plan then you are likely to experience the yo-yo effect.

Most traditional diet plans are, in some way, calorie controlled, naturally being based on low calorie intake. The mechanism functions on the principle that the body will burn fat if the necessary energy is not provided by food. A low calorie diet essentially means that you should cut down on fat but for this to work then meal planning is a must.

One problem however is that if you are also preparing meals for the family then they know what is on the menu for the week and can then they started asking for different things, therefore variety is a must.

Low calorie meal plans are a great guide to planning a nutritionally balanced diet as all the work has been done in advance, but what you need to consider at the planning stage is that your daily meal plan needs to be designed to provide variety and the essential nutrients your body needs.

Low calorie diets can be safe and effective in the weight loss and weight control process and a healthy low calorie meal plan needs to include enough calories to allow dieters to lose about one to two pounds per week.

Low calorie diets are also called LCD and LCD also forbid you from eating artificial foods that contain lots of empty calories and have no nutritional value. There are endless choices and you need to find a suitable plan that suits not only you, but your family as well, otherwise you will be cooking more than one meal as though you are a cafe.

Low calorie diets do eventually reduce metabolism but you need to be wary of pitfalls. For example, eating tiny portions of concentrated, processed calories does not satisfy your hunger and you then go off your diet and regain the weight you originally lost.

Eating below the allotted number of calories can be detrimental to the dieter as when the body receives fewer calories than it needs to fully operate, it can stop functioning properly, start hoarding fat, and cause diet failure.

Eating a diet that is rich in color can also change your mood, energy, and spirits and with research showing that fruit and vegetables can greatly reduce your risk of certain diseases, with them they being naturally low in calories and high in fiber, they are perfect for inclusion in a healthy low calorie meal plan. This is also true with low calorie sweeteners.

They provide consumers with many benefits, both psychological and physiological with health professionals and consumers believing they are effective for weight maintenance, weight reduction, management of diabetes, reduction of dental caries, and reduction in the risks associated with obesity.

Another misconception is that eating smaller amounts is an effective way to diet. With one issue being that a smaller intake of the amount of food is not going to satisfy you until your stomach becomes used to the new regime.

Such diets may help in losing kilograms but the overall nutrition requirement of the body is not served hence leading to complications. Eating less is important only if you are already eating too much.

Otherwise, eating healthily and exercising is achievable through different, more focused diet and healthy low calorie meal plans.

Eating the same meals day after day can easily sidetrack a dieter, so finding low calorie meal plans online that offer variety will help you lose weight without becoming bored, and cheating.

In addition to achieving successful weight loss, eating right is fundamental to creating healthy lifestyle habits and regularly eating the right foods is a large part of losing fat and gaining lean muscle.

Creating Low Calorie Meals Is Easier Than You Might Think

By S J Harvey

The main reason most people fail to lose weight is that they don't fully understand what type of foods groups help to form low calories meals. Understanding how certain ingredients within varying foods react with our bodies is also a contributing factor too.

I hope to share some ideas I have found that have greatly helped create simple low calorie meals which have helped me lose weight and keep it off, without getting too in depth or complex about how it all works.

These tips and suggestions are all learned from my own successful weight loss journey, and are based on a few simple and basic rules:

Make a conscious effort to eat low sugar foods (mostly natural or "grown" foods)
Track your calorie intake on a daily basis. (this is much easier than you might think)
OK, so let's look at what foods will help, so you can create some low calorie meals:

Breakfast:

Start the day with a large sized portion as it will assist in setting us up for the day ahead. As the day progresses, reduce portion sizes for each meal.

If you don't have a lot of time in the mornings as many don't in our busy lives now days, cereals are a great quick choice. Many however, are very high in sugar and calories, so we need to choose carefully.

Vita Brits, Weetbix and Rolled Oats are all cereals that when eaten with full fat milk, are a great start to the day.

All of these cereals are low in sugar and high in fiber and as long as we don't add sugar to sweeten, all are great starters for quick and easy low calorie meals.

If you have time to cook, then Eggs, Bacon, wholemeal toast or muffins with butter are all great starters too. Hint: No jams or honey on the toast as they all contain too much sugar and calories.

Lunch:

If bread is your preference, wholemeal or multigrain are best to keep the sugars as low as possible.

Use as many fresh vegetable as you like as the "salad" part of your fillings. For the meat eaters among us, try and keep the meat component to chicken, fish, pork, lamb or beef in what ever form you prefer, but in all cases, try and go for the least processed meats for the greatest "bang for your buck" in keeping your low calorie meals effective.

Better still is to create simple salads with your choice of fresh vegetables, cheese, eggs and meat of choice as all these components are low in calories and when combined, taste great.

Try and keep the portion of your lunch meal to a medium size.

Dinner:

Thinking about our lunch meal options, much of these same foods can be applied to the evening meal as well.

All the meats mentioned earlier are all fine with what ever vegetable choices you may have. Keep the dinner meal on the "small" side, and by not serving with gravy or sauces will keep this to being a low calorie meal.

Suggestion: A great option to gravy or sauces is to substitute butter (eg; garlic or herb butter for example) to meats and vegetables.

It really is not that hard is it?

By choosing to eat these "natural" type of foods, we are making a simple choice to eat low calorie, low sugar and nutritionally valuable foods which do help us to lose weight.

What about "Snacks"?

For many of us in our quest to lose weight, it is our choice and quantity of snacks that brings us undone.

I have found that substituting fruits with nuts (Brazil nuts and Walnuts specifically) in the first eight weeks significantly increases our chances of losing weight. Keeping it simple - eating nuts instead of fruit in the early weeks greatly assists our efforts to lose weight.

Other great snack options are raw vegetables like carrots, celery, and mushrooms for example.

So too, try and cut out sweet biscuits and substitute dry biscuits and butter or cheese instead.

Snacks are the one area where many fail in losing weight, so if you do start to feel hungry during the day, choose a healthy snack option rather than an unhealthy one.