Easy Diets For Reducing Weight

With hectic schedules and multiple responsibilities, most Americans welcome ways to make their lives easier. No magic wand or "easy" button exists when it comes to weight loss. Any diet for weight reduction takes some effort and foresight. Diet plans that offer some flexibility and require minimal thinking and pain do exist.

Portion-Controlled Diet

To reduce your weight, you must burn more calories than you consume. Counting calories fanatically works for some people, but you can lose weight by using a portion-controlled diet while still eating the foods you love. Just make sure that each meal keeps you within your calorie-count for the day. To lose weight, consult a calorie chart, such as the one published by the United States Department of Agriculture, and subtract 500 calories from the recommendations to maintain weight.

Serve yourself in the kitchen and carry your plate to the table. According to Brian Wansink, a doctor at Cornell University, doing this will help you avoid second helpings. Wansink and Matthew Cheney, a graduate student at Cornell, also found that research participants using large bowls ate 53 percent more snacks, for 146 extra calories, than those using smaller bowls. Invest in new smaller size bowls and plates for a life-time of fewer calories. Finally, reduce your portions of high-calorie meats by making sure that whole grains, fruits or vegetables take up over half the space on your plate.

Planned-Meal Diet

David Kessler, author of "The End of Overeating," says predictability is the secret behind meal replacement diets. He recommends developing your own low-calorie, predictable meals for an easy diet. Write down all your meals for the week and stick with the plan. Buy a low-calorie breakfast cereal or oatmeal and don't vary from eating that healthy, and important, first meal of the day. Cook a large pot of brown rice to pack for lunches each day, varying the kind of vegetables or nuts you add to it for variety.

Follow the easy tips presented by helpguide.org and plan your dinners. Develop quick, go-to recipes you can make with ingredients on hands, such as vegetable stir-fries served over instant brown rice, whole-meal salads with canned salmon and bagged lettuce, or chicken tacos with pre-cooked chicken breasts.

Flexitarian Diet

According to Mark Bittman, author of "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," Americans are becoming "flexitarians." That is, they are eating more and more vegetarian meals in addition to meals with meat. Bittman himself lost 40 lbs. by eating vegetarian before 6 p.m. and saving meat for dinners.

Follow Bittman's lead and commit yourself to three vegetarian dinners each week for a flextarian diet plan. Have soup and salad one night, adding beans for protein, chili without meat another night and whole wheat pasta with tofu crumbles in the tomato sauce the third night.