Losing weight can be a challenging goal, and various recommendations exist to help dieters reach their goals. Some popular ideas are successful in being the means by which a dieter loses weight, but some ideas, such as the concept of food combining, have more to do with the dieter's preferences than they do with scientifically supported concepts. Underlying all successful weight loss is the concept of controlling food choice and portion size, and the personal application of those ideas will contribute to successful, permanent weight loss.
Benefits
The American Dietetic Association (ADA) describes the benefits of weight loss, and these include the reduction of disease risks such as the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. In addition, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) lists benefits as including reduction of the risk of stroke, blood pressure and certain cancers. When the weight loss is paired with proper exercise, you will burn more calories, your muscles will be more toned, and you may have more energy, says the the ADA.
Calorie Balance
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes a straightforward mathematical explanation for weight gain and weight loss. Calories measure the amount of energy provided by a food item, and calories measure the amount of energy used by your body for a variety of functions, including basic living functions and physical activity. Whenever more calories are consumed than are used, your body will store the excess calories for use in emergencies. As a result, you will gain weight. By contrast, if you regularly consume fewer calories than your body uses for daily function, you will lose weight.
Portion Control
Reducing the amount of each food you consume is the main concept of portion control, and it allows you to eat the food you love to eat but in smaller amounts. American restaurant portions are particularly large, and reducing how much you eat by sharing meals or ordering lunch sizes can be one way to reduce the amounts you eat. In addition, the USDA lists the serving sizes of foods, and you can use the guidelines as a way to measure your portion sizes to make sure you are eating to the recommended amounts.
Food Choices
Choosing more nutritious versions of food items will help to cut your calories and excess fat, according to the ADA. Over time, you will lose weight. For example, Nutrition Data shows that 1 oz of regular fat cream cheese provides 96 calories, 84 of which are from fat. Neufchatel cream cheese provides 71 calories and 56 from fat. Although Neufchatel is still quite high in fat, the savings of calories by exchanging the regular cream cheese with the reduced-fat cream cheese results in 25 calories. If you eat cream cheese every day, over one week, you would save 175 calories without really thinking about it.
Food Combining
Merck describes the concept of food combining as a fad diet in which the dieter either eats certain combinations of food or in certain cycles to lose weight. The underlying idea is that the body can focus on absorbing certain foods for maximal nutrition. It emphasizes that this concept is not supported by science. Neither the ADA nor the CDC make references to how a meal should be combined for weight loss; rather, they focus more on the selection or the amount of the food as the scientifically supported methods for weight loss.
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