Visualizing Tips

• Eating more frequent meals boosts your metabolism by providing an energy source at regular intervals during the day. When you skip a meal, your body responds by going into a preservation mode that burns calories at a slower rate.
  
  Keeping a rhythm of five to six small, healthy meals throughout the day will allow your body to maintain its constant rate of burning calories.
  
  Visualize the bumpy ride you would have in a car if you step on the gas and let it off over and over again. This is what your system does when you give it the gas with a huge meal and then go without eating for hours. Now visualize the same car on cruise control, which is what the steady small meals will provide your system. Remember this throughout the day and eat your small, healthy meals to keep your system on cruise control.
  
  

Measuring Tips

• Setting an alarm on a watch will remind you to eat the five or six small meals throughout the day. Without a reminder during a busy day, it is easy to forget and miss a meal or two required for this type of dieting.
  
  Maintaining scheduled meals will keep your blood sugar at a constant rate. This will get rid of the ups and downs in your blood sugar that you experience when eating a lot of food in just a couple of meals per day.
  
  Using the same containers to measure your food is another tip for reminding yourself how much food you should consume for one of these small meals. A small 4-oz. paper cup filled with vegetables, fruits, rice, yogurt, cereal and even pieces of chicken will keep your portions consistent.
  
  Carry these cups with you in your purse so you can use them at work or any other place you will be eating.
  
  

Calorie-Counting Tips

• Knowing how many calories are in the foods you will be using for your small meals is a must. Write the calories down in a small notebook so that when you prepare the meals you can stay within the caloric range that you set for yourself.
  
  Depending on your age, health and weight, you and your doctor can decide how many calories you should consume daily to lose weight while staying healthy.
  
  For example, if you will be on a 1,500-calorie diet and you will be having five meals a day, your meals should be no more than 300 calories each. Find out how many calories per ounce each of your diet foods contain and use the 4-oz paper cups for quick measuring. This will keep you from overdoing it on the calories, which will throw off your diet.