Weight Loss – 5 Tips For Success (For Men Only)
Weight loss: what works for women doesn’t necessarily work for men.
Compared to women, men rarely seek professional advice when it comes to weight loss. And if they do, they certainly aren’t going to be bothered with the food pyramid or counting calories. What works for men and what doesn’t?
New research from the Self-Help, Exercise, and Diet Using Information Technology (SHED-IT) trial confirms what family doctors have observed for decades.
Here are 5 tips that actually work to help men lose weight effectively.
1. Limit portion size. Have one Whopper for lunch instead of two. Eat two pieces of chicken instead of four. That’s easy enough to understand and fairly easy to implement. This change alone would amount to a difference of five pounds a month. Losing weight doesn’t have to be rocket science. Increasing exercise helps as well, but it could take two hours of walking to work off one Whopper – better to skip it in the first place.
2. Limit fat intake. Order a small fry, not an extra-large. Order grilled chicken, not fried. Order a petite steak, not a macho-monster burger. Small steps, but enough to reduce fat intake and therefore calories. Men don’t care that a gram of fat has twice the calories of carbohydrates or protein. But they do understand that eating fat makes people fat, and so may be willng to make these simple changes.
3. Avoid sugary drinks. Don’t drink regular soda. End of story. That’s all men want to know – the bottom line. Women tend to crave sugar and carbohydrates more than men. (One cookie won’t hurt, will it? I can still have birthday cake now and then, can’t I? – women ask.) In general men are unaware that a large soda has as many calories as a candy bar. Cutting out a six-pack of Coke daily amounts to about two pounds a week of weight loss. Also, because consuming sugary drinks does not tend to give a feeling of satiety (fullness), cutting them out may not increase the intake of other foods.
4. Don’t worry about the vegetables. Although fiber intake tends to increase the sensation of fullness, men simply don’t care and aren’t going to bother. They also tend to suffer from constipation less than women do, and therefore bowel regularity is less of a concern while dieting.
5. Can the beer. Two beers a day equals about three pounds a month in body weight. Drinking a six-pack nightly could amount to a hundred pounds in a year. It’s common knowledge that drinking beer causes a beer belly. It doesn’t take a doctor to explain that drinking less beer will result in a shrinking waist line.
If you’re a man looking to lose weight, cut your portion size, eat less fat, and avoid alcohol and sugar-sweetened drinks. Since it’s not likely you’ll bother looking into the matter further, focus on these simple steps and watch the weight melt off.
