Eating for fat loss doesn't have to be a terrible affair. It's just a matter a relearning what is supposed to taste good and a little planning. It's been awhile since most North Americans regularly cooked their own meals from scratch. What this means is that you are not used to eating foods that are conducive to fat loss in their natural states. What you have been eating you have learned to like because that is what was fed to you. Just like you learned to like what you were eating that has been bad for you, you can learn to like something else.
The best thing I can think of to illustrate where you are now to where you want to be with better eating is my cat. Yup, my cat. You see every morning I woke up and I opened the Tupperware container, scooped up some dry bits of weight reducing formula cat food and my cat went nuts. Ariel (my cat) was just tickled pink to be getting fed food at all. This is the way it worked day in and day out. That is until one day I thought I would be a caring owner and offer her a kitty treat as an appetizer and soft canned food for the main course.
I woke up that night to find the cupboards above the sink open and a half chewed through kitty treat bag on the floor. My cat had learned about synthetic yet yummy tasting treats. Sounds like anyone you know with cookies or another late night snack perhaps?
Somewhere along the way, we all forgot what real food was. Real food doesn't come in wrappers and doesn't last 3 years on a shelf. Foods that burn fat and keep you fit and lean need to be prepared. Where most of us hit the stumbling block though is the preparation phase. We are too busy to find time to prepare. Because of this rushed lifestyle we end up grabbing something that is in a wrapper. No nutrition and no substance, just filler. That filler usually has a lot of calories too.
So what are you to do in order to get a handle on eating better and head towards fat loss with your food intake instead of weight gain? You write down three days of food intake. For the next three days, write down every single thing that goes into your mouth. Include the times of day you ate, what you ate, how much you ate and your level of hunger when you ate it. I don't care if a tub of ice cream when in you mouth, just make sure you write it down.
You can learn an awful lot about your eating habits by taking a look at this info. You will also see where you can make the big improvements that wont kill your lifestyle too much. For example, you will be able to see if the biggest area of improvement lies in needing to eat more, eat less or if its just a change of food choices. After you make the easy to implement improvements, if you want more fat loss, you can tweak the details some more.
Take a look at what days seem to kill your best eating habit intentions. Once you know, you can start a work around. The one thing you do not want to do is try to change everything at once. This is a guaranteed trip to the loony bin. Just make once change at a time and don't go any further until that one improvement to your eating habits is an ingrained part of your lifestyle.
