Lose 10 pounds in five weeks by making smart food choices.By Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed., for MSN Health & Fitness To successfully stick to a smart-eating strategy, you need to think long term. Look for new behaviors you're able to integrate into your daily life. Plan for pitfalls. Learn how to keep yourself inspired so that you will stick to your new healthier habits. Here are some smart eating strategies that will help you attain long-term weight-loss success: Recover when you stumble. Those who strive for perfection frequently live by an all-or-nothing mentality. When they’re "good," they're really, really, good. And when, they're "bad," they eat everything in sight. Be realistic and flexible. No one is perfect all the time. If you go to a party and eat too many chips, or you eat an entire pizza instead of a couple of slices, or if you spend days not exercising and not caring about what you eat, don't beat yourself up. Pick permanent changes. To create a healthier lifestyle that will stay with you permanently, remove the temptations. This way, you don't have to waste so much energy resisting them (and then expend even more energy feeling guilty when you don't). Choose some eating principles to live by; make a few rules that you stick to that will give healthful structure to your overall eating plan. This will give you some leeway in those areas that are harder for you to resist. Decide which strategies you can permanently adopt. Would it be easy to snack between meals, always use low-fat spreads and completely cut out sweetened drinks? Or would it be easier to eat what you like, but limit the portions and add vegetables and fruit into the mix to meet your nutrient quota? Commit to food and fitness rules that will become daily habits, just like brushing your teeth, opening the mail and taking a shower or bath. You don't need to go crazy. Be realistic and commit to what's truly doable. Learn to love food differently. Many people find it hard to diet because they not only feel deprived, they miss some of their favorite foods and flavors. Let's face it, fast food and processed food are designed to tempt you. They're usually a highly flavored and tasty combination of salt and fat, or sugar and fat. It's normal to prefer a soda, fries, chips or a succulent dessert over, say, a celery stick. In order to learn to love new healthful foods, try low-fat cooking recipes and experiment with every fruit, vegetable, bean and grain under the sun—dark green veggies; orange veggies; starchy vegetables like carrots, parsnips and turnips; beans like lentils, black beans, soybeans, chick peas, black-eyed peas, pigeon peas, fava beans, cannelloni beans, and lima beans; and grains like quinoa, wheat berries, whole oats, barley, amaranth, wild rice and brown rice. To follow the plan this week (and for the rest of your life): Continue to record everything you eat on My Wellness Center or in your Diet Diary. Keep a running total of the calories that you eat per day and stay within your target range. When planning meals, first determine your daily calorie intake. Then distribute your total daily caloric allotment as follows: - Breakfast: 400 to 600 calories
- Morning snack: 100 to 200 calories
- Lunch: 400 to 600 calories
- Afternoon snack: 100 to 200 calories
- Dinner: 350 to 550 calories
- Evening snack: 50 to 150 calories
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