What is the Step Diet?
Instead of counting calories, fat content and carbs, the Step Diet for weight loss involves counting the number of actual steps you take each day. This is not necessarily a typical diet; rather, it is a combination of simple little methods that can be incorporated into every day life to both lose weight and improve overall well-being.
The premise of the Step Diet is simply to take 10,000 steps each and every day, and cut your food portions by 25%. Basically, by moving more and eating a little less, weight loss in inevitable. Rather than making drastic changes to your diet, little steps are taken which can be much easier to incorporate into daily life, and easier to stick with too.
This weight loss plan involves very simple guidelines that just about anyone can follow with success. The great thing about this diet is that it emphasizes both nutritious eating and exercise, which some diets fall short of. Many diets either emphasize only diet, with little emphasis on fitness. In reality, a healthy balance and combination of both healthy eating and exercise is the foundation of permanent weight loss and better health.
Nutrition
The main rule with the Step Diet is to cut portions by 25%. Doing so will automatically reduce one’s caloric intake without having to count calories. In addition, there are no major food restrictions, which helps people stay on this diet for the long term since no deprivation is involved. If you need to eat a donut one particular day to satisfy a craving, you can, as long as refined sugars don’t become the staple of your diet!
The traditional healthy foods are encouraged on this diet, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products.
Since there are no forbidden foods on the Step Diet, compensation can be made with a few extra steps in a day to make up for a splurge. For example, if you eat an extra bowl of ice cream one day, you can incorporate a few extra steps in your daily routine to burn it off. The idea is to burn more calories in a day than you consume in order to lose weight.
Exercise
The 10,000 daily steps is the core of the Step Diet. For those who start off completely sedentary, these 10,000 steps can be worked up to. You can start at 2,000 steps in a day, and gradually work your way up to 10,000, which is the goal.
A pedometer is necessary for this plan, which helps to count each step you take every day. If you don’t have time to do all 10,000 steps in one bout, you can split the steps up into intervals. For example, you can do 2,500 steps in the morning, 2,500 at lunch, and the rest in the evening. As long as these steps are taken, you are on the right track.
This plan is very sensible, in that it encourages both healthy eating and activity. Any program that emphasizes both of these factors is one that will most likely work to help a person lose weight and keep it off.
0 comments