How to Lose Weight Without Eating Healthy

Many people are interested in maintaining a healthy weight. However, diets can be boring and restrictive. Rather than starve yourself and eliminate tasty foods from your diet, consider ways to lose weight without dieting or eating healthy. The key is knowing when to eat and how much to eat.

Eat smaller food portions. Rather than eat an entire gallon of ice cream or a whole bag of potato chips, eat smaller portions of your favorite foods. This decreases your intake of calories, fat and carbs, which contributes to weight loss. Moderation is the key.

Slow down and enjoy your food. On average, it takes about 10 minutes for your brain to register that you're full. Eating fast often results in overeating, which causes weight gain. Eat slowly to avoid overeating.

Enjoy a meal every 3 hours. Eat four to six small meals a day to increase your metabolism and burn fat and calories. This way you're able to enjoy your favorite foods and treats and still lose weight.

Start an exercise routine. If you want to lose weight without eating healthy, you've got to exercise regularly. Exercise burns calories and helps you maintain a healthy weight. Doctors recommend at least 90 minutes of activity or exercise a week. However, if you overindulge in unhealthy foods, work out for at least 30 minutes every day.

Build muscle tone. High-impact workouts, toning exercising and weightlifting build muscles. In turn, muscles increase your metabolism and burn fat--and you're able to lose weight without eating healthy.

How to Develop Healthy Eating Habits

Developing the right eating habits can enhance your appearance, health and lifestyle. Here are some tips on how to develop and maintain a healthy eating regimen.

Always remember to eat breakfast. It is the most beneficial meal in the day, and the most important. Breakfast gives you body fuel for the day and keeps your energy levels up, and your mind alert.

Drink at least 8 glasses of water each day. This habit helps the body stay hydrated. It also helps in the processing of nutrients throughout the body. If you are in a much warmer climate you might want to drink much more.

Choose your snacks wisely. Choose snacks that are light and that give you an extra boost of energy throughout the day. If you are trying to lose weight, you might want to choose vegetables and fruits.

Have some lunch. Many people get busy in the day and forget to eat lunch, which then leads to overeating in the evening. If we skip lunch, our energy levels start to decrease and blood sugar goes down. Enjoy a light lunch.

Try to eat dinner earlier rather than late. Eating late makes it harder to digest food. It might keep you up at night or feeling full until the next morning. Eating at least three hours before you go to bed is beneficial to the digestive system.

How to Eat Healthy at Pizza Hut

About 3 billion pizzas are sold each year in the United States, with each American consuming an average of 46 slices annually, according to the website Statistic Brain. While this is good news for pizza restaurants, all those savory slices add substantial calories, fat, carbs and sodium to your diet, increasing your risk of weight gain and chronic illness. By planning for a Pizza Hut run in advance, you can make choices that won’t significantly derail your family's healthy eating regimen. Remember that the menus of chain restaurants change often, so check the website to keep current on the restaurant’s nutritional information.

Serving Strategies
Don’t go to Pizza Hut looking for healthy salads, broiled fish or steamed vegetable sides. Instead of eating at the restaurant, where you might need multiple slices to satisfy your hunger, order a pie to go, and prepare a big, leafy green salad to accompany it. Better yet, start your meal with a cup of vegetable soup for everyone. A study published in Appetite in 2007 found that eating low-calorie soup before your meal helps fill you up and lower your overall food intake. When you feel fuller, you’re more likely to stick to the serving size of one slice.

Also, skip the soft drinks, even if you have a coupon for a free liter. Instead, serve sparkling water dressed up with lemon, lime or orange slices for a refreshing natural soda.

Go for the Veggies
Many single slices at Pizza Hut average between 200 and 300 calories. Stick with the Pan, Hand Tossed Pizza or Thin ‘n’ Crispy pizza options to stay within this calorie count. Even within these varieties, meaty toppings like pepperoni will hoist you over the 300 calories per slice and almost double your sodium intake.

Probably the best all-around slice at Pizza Hut for health-conscious diners is the Veggie Lover’s Medium Hand Tossed, with 190 calories, 6 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 26 grams of carbohydrate, 8 grams of protein and 430 milligrams of sodium. Another good choice is the Garden Party, with 200 calories, 400 milligrams of sodium, and a similar fat, carb and protein count as Veggie Lover’s.

Crust and Size
For different styles of crusts, either add or subtract calories -- for example, a Veggie Lover’s Medium Pan Pizza has 30 calories more than the Medium Hand Tossed with 220, while the Medium Thin ‘n’ Crispy has 10 fewer calories, at just 180.

