Healthy Eating Meal Plans - Plan Your Cravings.

Curb Your Cravings Weight Loss Patch.

A craving does not have to derail your healthy eating meal plan. Cravings can come from stressful situations or just wanting something that you're used to eating. You know you're not hungry, you just 'need' to have that ice cream or that candy bar.

Food craving is emotional and there's not a lot we can do to control a craving once it's upon us. We can learn to manage how we respond to the urges. Success on your healthy eating meal plan requires that you learn how to man

age sudden cravings. When we are upset many of us go for 'comfort foods'. Those are the foods that taste good like ice cream, potato chips, cake and chocolate. First recognize that you want to eat, not out of hunger but emotions. By coming to grips with this and realizing that you might be taking several steps back in your weight loss journey, you might just curb the craving right there.

Learn how to redirect that craving to something more constructive. Take a walk, ride a bike, call a friend or go window shopping. Do something to take your mind off the stressful situation and therefore the need to eat. The last thing you want to do is be sitting at home alone stressed out. As you're grocery shopping keep in mind that if you don't have the 'comfort foods' in the house, you will not eat them. Don't give yourself unnecessary temptation by keeping unhealthy foods around to snack on. Part of your healthy eating

meal plan should be responsible grocery shopping.

If you still feel the need to snack, try some low calorie, healthy foods, such as:

1. Ritz whole wheat crackers
2. Fat free chips
3. sugar free jello or pudding
4. Meal replacement shake like Sli m Fast
5. Low fat ice cream
6. Non fat / sugar free yogurt
7. Light microwave popcorn

The above snacks may not be the most nutritious

but they're better than eating a pint of Chunky Monkey⬬? or half of a Sara Lee cream pie. There are whole sections in grocery stores now dedicated to 100 calorie snacks. Most of these are just smaller portions of normal junk food but if you can discipline yourself to only eating one serving, they can be a good alternative.

Part of any healthy eating meal plan is the flexibility to once in a while give in to those strong urges. Sometimes if you have a craving, it cannot b

e s

quashed with a substitute. If you've been sticking to your meal plan then you have earned the opportunity to give in to that craving.

An excellent way to guard against emotional eating is to have a good diet plan that allows you plenty of flexibility. With a healthy eating meal plan you should expect to lose one to two pounds per week.

Don't go at this alone. Get help in creating a healthy eating meal plan that fits your lifestyle.

About the Author

Ms. Jones is a stay at home mom who has successfully managed weight loss by using Healthy Meal Plans.

Weight Loss Or Fat Loss - Important Differences To Lose Weight And Fat Healthily.

Some people used the term “weight loss” while others call it “fat loss” whilst many use the terms weight loss and fat loss interchangeably. Do they mean the same thing? To many people, they do mean the same thing. But the terms may be entirely different in meaning. You must know the difference if you want to lose weight or lose fat effectively and healthily.

When you step onto your bathroom scale every morning, what you will be reading from the scale is weight loss and not fat loss. Bath room scales are never accurate in determining fat loss.

Why? Because it measures your overall weight and not your body fat per se. If you weigh yourself in the morning before breakfast after your bowel movement, you will probably get your lowest reading of the day because your body is dehydrated through hours of non fluid replenishment when you were sleeping and after emptying your bowels, more water and wastes are flushed away so much so that you are you are lighter. After a night of sleep and not eating anything, your carbohydrate store is running low and therefore you are even lighter without the stored carbohydrate known as glycogen. What happened then? You just loss weight not loss fat! Your body fat is still there while the weight of other substances such as glycogen, wastes, water etc are depleted.

Now go weigh yourself again after dinner when you are fully replenished through meals and consumption of water and it may surprised you that you may probably weigh 2kg or more heavier and that is at least 4.4 pounds! You just gained weight and may even gained fat! Now you can see that it is such a misnomer when people think weight loss and fat loss are the same thing.

Why must you know the difference? Because for most of us, especially those who are on the fat side want to lose fat and not necessarily want to lose weight. Getting the drift?

Now for the more important part. Mere weight loss may cause you to lose muscle and in turn, make you gain body fat later. Yes, it is ironical. That is because the more muscle mass you have, the more you burn fat efficiently because muscle is an active tissue and it requires calories to function. Body fat just sit there doing nothing and thus do not burn calories on its own. So the less muscle mass you have, the less calories your body will burn. The fewer calories your body burn, the more calories ended up being stored as body fat! Therefore it is important to lose fat but not merely lose weight which may include the loss of muscle tissues.

How is it that a person may lose muscle on a weight loss program? Well for starters, we commonly hear about people going on this diet and that diet. Most diets demand a severe restriction of food or calorie intake. Your body will then signal to your mind that you are in a starvation mode and the body is designed to store fat for the impending famine and will use up your muscle for energy in your daily activities.

Some diets advocate a severe cut in carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is your body's first source of energy. When your body is depleted of carbohydrate, it turns to your protein (muscles) and body fat indiscriminately for energy. Now to make matters worse, because of the restricted carbohydrate consumed, there will be fewer carbohydrate calories to be used as energy calories and that again will signal the onset of starvation mode again. The vicious cycle of your body cannibalizing its own muscle is set in motion again. The same applies to people on slimming pills or salon fat loss programs.

So some people say ok, Chris, I see your point, so I will just do plenty of cardio exercises to lose weight. Another grave mistake. Have you ever wondered why marathon runners, those who run many kilometers often and are doing cardio exercises almost everyday are so skinny with no muscle tone? Because your body is a wonderful machine. It is designed to adapt. When you run or skip or swim long enough, it will say, look, I better get lighter so that I can take the stress better and improve the endurance. Guess what? Your muscles are heavier than fats and what will your body shed more when it wants to get lighter? Muscle or fat? Your body will shed both but more muscles than fats.

Anyway, why would you want to lose weight only to become a smaller you with the same body shape without any muscle tone? Why would you want to be on a weight loss program that eats your muscles and lower your fat burning rate so much so that when you are off the program, the fats come piling back on again?

Therefore, while you are on a lose weight program, you must also be on a build muscle program. That will mean a combination of correct dietary habit, cardio exercises and weightlifting exercises to maintain muscle preservation and a fat loss result.

From now on tell people you are on a fat loss program and not a weight loss program. That you are on a correct eating habit instead of just simply dieting.

With the distinction clearly in mind, you will then know how to lose fat effectively, preserve and grow your muscles and at the same time losing weight on your bathroom scale. That would be an ideal way to achieve your weight loss objective because you will lose body fat instead of muscle and mere body wastes.

About the Author

Chris Chew is a fitness personal trainer of fashion models, male pageant winners and actors. More free fitness tips at :- Free Fitness Tips Lose fat build muscles fast