My Healthy Plate is a single-meal intake guide that can help you to eat right. By following My Healthy Plate, you can see what a healthier, balanced meal may look like. Quarter, Quarter, Half (QQH) is an easy way to remember the right proportions of each food group in a well-balanced meal. Here’s how:

“EAT SMALL BUT FREQUENT MEALS HELP YOU CONTROL YOUR APPETITE AND KEEP YOU ENERGETIC THROUGHOUT THE DAY”

Planning a daily menu isn’t difficult as long as you include carbohydrates, proteins and a little bit of fat in your meal.

A realistic and healthy menu plan can help you to create the calorie deficit required for weight loss while providing nutrients for the body to function and remain healthy.

Here are meal plan based on your calorie requirement.

The good news is, you don’t have to let go of snacking. In fact, snacking can help you to lose weight. The key is to snack healthily. When your hunger is satisfied with a healthy snack, you are much less likely to go over your calorie limit.
Here are the guidelines for healthy snacking.
• Choose low fat, low sugar, low salt and low calorie healthy snack.
• Choose high fibre snack to increase your satiety
• Plan your snacking time, 3-4 hours before the next main meal
• Limit to 200kcal per snacking

Example of healthy snack

Fruits and vegetables are the main source of fiber. By just taking half plate of fruits and vegetables at three main course meals a day, can fulfil your recommended daily intake of fiber. High fiber intake helps you to feel full longer and prevents you from overeating.

The diagram below is an example of high fiber food sources.

You need at least 2 litre or 8 glasses of plain water a day. In order to help you to prevent overeating, it is suggested to drink plain water before meals.

Here’s a simple guide to achieve your 8 glasses of water a day.

Knowing how to read food labels can help to choose healthier options. Use the calorie information to work out how a particular food fits into daily calorie requirements for weight loss plan. Below is an example Malaysia food label.

Here are some tips on how food labels can guide you to lose weight.

1. Be mindful of calorie content.
Calorie calculation is one of the very important factors for weight loss. It is about balancing your energy intake for your body. Use the energy icon or nutrition information panel to check out the calories per serving to guide you about total calorie of products. You need to choose quality calories which mean foods that are balanced in macronutrients which will make it easier to manage your weight and eat the right number of calories each day.

2. Know the nutritional value
Every food label has its own nutritional value. It consists of macronutrients and micronutrients as well. For the amount of carbohydrates, it comes either from dietary fiber or sugar. Always choose high in fiber and lower in sugar. For protein content, you need to choose high in protein if comparing two products. Proteins burn slowly and are essential for building tissue and muscle. The food label also contains various vitamins and minerals like vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron. Choosing food that provides this kind of vitamin and minerals will help you build a strong, fit, healthy body.

3. Concern of fat content
Choose foods that are lower in total fat to lose weight. It’s very important to pay attention to the total fat of products because fat is high in calories and requires you to burn more calories. The label also shows lists of saturated fat and trans-fat. Choose foods that are low in saturated and extremely low in trans fats, as they can raise your blood cholesterol and increase your risk of heart disease while polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats can help lower your cholesterol. Here are some of the sources of the fats.

4. Look for less sodium/salt
Some processed food is high in salt. It can cause high blood pressure. Choose food containing no salt, less in salt or salt sodium free. You should limit salt or sodium intake to less than 2300 milligrams per day or equivalent to only 1 teaspoon.

5. Beware of sugar content
Sugars are not required to be listed in the nutrition information panel, except for ready to drink beverages. However, you can look at the ingredients of the products themselves. If added sugars, for example sucrose, glucose, fructose and corn syrup, are one of the first few ingredients listed, the products probably have high sugar content. This product that is high in sugar is guaranteed to be high in calories and low in nutrition. So, you need to choose low in sugar products and make comparisons when choosing products to help you in weight loss.

A fad diet is a diet plan that promises rapid weight loss in a short period of time with highly food restriction or unusual combination of food. Often people are desperate to lose large number of weights in short time period. Remember, weight gain did not happen in overnight. It took months and years. So, be patient as weight loss will also take time. Make sure you are on the right diet regime to prevent dangerous effects to your health. In this way, weight loss is more permanent. Weight loss from fad diet is usually temporary and often people experience yo-yo effect which leads to overeating and gain more weight in a short period of time. Some of the fad diets are high-protein diet, high fiber diet, fluid diet and ketogenic diet.

Do you often hear tips and suggestion for weight loss either from the internet or friends and family? Tips like drinking lemon juice or spice drinks which can promote weight loss? Well, most of these tips can be just myths. You may be wasting your time and money or even putting your health at risk. These tips and suggestions are mostly don’t have any evidence or conclusive research to support weight loss.

So here are some of the common myths on losing weight.