Obviously, slices of large-sized pies contain more calories, fat and sodium, but Veggie Lover’s, Cheese, Garden Party and a few others slide in under the 300-calorie mark.

Skinny and Gluten-Free
Pizza Hut has a small selection of pies it calls “Skinny Slice” for diet-conscious customers. Skinny slices have between 200 and 230 calories, 6 to 9 grams of fat, 3 to 4 grams of saturated fat, 25 to 28 grams of carbs, 9 to 12 grams of protein, and 440 to 680 milligrams of sodium. The Gluten-Free Pizza, designed for those who can’t tolerate the protein in crusts made of wheat, are even lower in calories, fat and carbs: a Pepperoni slice supplies 170 calories, 8 grams of fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 19 grams of carbs, 6 grams of protein, and 490 milligrams of sodium.

Options With Wings
If you’re watching your carbs, you can always skip the pizza and order from the wings section of the Pizza Hut menu. A two-piece serving of Baked Hot Wings comes in at 100 calories, 7 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, zero carbs, 10 grams of protein, and 420 milligrams of sodium. If you can’t imagine wings without dipping sauce, opt for the Marinara -- a 3-ounce serving contains 45 calories, no fat, 9 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein and 290 milligrams of sodium.

How to Eat Healthy Thai Food While Eating Out

While there are many relatively healthy choices at Thai restaurants, if you don't choose carefully you could wind up consuming way too many calories and too much sodium and saturated fat. Knowing which dishes are healthiest can help you avoid this.

Soups and Starters
For the healthiest Thai dishes, avoid anything deep fried or made with coconut oil to limit fat and calories. Choose fresh spring or summer rolls, such as guay teow lui suan, instead of fried, and choose hot and sour shrimp soup, called tom yam goong or tom yum gung, instead of chicken and coconut milk soup, or tom ka gai. Papaya salad, also called som tum or som tam; the soup called gang jued made with noodles, vegetables, pork and tofu; and satay are also nutritious appetizer choices.

Main Dishes

Ask for stir-fries to be made with chicken broth instead of oil and for sauces to be served on the side to make your Thai main dish healthier. Musamun curry is one of the Thai dishes highest in fat and calories. Gaeng keow wan gai, or chicken curry with eggplant, and gaeng ped gai, or red curry chicken, are also among the less nutritious choices. Shrimp or pork panang are better choices if you want curry. Gai pad mamuang him ma pahn, or cashew chicken, is an even healthier choice. If you like beef, try num tok. Those who prefer shrimp may like goong kra tiem, or garlic shrimp, and those who like chicken may like the chicken with peanut sauce called pra ram long song. Other relatively nutritious choices include pad thai and pepper steak, or nuea pad prik.

Desserts and Drinks
For dessert, fruit ice; the sweet sticky rice called khao newo kaew; or mango with sticky rice, called kao niew ma muang, are among the healthier options. Avoid the pumpkin custard called sang kaya fug tong, the coconut ice cream and gluay kaeg, which are pieces of banana dipped in a coconut batter and fried. When it comes to drinks, stick with something simple, such as water or hot tea. Although Thai iced tea, or cha yen, is tasty enough to have made CNN's list of the "World's 50 Most Delicious Drinks," it is loaded with sugar and calories because of all the sweetened condensed milk it contains.

Making It Healthier at Home
You can make Thai dishes even more nutritious if you make them yourself at home using less meat and more produce and limit the amount of salty and fatty ingredients you add. Using herbs and spices and cooking by stir-frying with broth, grilling or steaming will help you get plenty of flavor without adding too much unhealthy fat. Add a plate of raw sides to help provide extra nutrients, recommends an article on the BBC website. These typically include foods such as bean sprouts, cucumber, apple, spring onions, eggplant and sweet Thai basil.

How to Enjoy Healthy Eating on a Tight Budget

During hard times people often have less money to spend on food, and most are on a tight budget. Even so, many people would still like to enjoy healthy eating on a even on a budget. Financial situations fluctuate, but the need to eat healthy meals is a constant. Follow these steps if you would like to learn how to eat healthy on a tight budget.

The first thing you need to do in order to eat healthy on a tight budget is to open up your cabinets and refrigerator and take an inventory of what is already there before you make your grocery list.

Sit down with a pen and paper, and plan healthy meals around the food that you already have on hand from the inventory you took in step one. Make sure that you do not plan your meals while you are hungry; people tend to overestimate the food they need when they have an empty stomach. Keep your tight budget in focus and do not get carried away.

