As we approach bathing suit season, many Americans are planning to drop some winter weight. Changing when and what you eat could be the edge you need to see weight loss results that you aren’t seeing from just following a healthy diet. Fine tune your eating habits with the following tips to help you dump the plump this spring.

Have dinner earlier. Stop eating around mid-afternoon, and don’t start again till morning. “Restricted feeding” cuts appetite and ups fat burning at night, researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center say.

Go low carb once a week. Eating just three low-carb meals in a 24-hour period lowers your insulin resistance, say University of Michigan scientists. This helps your body burn more fat and protects it against high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, and diabetes.

Eat your biggest meal of the day at lunch. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are not created equal. Research has shown that the body’s ability to make use of the sugar in food fluctuates throughout the day, in tune with the body’s own clock. Researchers believe that people could benefit from making lunch the biggest meal of the day.  If you metabolize food during the day, when you are active, you are less likely to convert it to fat.

For many years as a personal trainer, I gave advice that went something like this: Eat breakfast like a queen, lunch like a princess, and dinner like a pauper.  While this advice is still sound, many do not feel hungry in the morning or find a big breakfast burdensome.  For those, eating a big meal at lunch may be the way to go.

I said earlier that a healthy diet may not be enough to get you to your weight loss goals.  Let me be clear: eating healthy is a great long term solution to losing weight and keeping it off. As always, be prudent with your weight loss plan.  Diets that require you to remove entire food groups from your diet, are probably not great long term solutions, unless you have a health issue that requires restrictive eating.

Load up on veggies, too!  Most Americans don’t get the recommended 5 servings per day, let alone the ideal 9 servings.  Veggies are a low calorie, high nutrition option and there are plenty of delicious ways to enjoy them. Finally, make the healthy choice the easy choice.  Clean the pantry and fridge of unhealthy snacks, put fruit on the counter top to make it visible and readily available.  Put healthy food choices in the front of the fridge so they are the first thing you see when you open the door.

Andrea Groth Wellbeing Detective

Andrea wants to live in a world where the neighborhoods are walkable, bike lanes are plentiful, and the food is fresh, delicious and readily available.

A 20-year veteran of the health and wellness industry, she started her career in the fitness industry while earning a master’s degree in Exercise Science and Health Promotion, and then on to the burgeoning field of worksite wellness. Andrea has competed in collegiate level soccer, worked as a personal trainer, fitness instructor, wellness coach, and master trainer, climbed 14ers, and completed cycling centuries and metric centuries. All of these experiences give her the opportunity to view well-being from many different perspectives.
When she’s not helping others to be their healthiest self, you can find her at a farm to table restaurant, down dogging at the yoga studio, or experiencing the Colorado landscape on a bicycle, snowshoes, cross country skis or on foot.