Top 3 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Diet

There are a lot of ways to be able to get yourself in shape and lose weight fast, you can manage your barb intake by increasing protein in the morning, you can take diet aids to help you while you are working out or you can even just alter the kinds of food that you eat to keep processed junk out. Below are practical tips to get the ball rolling for your weight loss goals.

1. Start the Day with Protein

Protein like an egg on an English muffin fills you up and provides you with protein that will keep you full until lunch time. Add a slice of Canadian bacon if you’d like to spice up your breakfast sandwich. To stave away hunger for longer. When you start your day off right, you’re less likely to give in to hunger pangs and reach for the donuts that your coworker has brought in.

You don’t have to stick to the sandwich idea, either. Other breakfast ideas includes vegetable omelets, berry shakes with honey for sweetener or cereal with a glass of orange juice. Just stay away from the overly-sweet cereals. Switch it up if you get bored, but eating a filling breakfast when you wake up every day is an important part of staying healthy and losing weight.

2. Pair Diet with Supplements and Exercise

Diet itself isn’t always enough to drop weight and stay healthy. When you find yourself stuck on a weight-loss plateau, try adding one of the best weight loss pills. These dietary supplements enable you to better process nutrients and break down the fats already in your body.

Furthermore, exercise is an essential element to getting fit. Yoga, hiking or lifting weights all offer benefits to your body and help you slim down, tone up and get back to a healthy you. So many exercise options exist these days that it’s nearly impossible to list them all, but exercise helps your body burn off those calories and build muscle, which helps fight fat. If you’re not a fan of breaking into a sweat, grab your best friend or your MP3 player before you hit the gym to make it more fun. Whatever you do, just get active!

3. Cut Out Processed Foods

This literally helps you get the most out of your food because you’ll intake fewer junk calories. When you eat processed foods, you’re literally taking in calories that are useless from your body, which means they’ll be expelled anyway. In some ways, it’s like using more-concentrated detergent to wash your clothes. You can use less because it’s more powerful. It’s the same concept with processed and natural foods. And if you feel inspired to grow some of your own vegetables and herbs? More power to you!

In fact, some food can help your body more easily absorb nutrients from the food you eat. So if you can’t cut out olive oil, try adding some walnuts to your salad, too. Similarly, adding an orange slice to your salad enables you to better absorb iron and other nutrients from leafy greens according to The Chicago Tribune. This is thanks to the orange’s Vitamin C content. Avocado has a similar effect with greens and the lycopene in tomatoes, so make sure to eat plenty of it!

Drop the soda for water. Snacks on nuts and fruit instead of chips and candy. Focus on natural foods, like meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables. They give you a calorie count that’s actually truer to what your body needs, so you won’t run out of energy halfway through the way. Processed foods might seem like a convenience, but if you get into the habit of snacking on nuts or a healthy protein bar — rather than one that’s full of sugar! — you’ll find that you really don’t have to change your lifestyle all that much.

Alexa Stork practices nutrition in the suburbs of New York. She runs marathons and trains for triathlons on her off time.