I, for one, don’t believe in drastic steps to lose weight. Small sustainable changes to your routine can go a long way in getting the body you want without overwhelming you. Read on to see how you can get fantastic results by switching to a light dinner.
Why light dinner?
What do most of us do after dinner – watch tv and then hit the bed….. sometimes just hit the bed. We don’t undertake any kind of activity that requires the body to spend the energy obtained from our dinner. The only thing the body does is digest the food. So, whatever we eat is going to get stored in the body (as – ya, you guessed it right – FAT!) for future use. So, the heavier our dinner the more fat our body is going to store. After a heavy dinner, have you ever woken up in the morning feeling full – as if you just ate something? That’s again because of lack of utilization of the energy obtained from the previous night’s meal.
| | So, a sure shot way of storing less fat is by having a light dinner – preferably stuff that requires the body to spend more calories digesting it than the calories obtained from it. What constitutes a light dinner? The ideal dinner would comprise of salads, soups and fruits. The salad can have lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, beet, onions, bell peppers – pretty much any vegetable you like to eat raw. Avoid meat in a dinner salad – even if it’s only chicken. The most important thing to remember is the salad dressing. There is no point sticking to salad if you are going to have a very rich dressing. Try to have salad with salt, pepper and lime juice. Or if you like vinegar, that’s great too! If all these sound too plain to you, choose dressings that are light – for instance, Italian is lighter than Ranch. |
Opt for water based soups as opposed to cream or cheese based ones. Home made soups with veggies are the best. You can also buy canned soups that need very little preparation – but be sure to check the calories.
Fruits – You can have a little bit of a whole variety of fruits or choose one for each day. Berries, melons and citrus fruits are the best. The juice content in them would give you a feeling of a full stomach without the extra calories. Avoid bananas or mangoes for dinner.
If you are used to having a lot of carbs, meat or cheese for dinner, you might find it difficult to switch suddenly to a lighter meal. So you can start with a general reduction of your dinner calorie intake and then progress gradually to a salad-soup- fruit dinner.
Believe me, once you get into the routine, it wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. And soon, you would be at a point where the thought of a heavy dinner makes you uneasy :
Get the satisfaction of having eaten a full meal
As a general rule, it takes about 20 min after you have eaten enough for your brain to realize your stomach is actually full. So, unless you give those 20 min to your brain, invariably, you are going to end up eating a lot more than you really need. It’s a little impractical to eat some and then wait for 20 min and then continue eating if you don’t feel full 😉
A more sensible way is to eat very slowly, chew the food well and preferably concentrate on your plate and not be engrossed in a book or TV.
This way you are aware of the amount of food intake and are not hurrying up to finish everything on your plate. You would be amazed to find out how satisfied you feel with a lot less food when you take the time to chew and eat slowly.
If you are the kind who doesn’t like to waste food on the plate, take small servings at a time. Only if you are still hungry, you should go for the next one.
Timing – really makes all the difference
Now that you know why and how you should have a light dinner, you just need to do one more thing to exponentially boost your weight loss. It’s called early dinner – the general rule is to give your body at least 3 hours to digest the food before you head to bed. The ideal time for dinner would be no later than 7 pm. This way you are ensuring that the body has digested the food while you are awake and not when you are trying to sleep. This will not only ensure that the energy doesn’t end up getting stored as fat but also help you get a good night’s sleep.
In fact, even before you switch to a lighter dinner switch to an earlier dinner – you will see immediate results.
The only thing you should have after an early dinner before you sleep is water. I am not saying it’s going to be a cakewalk but I can guarantee that once you start seeing the results, you wouldn’t want to go back to your old routine!
Breakfast – more critical than ever before
Don’t worry if your stomach makes funny noises at night – think of the delicious breakfast awaiting you the next morning. Now it’s all the more necessary to eat a heavy healthy breakfast – it should continue to be the heaviest meal of the day. Read Break your fast – The 1st step to a healthy living
Light dinner – heavy breakfast are not changes you make to achieve a certain short term goal. These are lifestyle changes that dramatically improve your health, keep you fit and are easy to stick to for life.
Summary:
– Heavier your dinner the more fat your body is going to store – switch to a light dinner.
– The ideal would be a salad-soup-fruits dinner.
– Chew the food well and eat slowly for a fuller more satisfied feeling.
– Early dinner exponentially boosts your weight loss.
– A light dinner makes a heavy breakfast all the more indispensable.
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