Love ghee-laced gajar ka halwa? Cannot absolutely think about abstaining from street-side chole bhature for the rest of your life, even though you desperately want to lose weight and definitely know that these high-calorie treats can hamper your efforts? Here’s something you need to know – weight loss should not be considered as a journey where you need to starve or punish yourself by going on a crash diet. Calorie deficit is the key to unlock the door to weight loss and you can do so by eating a nutrient-dense diet, exercising consistently, and indulging in your favorite food occasionally should not actually ruin your goals. Having said that, you cannot expect to eat everything you want and then pop a magic pill to burn and melt away the extra fat – that won’t work either. Celebs have promoted this wrong idea that you can eat whatever you want and burn it all the next day! It does not work that way. You need to find the perfect balance between eating healthy and also leave a small window to have your cake and eat it to! Wanna know how that can be done? There are really amazing ways to have fun foods without depriving yourself of fun foods even if you are on a weight loss diet. Read about them below:

1. Have it as a Cheat Meal: A “cheat meal” once a week is a necessary evil in any weight loss plan. If someone asks you to swear off your favorite food forever, then you are most probably following the wrong kind of diet plan. Cheat meals are essential to reset metabolism, satisfy cravings, prevent binge eating, overcome weight loss plateau, and most importantly, to stick to your diet plan better. It’s a reward-based diet strategy that allows you to indulge in your favorite food outside of your diet program once a week and also sets the stage for burning of extra body fat further. That’s why Rati Beauty diet promotes indulging a cheat meal once a week to boost weight loss efforts. Want to eat pizza or want more than one bite of those glazy doughnuts? Have them as your cheat meal!
2. Practice Portion Control: Portion control is essential to get into calorie deficit and to get into the fat burning mode. Calorie deficit happens when a person consumes fewer calories than those burnt while exercising, resting, or performing basic bodily functions. Portion control involves being aware of the correct amount of food and serving sizes so that you do not fall out of calorie deficit. So, you would have to stop eyeballing food quantity and serving sizes, and measure your food. Read about “10 Tips to Portion Control Food for Weight Loss” in this post.
3. Eat Mindfully: Mindful eating plays an important role in helping you cut down calories by promoting healthy eating. It makes you more conscious about the kind of food you choose to eat, the quantity you are consuming, preventing overeating, and helping you make the right kind of food choices. It makes you more aware of cues from the satiety hormone “leptin” on when to stop eating the moment you are full. Mindful eating is not part of a new fad diet, it has always been the correct practice to eat food, just that we conveniently gave up the practice due to lack of time and other factors. Eating without distractions (while watching TV, binging on Netflix or browsing on phone), watching portion and serving sizes, and eating in peace is all a part of mindful eating.

4. Find Healthy Swaps: The most important change that one can start their weight loss journey with or in general get healthy is by swapping unhealthy food in their diet with healthy alternatives. Replacing foods high in empty calories with nutrient-dense low-calorie options would satisfy cravings and help to boost weight loss as well. Picking vegetable noodles instead of instant noodles, peanut butter instead of chocolate spread, hummus instead of mayonnaise, roasted makhana instead of popcorn, butter instead of margarine are a few options. Read about “50 Healthy Food Swaps That Everyone Should Absolutely Try.”

5. Chew Slowly, Relishing Each Bite: This is a trick most supermodels follow – particularly when they are eating desserts or sweet treats. Take your own “sweet” time eating desserts, chewing slowly, keeping the spoon down after each bite. Researchers have found that usually by the third bite, people do feel totally full and push the dessert plate away. When you chew slowly, your body sends signal to your brain that you are full and there’s enough calories in the body and thus you can stop eating (it takes around 20 minutes for that signal transmission to happen). On the contrary, when you are eating food at a fast pace, the signal to the brain is made late and by that time, you would have eaten more than necessary, having had too many calories in the process. Chewing slowly would also help you enjoy the texture and flavour of the food better.

These were some tricks that you can easily apply when indulging in food outside of your diet plan.

10 Cheat Meal Rules for Weight Loss
10 Tips to Portion Control Food for Weight Loss