Check online and/or in your local newspaper weekly flyers to see if there are any coupons for the foods on your grocery list. Then, take your list, and the coupons to the grocery store, and buy only the healthy foods that are on your list. Again, make sure that you are not hungry when you go grocery shopping for the same reason listed in step 3.

Get into the habit of only purchasing fresh foods that you know you will use. Fresh fruits and vegetables are healthy, but they are a detriment to your budget and they do your health no good if they spoil before you can eat them.

How to Avoid Junk Foods

Junk food can have a terrible effect on your body. There are countless cases of people eating themselves to obesity. Why do they do this? Think of it like a drug: It makes them feel better in the moment, so they forget the future costs. Consider this piece of information published on the health site Mercola, quoting a Yahoo! News piece. "Research has shown that almost one-third of the U.S. diet consists of sugar-filled cans of soda and bags of potato chips." So how do you stop doing eating bad foods? Dieting is never easy, no matter what certain infomercials say. However, there are painless ways to diet and avoid junk foods. Start by understanding why you like them so much.

Understand your thinking. Maybe chocolate does help your mental thinking for a moment. It’s apt to make you smile. So how do you avoid junk foods like chocolate? Find healthier eating escapes at all times of the day as junk food eating is often based on impulse. Bread is good and you can add peanut butter to have a healthy, high protein snack that can replace a chocolate candy bar.

Act. Do you find yourself eating late at night? This actually isn’t a bad thing; the myth of eating late at night and gaining weight has been discounted in many studies. But what are you eating? Are you more apt to go to the ice cream carton to fill up? You can stop this junk food habit by either deciding to cut out late night eating or replace the food you eat with healthy alternatives, such as fruits or even a large glass of water to fill you up. Yogurt is a good alternative to ice cream. Cookies can be traded in for the popular “100 Calorie” snack packs. Look to canned fruits next, which are much healthier than downing ice cream and potato chips. A nice vegetable mix can do wonders for your health. Look at the sodium contents of vegetables, because certain products like creamed corn are far from vegetables.

Consider the costs. Obesity can lead to countless health problems at the cost of your quality of life and even your life itself. The monetary cost of junk foods adds up, too. A good strategy is to write down your expenditures on junk foods from morning to night: That candy bar cost you a dollar, the bag of chips a few more, a half a carton of ice cream and so on. This financial reminder gives you another reason to quit. Bread and butter is far cheaper and healthier than consistently downing soda, sugar and bags of chips. Often, if you choose the right foods, you will be saving money from the start.

Other escapes. There are other escapes for you to do than snack. So how do you avoid filling your spare time with junk food? Junk food addiction is a battle of the mind in many ways, and where you think you need something, you really don’t. Read a book, do a craft, go for a walk, talk on the phone or write in a journal when you would usually head to the pantry.

Defeating impulses. The last hurdle is fighting the impulse. If you sense an impulse coming, examine it as you would any other irrational thought. Will this item truly make you happy? The next time you decide to take one box of cookies to bed, consider this strategy of eating right. Avoid your impulses—they are the enemy. Junk foods may hurt your wallet, but high starch and saturated fat does more than just add to your belly—they tend to lower life spans.

Why Eat Healthy Foods?

The typical American diet includes too much animal proteins and processed foods and neglects to include enough plants and whole foods. In the long run, this can have very real health consequences.

What is a Healthy Diet
Healthy diets emphasize fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean animal proteins, like chicken and fish, and low fat dairy. Healthy diets discourage overconsumption of red meat, trans fats and saturated fats, sugars and processed foods.

Benefits for the Heart
Eating unsaturated fats and fiber has been shown to lower cholesterol, blood pressure and your overall risk of heart disease. The April 2009 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine published a complex survey of almost 200 studies and 1 million participants. The researchers confirmed that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and unsaturated fats contributes to improved heart health.

Fight Obesity
People who eat less calorie dense foods like fruits and vegetables tend to weigh less. Leaner cuts of meat and lower fat dairy contain less calories but still fill you up.

Cancer Prevention
Healthy foods, particularly richly colored fruits and vegetables, contain antioxidants which fight free radicals that can cause cells to mutate and become cancerous. The American Heart Association, The World Cancer Research Fund, the American Institute for Cancer Research and the National Cancer Institute all recommend a diet high in fruits and vegetables to maximize antioxidant intake.

Whole Foods
Popping a vitamin and bunch of supplements will not be as effective as a healthy diet full of whole foods. The body better digests and breaks down the components in whole foods and can make better use of them.