Nutrition for weight loss ?

Question
QUESTION: Hello There Laurie Beebe

My name is Chris, and I am trying to reach my long term which is to lose weight. so my question is.

I know that Nutrition plays the biggest role and our weight loss success, so lets say a person eats clean 5 or 6 days out of the week, would that person still be able to lose weight ?

also I see some people always either saying a cheat meal or a cheat day, is that have whatever you want for that day, or just that meal ? to be able to still lose weight ?
thank you so much.

ANSWER: Hi Chris,
There is a difference between eating clean (and no real definition of this term) and eating a calorie level low enough to lose weight.
But let's take the latter example. Lets say you are eating 500 fewer calories than you need on a daily basis so you can lose 1 pound a week.
If you "cheat" one day and consume an extra 500 calories above your needs, you will cancel out one of your dieting days. In this case you will lose one pound every 9 days instead of every 7 days.
If you cheat big time and really pig out one weekend and consume 1000 calories above what you burn on each weekend day you'll cancel out 4 of your diet days, plus you won't lose on those two days. It would take 7 weeks to lose a pound at this rate!
And, in fact, many dieters figure out that they can completely trash all their progress during the week when they just let go on the weekend.

It might be better to pick one cheat food to include on a rare basis and plan to exercise it off!

Hope that helps.
Laurie

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Laurie

thank you so much, for the advice and understand, for my follow up question, what can I do to keep my sugar cravings under control, to were I am not craving junk food, that is not helping my weight.
thank you so much
Chris

Answer
Ah! The million-dollar question! If you figure this out you will be rich!
There are strategies to help divert your attention, but nothing yet discovered to actually stop the cravings. The cravings we experience, I believe, are what kept the human race going in the caveman days...if we didn't have a strong desire for fat and sugar and salt, people may have starved to death enmass. Today we have too much high-calorie food too readily available!
You can try not having the foods you crave in the house; waiting 15 minutes before you indulge (often you'll forget about it during this time); keep a ready list of distractions to get your attention away from the food; figure out how many minutes you would need to exercise to burn off what you eat--then decide whether or not you are willing to do this; make a list of the compelling reasons you have to lose weight and use these to overpower your cravings; have a glass of water or an apple or some carrot sticks.

The good news is, after you manage to avoid these foods for a few weeks, your cravings tend to lessen.

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