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An average person puts on1-2 pounds (0.5 to 1 kg) every year. That doesn't seem like much, but it adds up over time. And so, it stands to reason that one must take action to prevent these pounds from becoming a weight problem, especially around your 60s.
The thing is, this also happens to people who don’t necessarily have ‘bad eating habits’.
If you find the weight creeping on, I know I do, then it might be helpful to know about the ordinary things you may be doing that are causing you to put on weight.
Let's take a look at 12 of these habits. When you're aware of them, you can change them and have a better chance of maintaining a healthy weight over time.
There are many reasons why some people tend to eat fast.
Constantly being stretched for time
Extreme hunger because of skipping meals
Stress or anxiety
Learned habits from childhood especially if food was scarce
The reason why this habit cancause weight gain lies in the way hunger hormones like ghrelin and satiety hormones like leptin and GLP-1 function. When you're hungry, ghrelin signals your brain that you need food.
When you have eaten enough, leptin tells your brain that you’re full. The problem is that leptin takes about 20 minutes to get this message to your brain. If you eat too fast, by the time your brain registers that you’ve eaten enough, you have already consumed a lot of food and too many calories.
The satiety hormones GLP-1 and PYY are associated with a lasting feeling of fullness. Eating fast doesn't allow the body enough time to release these hormones, so you don't feel satisfied after a meal.
So if you are a fast eater, try to concentrate on each mouthful, chew properly, and take small sips of water while eating.
What is mindless eating, you ask? It’s when you’re distracted while you're eating.
For instance, you are working on your computer while eating, or watching TV. Or you're eating fast because you're on your way somewhere and still getting dressed.
In modern societies, people often don't sit down at the table for a meal. Sitting down to eat focuses the attention on what you're doing and on the food. Guzzling fast food from carton containers is not conducive to savoring a well-prepared meal.
If you are distracted while you eat, you don't realize how much you are eating.
A meta-analysis found thateating when distracted increased the amount of food eaten. Also, the same people ate more food later in the day. The reason for this may be that having been distracted when eating earlier, their memories didn't register eating or at least how much they were eating. And so, they ended up compensating later with more food.
In other words, if you are distracted when you eat, you eat more or eat again sooner than you would have done had you eaten mindfully.
Protein is a macronutrient that the body needs for its development and maintenance. Protein also helps maintain a healthy weight. Protein takes longer to digest and can help you stayfull for longer than meals with a low protein content.
Protein intake causes the body to make more fullness hormones like peptide YY, GIP, and GLP-1. Also, it causes the body to makefewer hunger hormones like ghrelin. The net effect is that you eat less, which can help you lose weight.
Protein intake also boosts metabolism. A meta-analysis of studies that tested how high-protein diets affect metabolism, appetite, weight, and fat loss, showed that eating more proteinboosts calorie burning and helps people feel fuller for longer compared to lower-protein diets. High-protein meals may also lead to eating fewer calories later. Researchers found studies that show protein intake can lead to greater weight and fat loss but some results contradicted these findings.
You can help yourself burn more calories by simply adding more protein-rich food to your diet, such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, and legumes.
In addition, you can boost your protein intake with aprotein supplement, which also helps with weight loss. If you are thinking of taking a protein powder, get more informationhere.
In contemporary society, many habits around eating have changed. Many families don't gather around a table for meals, and inconsistent eating habits are common. These lifestyle habits are associated with a disruption of the body's natural sleep-wake cycle which can affect metabolism.
It has been found that when a person skips a meal, theyeat more at the next meal, and not only that – the quality of the subsequent meal is often less healthy
Researchers have also found that people who don't eat at regular mealtimes have a higherrisk of chronic diseases such as metabolic syndrome, heart disease, insulin resistance, and poor blood sugar control.
Fiber-rich food makes one feel full and satisfied quickly, so you don't feel the need to keep on eating. The converse is also true: a lack of fiber in your diet can leave you feeling hungry, leading to eating more and gaining weight.
By making you feel full for longer, fiber-rich food helps control your appetite. People lose more weight if theyincrease their total fiber intake, especially if they eat more fruit and vegetables.
Research has found that increasing one's intake of fiber by 14 grams per day can decrease calorie intake by up to 10%, leading toa loss of 1.9 kg over 3.8 months.
If you think that you might benefit from more fiber in your diet, we recommend that you consider taking afiber supplement. You'll find that it's a natural boost to your digestive health.
For more information,read.
