Small Changes, Big Difference

IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS

Remember the Luther Vandross buy me a rose song? The whole lesson in the song is “it’s the little things that count”.  That principle applies everywhere hence the saying haba haba hujaza kibaba (little by little the jar is filled) or in our case, little by little we lose weight and get fit.

If you can manage to eat well and work out everyday good for you. For those who can’t get a whole hour of workout or cant drastically change their diet, I hope the following tips help you make the small changes for the ultimate health goal.

Reduce your sugar intake. If you are the kind of person who takes tea that is sweeter than honey, reducing it to about a teaspoon a cup would help a lot. One teaspoon of sugar is 15 calories. If you take two cups of tea everyday and cut off two teaspoons from each cup, that would translate to 60 calories. It might not sound much seeing as to lose weight you need to eat 500 calories less a day but our aim is to make many small changes for sizable results.

Do not eat out of red and yellow plates. Sounds weird but those colors stimulate appetite making you eat more and that is why most restaurants have those colors around. Instead, choose dark colored or white plates.

Eating from small plates helps you eat less so if you are still eating from a platter, it is time to put it away and get smaller plates. You will still feel full after your meal and you will have eaten less food.

Keep a food diary. Research shows that people who keep food diaries eat 15% less food than those who don’t. There are many apps that can help you keep track of what you are eating and all you need to do is feed information of what you eat and they will calculate the number of calories you consume.

Don’t lie to yourself. When keeping your food diary, don’t lie to it or yourself. If you ate whole cow just say you ate a whole cow even if you feel guilty and shameful.

Eat slowly. Slow down and enjoy your food. When we get full, a signal is sent to the brain to let us know that we are full. The signal is not instant so when you eat quickly you are likely to miss it and overfeed so eat slowly and chew your food well.

Include vegetables in all the meals you can and when eating do not save the vegetables for last maybe even start with them. Vegetables have fiber that makes you get full faster and stay full for longer so you don’t feel the need to keep snacking in between meals.

Cut processed foods from your diet. Whole foods have more fiber which means you stay full for longer.

Include a good protein and fat source to feel full for longer. For example, one tablespoon of peanut butter on your breakfast bread will make you stay full for longer than margarine.

Chose fruits over fruit juices. Fruits make you feel fuller than juices. Also, as healthy as fruits are, they have calories too and drinking juice makes you intake more calories as compared to eating the fruits.

Do not eat at your desk. It may seem like you are wasting time going out of the office to eat but remember that your health is more important. Walking to your eating place and back helps you burn calories and increases your blood flow which means that you will be able to do more and better work after your lunch break.

Stretch after you wake up. It will only take 5 to 10 minutes and waking up ten minutes earlier will mean that you still get to work on time and you have more energy.  While stretching add a few crunches and push ups.

Take five minute breaks and do squats and lunges at work or any other workouts that you can sneak into your day.

Make your meetings mobile. Not all meetings need a desk or a boardroom. If it is ok with the person you are meeting, talk while taking a walk.

Make TV time more productive. Most of the people who don’t have time to exercise make time for TV. Instead of just sitting, do something like bicep curls and maybe do some mountain climbing climbers during commercial breaks.

The above tips will help but if you can get time to work out and be healthy, push yourself because nothing good ever comes easy.