How to Stick to a Calorie-Controlled Diet

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Sally-Anne Turner

Losing weight can sometimes feel like an uphill battle, but once you’ve got your head wrapped around sticking to a calorie-controlled diet it becomes a piece of cake!

A healthy diet consisting of nourishing food can often make you feel much more energised and can alone lead to weight loss in the short term. However, if you’re struggling to shift the pounds, breaking down each meal into calorie intake can shed some light into where you might be going wrong.

In general, people aren’t good at guessing how many calories their food contains. When you do your shopping, start to use the traffic light system on the packaging to give you an idea of how healthy a food is. A rule of thumb is that the greener the better. Avoid anything that is full of red and amber colour codes.

There are also many apps available to help you work out calories of foods like vegetables or anything that is portioned out like pasta and rice. All you need to do is weigh your food and enter the details and the app usually does all the work – sometimes you can just the barcode and it will tell you exactly what’s in the product.

It’s important to take into consideration both the calorie content and the nutritional value of food, even if you’re calorie counting. For example, 100 calories of a banana will be much better for your body than 100 calories of some greasy chips. Pick nutritional foods that will fuel your body and should leave you feeling much fuller for longer, with a slower energy release!

Be Prepared –  Download and get to grips with a calorie counting app so that you’re ready to get started straight after a food shop.

Remove Temptation –  Rid your cupboards and fridge of any unhealthy, high-calorie temptations and replace them with healthy alternatives. This way there will be no chance of you breaking your diet at any point and you will get into the habit of reaching for low-calorie alternatives.

Be Realistic –  Don’t have huge expectations of instant weight loss results as you may be disappointed! A realistic expectation of 1-2lbs per week is normal when you reduce your calorie intake to 1200 along with Bodyline’s recommendations. Combine this with exercise to burn some more calories and this should increase, but make sure that you’re fuelled before you get going and have the energy.

In conclusion, counting your calories should ultimately lead to some kind of weight loss, but a combination of healthy eating and a good deal of exercise during the week should be all you need in order to slim down and reach your weight loss goals!

If you’ve hit a bit of a rut with your weight loss, please do get in touch with our team of nurses on 0800 9956036 and they will be happy to offer advice.