Of course, it depends on what being social entails. If it means copious cups of tea and coffee with sweet treats, or alcohol flowing freely with high-calorie snacks and food. Then, being social will certainly add to your waist.
The thing is, social events often revolve around food, snacks, and alcohol. So, it will cause you to gain weight over time, especially if it happens too often. Besides, if you're distracted by the conversation and other goings on, it's easy to not pay attention to how much you are eating.
Surely, it’s impractical to suggest you stop having a social life. One way is to be choosy about which social events to attend. However, a better idea is be aware of the food and drink choices you make while out and about. This way, you can enjoy both social life and still remain fit.
Being inactive is a common malaise of contemporary society – we spend too many hours sitting every day. Think about it, many of us earn our living sitting in front of a computer for eight or more hours every day. Other common daily activities involving sitting are watching TV, streaming content, commuting, and spending time on social media.
The consequences of these long hours spent sitting are an increase in weight and a higher risk ofchronic diseases and early death.
It is not so difficult to do something about this. Here are a few suggestions but you can come up with your own that will fit in with your circumstances and lifestyle.
Get up from your desk and do a few stretches.
Take a walk during your lunch break.
Take the stairs, even if it's just one or two floors - you can take the elevator for the rest of the way.
The size of the plates and bowls that you eat from can affect how much food you eat, and thus how many calories you ingest. The larger the plate, the smaller the portion of food will look, consequently you might add some more food so it doesn't look so forlorn on the large plate.
Scientists have looked into this phenomenon and have found that people eat more when the food is served on large plates. A review of 72 studies found that people consumed on average16% more calories when they were eating from large plates and bowls.
It's easy to understand why this can happen. On a large plate, a serving appears smaller than it actually is, so you believe you have not had enough, and dish up some more.
Sometimes, it’s not the food that adds excess calories but the condiments. Sauces and condiments can turn a healthy salad or bowl of vegetables into a high-calorie meal. Take mayonnaise, for instance. A tablespoon of mayo adds around 100 calories, and you will want to add more than a single tablespoon.
Ranch dressing, barbeque sauce, blue cheese, and Caesar dressings contain between 130 and 180 calories per standard serving. So, if you drown your salad or lean meat burger in one of them you are undoing the good of your food choice.
Salad dressings and sauces may improve the taste of food, but they also boost your waistline over time, so avoid them and replace them with a homemade vinaigrette.
Repeated weight loss and subsequent gain, is called weight cycling or "yo-yo dieting". This habit can lead to weight gain over time. You go on a diet, you lose weight you gain weight; you go on a diet again, you lose weight again, and so on.
Doctors are not sure what underlying mechanisms cause these weight fluctuations.
A study that used data from the Finnish Health 2000 Survey and its follow-up 11 years later included 2,785 adults aged 30-69. Participants were asked if they had tried to lose weight, gained weight, or lost weight in the past year. It was found that those who had dieted within the previous year had greater body weights and waist circumferences than non-dieters.
Diets seem to bring about the opposite of what they intend to achieve. When someone goes on a diet; one-third to two-thirds of the weight lost isregained within 1 year and almost all is regained within 5 years.
Most people love their coffee. These days coffee has a vocabulary all its own and a list of possibilities the length of your arm. Many favored coffee drinks contain large proportions of milk, cream, sugar, and flavored corn syrup.
For instance, a tall latte from Starbucks has 150 calories. You can see how your favorite cuppa in the morning and one in the late afternoon can add to your overall daily calorie intake. If you have a coffee with cream and flavored corn syrup, the calorie count increases.
If you are in the habit of adding sugar to your tea and coffee, or drinking fruit juices instead of water, and love to drink sodas, you are drinking a lot of calories, adding on weight over time.
Calories from drinking beverages are not the same as calories from food – they are not as satisfying. A certain amount of calories from food may make you feel full and satisfied, and the same amount from a soft drink won't.
Research has shown thatwhole apples are more filling than apple juice. The scientists found that drinking a high-calorie beverage with a meal or as a snack is more likely to lead to weight gain than eating solid or semi-solid foods with the same nutrients.
Weight gain is often the result of small, everyday habits that add up over time. From mindless snacking and emotional eating to the lack of sleep and high stress levels – these seemingly harmless behaviors can make it harder to maintain a healthy weight.
Fortunately, you can do something about it. Once you know what habits might be causing you to gain weight, you can start eliminating them one by one and benefit from lasting healthy body weight.