• Most of the people trying to lose weight do have a sweet tooth. My colleague asked me what do I suggest to the people with sweet tooth trying to lose weight or maintain healthy weight. I suggest them the six point plan of action:
  

Out of sight

Mix and match

Pause and ponder

Three bites principle

Know when to stop

Rescue run

Out of sight out of mind

Refer back to grocery shopping section, I do not buy more than one new extra item, that is not on my shopping list, at one time.

Also avoid getting multiple variety of the same food. For example, if I am getting the M and M, I would not get Hershey, Lindt, Godiva. Pick only one at one time.

Refer back to food abundant surrounding section in the grocery store, I would not keep the food around long in the office or in the house, if we plan not to eat it. Extra food at home will only stimulate us to eat more thus destrying our weight loss plan.

Mix and Match

A sweet should be mixed with different food group.

Example: 1. A level scoop of ice cream with nuts and berries. Ice cream (milk, simple sugar), Nuts (good kind of fat), Berries (complex sugar)

2. One macadamia nuts cookie with four ounce of Milk.

3. A slice of toasted whole grain organic bread with 2 table spoonful of mix fruit jam or peanut butter.

The purpose of mixing is to prevent the fast increase of glucose in the circulation. Our body absorbs different food groups (such as protein, fats and carbs) at different rates. The fastest to the slowest in absorption: simple sugar, complex sugar, protein and the slowest is fat.

Pause and ponder

We should never eat hastily whether we are trying weight loss or trying to maintain healthy weight. Any meal consumption should take at least 10 minutes. It is good idea to keep the spoon down frequently and give a pause in between. Drink few sips of water to slow down your eating. Conversation also helps. Simple things like these help losing weight.

Three bites principal

Always remember first bite is “tasting”, second bite is “confirmation”, third bite is “satisfying”. If you eat one piece of Lindor truffle in one go, you will have to eat three pieces at least to make you feel satisfied. If you eat one piece of truffle in three different bites, most likely you will not need to eat three pieces. (One piece of truffle gives you about 73 calorie). Thus avoiding extra calories is a good weight loss plan.

We always want to make sure, the food that we eat should satisfy our body and mind. The longer it stays in our mouth, faster we get satisfied.

Know when to stop

When trying to maintain weight or on a weight loss plan, serve the food in the appropriate utensil or container. We should never eat ice cream out of the ice cream tub. We will never know when to stop. We may as well finish the whole tub. In fact, place in the nice cup which will nicely fit a scoop of ice cream with nuts and berries. When you complete the cup, you stop.

Let’s see how we should we eat few fresh baked cookies, if you are on a weight loss plan. Take out one or two the most out of the batch, and place in a small plate, keep the rest in the storage. Enjoy with a glass of water or a 4 oz of milk. Remember the “three bites principal” and “pause and ponder”. When you are done with it, you stop. You do not give a chance to revisit the kitchen to see and smell the rest of the cookies.

We should also learn to stop after completion of an appropriate serving size, which is served in an appropriate container.  Small things that we do during a weight loss plan will make your life easy as you go through the diet. Such healthy habits are also important to maintain healthy weight.

Rescue run

OK, there may be a time in our weight loss or dieting plan that we fail to follow all these measures. Yes we ate three truffles or five cookies or half a tub of ice cream. We know think the weight loss plan is a disaster, losing weight is impossible, and it feels as if someone punched our stomach.

What will I do if my weight loss plan is interrupted by a binge? 

I would not sit on the couch, feeling down nor curl up in the bed regretfully.

We have up to 2 hours to burn the extra calories down. I will go in and out of all the rooms and pick up the laundry, start doing all the dishes and I will find something else to do around the house physically until I burn the extra calories down. I may even walk up in the neighborhood for 30 minutes. May be groceries shopping be an option. May go to the shopping mall and walk around. Any activity would do to salvage the weight loss plan!

If you run out of activities, as Enrique sings, sing it out loud "tired of being sorry" :)