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can't stop eating!
i'm trying to go on a diet but i get so hungry all the time that i can't stop eating. even when i'm not hungry i just want to eat because i like food so much.
are there any easy home exercises i can do to lose a lot of weight really quickly?
also, i want to go on a diet but its almost impossible because im addicted to food. what should i do to stop wanting to eat/thinking about food all the time? and what kind of diet should i go on? thanks!!!
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Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Nutrition?
I'm no expert when it comes to exercise, but aerobic exercise is one of the best for burning calories quickly. Go jogging, do jumping jacks, or jump rope. Don't push yourself too hard or you could hurt yourself and lose your motivation: start off with something like 12 jumping jacks a day and work yourself up to 50, instead of going right to 50 from the start. Give yourself a small reward for exercising. It could be a nice, hot bath or a something you've been wanting to buy...anything to help reinforce your desire to work out.
Is this the kind of hunger you can feel in your belly, or is it emotional or stress-related hunger that's more in your mind? For the first, you can try eating large amounts of low-calorie, low-fat foods: think salad, with no feta cheese or dressing. Certainly don't eat it all the time, but you don't have to worry about portions when you're eating something that light. Of course, salads aren't all that filling, which is why you'd have to eat a lot of it.
Whole grains are another good option. Because they are harder to digest, they keep you full for a longer amount of time. I like to eat plain oatmeal in the morning with nothing but fresh fruit in it. This is another thing where portions are that important. Oatmeal doesn't have tons of calories and it has no fat, so you could eat tons of it without putting more fat on your body. You should also drink more water.
Water is good for your body in so many ways: it helps your digestive system process food, it lubricates your bone joints, it keeps your skin healthy...there are so many benefits to drinking water. It can also help you fill your belly. Be sure not to drink an obscene amount (and I mean a really, really obscene amount) of it or you could make yourself sick, but for the most part you can drink to your heart's content. Remember that you also need salt along with the water to keep your body balanced. Usually you will easily get plenty through your diet, but remember this tip if you are cutting out all your salty foods.
In general, just try to replace the unhealthy foods in your house with healthy ones. Get rid of most processed foods. Cheez-its, Oreos, bologna...when you get started eating those, it's hard to stop. And of course their ingredients are fattening and bad for you. You could replace that with things like granola bars, yogurt, jello cups, and best of all: fresh fruit and veggies. When you know how to pick the good stuff at the supermarket, eating fruit is better than eating cake for dessert. Blackberries and mangoes are especially good when they're perfectly ripe.
All those will help for the hungry belly kind of eating, and they can also help with emotional eating. For that, you need to keep your mouth and your stomach busy with things that are light and good for it. I agree that you should focus on portion control, but that's very hard at first. You need to slowly cut down on what you eat instead of suddenly halving everything. While you transition from larger portions to smaller ones, eat things like granola, salads, fruit, and certain cereals (especially Wheaties and things similar to it). When you shop, choose the things that you could eat tons of without consuming many calories. That means staying away from dairy, meat, and most desserts. But I have some tips for those, as well. Also, avoid those dumb 100 calorie packets. They take up so little room in your stomach that you'll end up eating five or ten packets, and then you've eaten 500-1000 calories without realizing it...and are still hungry!
Get rid of all the pre-made desserts in your house. You could make an exception for jello cups, but remember that they still have lots of sugar. When things are ready made to eat, it's easier to eat them whenever you get hungry. Instead, eat fresh fruit or dessert that you make yourself, from scratch. You can find some amazingly delicious and healthy recipes on the internet for any dessert you can imagine. The fact that you have to cook it yourself makes you less likely to eat it all the time. Here is one of my favorite cookie recipes ever (I use EarthBalance margarine):
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Now at 87 calories per cookie, you still can't eat half the batch. Still, this is a very good solution to those sweet stuff munchies that we all get. These cookies are truly perfect: soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. SO much better than oreos. If you find yourself having trouble keeping from eating all the cookies at once, give most of the batch away to friends and family so that you wont be tempted.
Make sure your dairy is low-fat, like skim or fat free milk, yogurt, or string cheese. Avoid cream when you can. Cut your meat intake: meat is very high in fat, calories, and cholesterol. When you do eat meat, eat turkey, chicken, or fish. These are all pretty lean and good for you. A sandwich with turkey meat on whole wheat bread (no mayo or mustard) is delicious and filling, without a huge amount of calories. You can also make spaghetti sauce with turkey burger meat instead of beef burger meat.
Finally, if any diet tells you to cut out fat, carbohydrates, or protein completely, don't listen to it! Your body needs all these things to work properly: it just needs them in proper amounts. Your energy should come from 40-45% carbs, 25-30% protein, and 30-35% fat (most of the fat should be unsaturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated). Cutting out or drastically reducing one of these three categories can make you sick over time. Yes, even cutting out fat. Our body needs that for padding, to keep us warm, and to absorb certain kinds of vitamins.
I hope this info helps you. :) Good luck on your diet!
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This is exactly why diets don't work - because you're always depriving yourself of something. When you deprive yourself of something it just makes you want to eat it more. The first syllable in diet is DIE. Nuff said! Instead of trying to cut out certain things, you should concentrate on your portion sizes. One program that I highly recommend for this is Weight Watchers. Its cheap ($10/wk), its effective, and it teaches you how to eat in the REAL world. There's not going to be carrots and apples wherever you go. WW teaches you how to enjoy the food you have around you while controlling how much of it you eat. I lost 75lbs. in one year on WW. Not special food, not diet tips, I didn't even exercise (honestly, never). I just learned that I can eat whatever I want, I just can't eat as MUCH of it as I want. Go to their website to learn more. You'll be surprised about what you find out about yourself and how you view food. Good Luck.
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