Read Shine for Free Online Page A

my own secret tips and my personal approaches to a firm, healthy body. I do believe that at this point, I’m eating and exercising in the most sensible and effective manner possible. It took me a long time, though, to get to the place where I was sure that what I put in my mouth and how I moved my body was the beginning of a process in which I could learn to love myself, and then love and be loved by a wonderful man.
    If you feel you want to try one of those myriad diets I mentioned earlier, be my guest. It probably won’t hurt you unless you go nuts. But in my experience, it will only work as a start to healthy living and will soon be abandoned. It’s always not so much what you eat, but how much you eat that’s the culprit. Also, human nature dictates that you can’t stay on diets forever—they’re pretty boring, and the moment you slip, you’re on your way to gaining back whatever you lost. What I know works is the simplest plan in the world because it’s more than adiet—it’s a lifestyle change. You learn to eat intelligently and to exercise for the rest of your life. You don’t need scales to measure your food, and you don’t need books to figure out calories. All you need is common sense.
    Best of all, you won’t feel deprived. And when you meet the man of your dreams (when you’re ready for him, naturally), he’ll probably join you in a portion-control plan, not to mention a workout regimen.
    Portion Control
    I’m a firm believer in bigger is better for many things. Taxicabs, diamonds, and closets are all better when they’re bigger. Food portions are not better when they’re bigger. Overestimating what a reasonable serving consists of is probably the leading cause of obesity in America. Who makes up these portions? Insane chefs?
    Here’s what’s not portion control:
A medium movie bag of popcorn: it contains sixteen cups of popcorn!
An average twenty-four-ounce steak at your local steak house: it contains six servings!
A pretzel from a street vendor: it’s calorically equivalent to six bread slices, six one-ounce bags of pretzels, or eighteen cups of popcorn!
    “I’m going to eat only one cookie,” you decide. That sounds reasonable. The recommended serving size for a cookie is half an ounce. So, you go to the corner deli and buy only one cellophane-wrapped cookie—you wouldn’t dream of being bad and buying a whole box of cookies. But the chocolate-chipper you’ve just purchased weighs about four ounces (about 700 percent bigger than the recommended cookie) and contains about 500 calories. Ever try leaving three-quarters of a cookie on your plate? Wouldn’t happen. So, if the average adult female needs about 1,600 calories a day, do you really need to take up one-third of your whole daily calorie allowance with one cookie? You’ve been had. If a plate piled high with pasta and meat sauce will set you back 1,600 calories (and it will), is that all you’re going to eat all day? Call that a portion?
    Repeat after me: a serving is not a portion. A serving is the amount of foodthat nutritionists have decided is the standard amount of food that should be eaten by a healthy person, based on the calories it contains. A portion can vary in the number of servings on your plate. I’ve been in restaurants where I’ve received a plate (a portion) filled with four servings—and I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. Felt no remorse. All I ate was one portion, right? No. I ate a humongous portion made up of four servings.
    ----
    How Do You Know
    When You Have a Reasonable Portion on Your Plate?
----
    T hrow out the calorie counter and use your eyes to measure “reasonable.” For example, here are some measurements for which you do not need a scale:
A potato: should be no bigger than your fist
A portion-controlled serving of meat, fish, chicken, or pasta: the size of your palm, a deck of cards, or a computer mouse
Half a cup of beans: a handful of beans
A portion-controlled serving of French