Clean Eating: What little you do put into your body should be real, whole food. Nothing artificial or processed. No added sweeteners or sugar. No white grains like white rice or white bread. No red meat like pork and beef. Load up on vegetables first and fruits second.
Scheduling: Make a time you're going to stop eating every night. Mine is 8:00pm. When you eat late at night or close to bedtime, your body doesn't have time to burn those calories. If you have a stable enough life and can plan a time for when you eat every single day, go for it.
Planning: Plan what you're going to eat the next day. If you have a plan and stick to it, you're less likely to binge and make mistakes. When you're hungry and looking at your options, you're way more likely to make a poor decision. Hungry thoughts aren't usually rational thoughts. Give yourself control by thinking ahead.
Breakfast: Always eat breakfast! Your body and metabolism need that jump start. Keep your metabolism active and your day less sluggish by eating breakfast every day. Plan to eat most of your calories at breakfast so that you can use them as fuel and burn them off throughout the day. As the day goes on, eat less and less calories. Your breakfast should also be high in protein and fiber to keep you full and energized.
Liquid Calories: Don't drink your calories. Not only is it way too easy to go overboard when you're drinking something, but your body uses less energy processing liquid calories. Digestion requires energy. Energy comes from calories. Make your body work to digest food.
Water and Herbal Tea ONLY No diet drinks, as they contain artificial sweeteners like aspartame which is literally like liquid cancer. No juice because of the liquid calorie thing. Natural herbal tea not only makes you feel fuller, but most contain antioxidants and can boost your metabolism. Green tea is my preferred tea because it has caffeine that I need to get through the day. At night I switch to any random decaf herbal tea. Green tea is also famous for its metabolism-boosting properties. Make water your best friend. Drink a full glass before every single meal. Your body needs fluids to flush out toxins, fuel your brain, feed your muscles and break down fat cells. It is your literal life source, the most important thing to your body. Make sure you're drinking eight glasses a day. I count tea in that number. You will be tired, sore, headachey, and hungry without enough water in your daily life.
Frequent Meals, Smaller Portions: Its better to eat 5-6 small meals a day than 3 regular meals a day. Not only does this keep your metabolism active, but it keeps you from feeling hungry as often. Each meal, ideally, should be 100 calories or less. I exclude breakfast from this rule.
Counting and Limiting Calories: Set a limit for yourself. My ideal daily limit is 500 but my MAX limit is 800. Learn your serving size portions and calories. Google the calories in everything before you eat it to make sure. You'd be surprised at how many calories are in some "healthy" foods.
Food Journal: Record what you ate at what time and how many calories were in it every single day. I also record my morning and night weight. Keeping track helps you keep control, just like planning does. You can also include things like where you were when you ate, why you chose that food, how you felt afterwards. If you struggle with binge urges, write down details about the binge or what you were feeling leading up to it. Use this to pinpoint your triggers and reasons behind your eating habits.
